What attracts us to football? That was the question rumbling around in my head while sitting, in complete bliss, watching two teams in a nondescript college football bowl game over the holidays. (Note: This really could have been almost any day in the past couple of weeks, both in terms of our posture and the game description, hence the deliberate vagueness.) ¶ Really, what is so supremely satisfying about a sport that seems repetitive, somewhat predictable and so often frustrating? As my wife once said, football is "10 seconds of action and two minutes of glorifying the quarterback." As I write this, announcers are using the long break between plays to gush about Eli Manning's relative athleticism, even though he has essentially just tripped over his own feet. This is an argument I am clearly not going to win. But the thing is this: No matter what, so many of us love football so very much. I've loved it for 25 years, but the fire burned more casually for much of the past decade. I assumed, at a certain point, that I was simply outgrowing sports -- not professionally but as a fan. The mindless delirium, the emotional investment ... the assumption was those were the things a younger man had the time and inclination for but that a wiser, aging man did not.

I was wrong. And recently, with the help of words instead of actions, I started to understand why. In his most recent book, "Eating the Dinosaur," Chuck Klosterman has an essay devoted to football. It's tucked in there among talk of Kurt Cobain, David Koresh and ABBA. Klosterman, a fellow North Dakota native, concludes that his love of football comes from this: "Football allows the intellectual part of my brain to evolve, but it allows the emotional part to remain unchanged. It has a liberal cerebellum and a reactionary heart."

Indeed. Football is far less repetitive and predictable than it appears on first glance. It is still frustrating to put your faith in athletes and the bounce of a ball, but the payoff makes it worthwhile.

The joy of waking up on an NFL Sunday is immeasurable. (On Saturday, a friend casually blurted out, "I can't wait to sit around and watch football Sunday.") The sport causes odes in Christmas cards. Yes, I received a football-themed holiday letter this year.

It turns us into kids again. Bigger, smarter kids. What more could we want?

MICHAEL RAND