sport

When I was younger I used to believe that to be a football player you had to have huge shoulders. Years later I found out they had shoulder pads!

Jenny

I used to believe that certain babies were born with extremely huge shoulders.
These babies were sent to "training camp" (which is why you never saw them on the street as children and when they grew up the became professional football players.

Jane

when I mentioned that (american) football fields looked so much bigger on TV, my dad told me that it was because professional football used 4-foot yards. I believed him until I was 16.. after all, there's a five-quart imperial gallon.

aaron

One day, must have been around the New Year, I asked my Dad why the College Football Bowl Games had such crazy names: the Orange Bowl, Rose Bowl, Gator Bowl, etc. He told me that they used whatever object was in the title of the game as a substitute ball. For example, for the Rose Bowl a rose was used, for the Orange Bowl a bag of oranges was used and for the Gator Bowl, a baby alligator was attached by its teeth to the players jersey who would then run up the field with it. As a child of 6 or 7 it sounded pretty logical to me. And the sad part is I don't think I realized he was pulling my leg for about 10 years after that!

Holli

My dad told me that playing basketball makes you taller. Basketball players are tall, so I believed him.

Anon

my parents are avid football fans. i used to watch the game and i believed that i the point of the game was to chase after the person with the ball and rub his face into the ground.

nathsgirl

I believed that the men jumping over hurdles in slow motion on TV must have practiced very hard to run so slowly. I practiced too but never got very good at it!

Bob Masse

I never realized as a child that on a golf course, the hole was just a cup. I thought that each hole was a tube, and they all led to a building where the golf balls were collected.

Stacy

I believed (up until I was married) that the Washington Redskins were an NFL team from Washington state. My husband must have thought I was an idiot when it finally dawned on me that they are from Washington, DC. The sad thing is that I live in West Virginia which isn't too far from DC.

Not a big football fan

My brother used to think that "hump" meant "wrestle". I can't imagine what he said to his opponents in wrestling matches at school.

RJ

To me, football (or actually, futbol) has always meant what is called soccer in the United States. When I first saw American Football at a fairly young age, I thought that players in that sport had gigantic muscles, though it turned out to be their shoulder pads.

Rafaela

I thought that every goal scored in Australin Rules football was scored by Neil Kerley (a well known S. Aust. football player) as I believed he was the goal umpire at every game and at both ends of all games.Only Australians will understand how this would screw the whole scoring system

Fiona

I used to believe that when football players were in a huddle, they were praying.

Dear god, help us win this game. Amen.

Jualie

I used to think that football players (American football that is) were not human. They wear those helmets and massive shoulderpads, which I thought were actually their heads and the shape of their bodies. I was very surprised the first time I saw one of them take his helmet off!

Sara

I grew up in the New York City area, where there were at least two teams in each of the major professional sports leagues (MLB, NFL, NHL, NBA). Because the Yankees and Mets in baseball were in different leagues and never played each other during the regular season (and never did until just a couple of years ago), as a little kids just starting to discover sports, I thought that was how all the New York teams in all sports were set up. So the Rangers would never play the Islanders, the Knicks never played the Nets, and the Giants never played the Jets. It just somehow made sense that way, and I was probably around 15 before I realized my error.

Lamont D. Sanford

One day when I was about 8 we drove past a cricket field. When I asked my mum what the white screens were for she told me that they contained hidden cameras for spying on the crowd - yeah, nice one mum. I'm 30 now, but I still check my behaviour near those screens.

anon

my daughter used to stand in front of the t.v. alot. Her dad(being a very big CUBS fan)would tell her if she didn't move, the pitcher was going to throw the ball at her.

Tece

I was about nine and I use to think that every time the batter fouled one back that the umpire caught the fouled ball because he would always give the ball back to the catcher to throw back to the pitcher. It wasn't until I actually went to a baseball game did I notice that the fouled ball went back into the stands and the umpire pulled a new ball from his bag. I just remembered thinking "those umpires have some fast hands."

Anon

My grandparents really liked watching football games on TV when I was little and I was always amazed at how loud the referees could yell so everyone in the stadium could hear when they made a call on a play. I was kind of disappointed to learn years later it was a wireless mic that broadcast the man's voice over the sound system in the stadium. Heh.

Anon

i always thought the supermarket was like the superbowl
and since my mom would always go to the supermarket on the day of the super bowl it just made me think they were linked together somehow
i even remember drawing a market with a big football on top

Anon