‘TRAYLOR’ SCORES ONE FOR GIRL DADS
THE thing that’s “disenchanting” people with sports right now, claimed Tony Dungy, is that “there’s so much on the outside coming in. Entertainment value and different things that’s taking away from what really happens on the field.”
That is, Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift.
While I understand where Coach Dungy is coming from (the endless shots of her in the box are over the top), I have to disagree. Particularly, as the girl of a dad, I appreciate what the Traylor relationship has done for relationships off the field.
On Monday, sportswriter Kevin Van Valkenburg took to X to post a defiantly sentimental assessment of Swift’s rookie season.
The ‘home’ team
“I actually feel bad for the Brads, Chads and Angry Dads who spent the year complaining about Taylor Swift interrupting their football, beseason cause I spent the trading Swift/Kelce memes with my 14year-old daughter (who previously didn’t care about football) and now it’s like a fun thing we share? Which is freaking awesome?”
The tweet got more than 62,000 likes and comments seemed to autofill with similar warm tales from fathers about Swift bringing their daughters to the football fold.
It was like watching your socialmedia feed during daddy-daughter dance season, only in the context of pigskin.
Matt Cannata, the CEO of Pro Football Network, tweeted that Swift has made his 9-year-old daughter, also named Taylor, a repeat NFL customer.
“[She] couldn’t wait to watch Dolphins vs. Chiefs this past weekend because of Taylor Swift & Travis Kelce. Then, she liked it so much that she wanted to watch the Sunday playoff games. Taylor Swift is good for football & hasn’t ruined a thing about the NFL,” he wrote on X.
Cannata told me that his daughter never showed a sniff of interest before. But then his site started to cover Swift’s impact on the game, and little Taylor’s ears perked up. She had questions. Dad and daughter watched games together. They placed dollar bets.
“It’s created core memories. For one week, two weeks or three, I have that with her. I don’t know that it will last. But you soak it in while it’s there,” Cannata said.
Bonding over sports
Journo Jordan Strack tweeted: “My 12-year-old daughter just asked me to point out Jason Kelce [Travis’s older brother and a center for the Eagles] & it spurred an entire conversation about why lineman have the numbers they do. I love her beyond words, but the kid never cares about football. That was cool.” Girl Dads: 1. Football Guys: 0. My late father would have rejected a “girl dad” label because he was not the sentimental type. And I think he’d bristle at the idea that he parented me differently than my older brothers. But my dad was a football official. He coached me in basketball, was at every soccer game, took us to every St. John’s or Yankee game we could attend. Sports were the foundation of our close relationship.
So while I am a bigger fan of the NFL than I am of Swift, I’m the biggest fan of sports being a bonding vehicle for dads and their daughters.
And whether they buy into the label or not, for this newest generation of Girl Dads, Swift is the man.