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MURRIETA, Calif. — Football season is well underway and for the first time in my life, I'm all about the pigskin.

Up until this year, football has always been the business going on the field as I conducted my social life in the stands. Super Bowls were the only games that kept my attention from kickoff to final whistle. Admittedly, it was always about the commercials.

Although not athletically challenged, sports have always been a sidebar in my life story. As a kid growing up in the South Valley, I played youth basketball and was even a fifth grade cheerleader in a South Valley youth organization.

In high school I played volleyball and managed to park a home run or two playing city league softball.

Living in California, I've played year-round softball and have occasionally hit golf balls hard, and sometimes straight. In other sports, I even flirted with Pete Rose at a L.A. Dodgers game against the Cincinnati Reds.

I guess I can say I've flirted with sports as an athlete and fan. But I never have been so passionate and knowledgeable about the game of football as I am right now. This is the year football became personal.

Recently, a friend, whose love for football is only secondary for his love for his family, gathered with a group of like-minded individuals and created a new youth league when the town's other league began bursting at the seams.

Our one-time little town of Murrieta (population, circa 1998, 34,000) grew rapidly in the past nine years. Its population today is 92,000. Fortunately, youth sport programs in the region kept pace. New basketball, soccer, baseball and football programs cropped up as more tract homes reshaped the city. Junior All-American Football came to Murrieta, and now, another 250 more boys can play ball.

Enter my passion - my younger son, Vincent. In 1995 he weighed in at a hefty 10 pounds, 4 ounces. This kind, lovable kid has always been one of the bigger boys in his age group. Vince is as sweet natured and quiet as they come. He's never been one to roughhouse or kick around in the dirt. To know this boy is to love him, but minus his size, you'd never guess he'd want to play football.

I think a spark was lighted later in his basketball years, when seemingly overnight, my soft-spoken, introspective boy became competitive. Almost at once, his skill set, maturity and competitive drive intersected. The big kid with the quiet disposition tasted victory in sports - and he wanted more.

The morning my husband took my baby to the three-hour long football registration, he decided to register my feelings, one last time before signing Vincent up for slaughter - I mean football.

Knowing what an emotional wreck I can be when it comes to bruised and bloodied offspring, my husband wanted my final sign-on.

I waved them off and pretended to be tough. I turned my attention to "Rudy," the movie of a small, yet impassioned football player who loved Norte Dame football so much he sacrificed his body for several years before getting a chance to play.

I watched until the scene Rudy gets the beating of his life as his teammates use him as a human tackling dummy. I turned off the television before I got too emotional. I decided to distract myself with something else, like a huge block of chocolate.

Today, Vincent has four games behind him and six to go. He's been bruised and bloodied. I'm surviving, thank you very much. My boy wears his black, blue, gray and yellow bruises like badges. As for the blood, it was only from scrapes on his knuckles and as usual, I overreacted.

These days, every weekend is about football. Instead of rolling my eyes, and dreading the experience, I've finally been able to wrap my brain around football - mainly on how, not why, the game is played.

On most Friday nights, our older son, Dominic plays his bass guitar in the high school marching band and we arrive early to get good seats. I watch the entire game. I'm starting to recognize different plays. I've learned what pass interference is and Vincent will explain what the different flags on the play mean.

Vincent sits between my husband and I and dreams of the day he'll don a high school football jersey.

Saturdays, we watch Vincent play football. I no longer view the game as a confusing jumble of players moving an oddly shaped ball up and down a field. I now see it through the perspective of an 11-year-old who finds excitement in the concept of team and lives for weekends when he can make a choice of hitting, or being hit.