What is the importance of football in the memoir, There Will Be No Miracles Here?

For Casey, football is a polyvalent symbol. It symbolizes the unattainable legacy of his father, former football legend Roderic Gerald; Casey never became as good a player as Rod, and so he had to compensate with academic success. Football also represents the heteronormative masculinity of Texas which Casey, in his homosexuality, had to contort to embody. Football was moreover Casey’s ticket to social success in high school and, ultimately, his ticket out of Oak Cliff, to Yale. Casey recognizes that the physical demands of football will have caused him longterm harm; nevertheless, it taught him “how far you can make it in America if you have enough disregard for your personal welfare. Maybe that’s why football is the national pastime” (125).