It’s been less than a year, but what happened next is already the stuff of lore. “You have to understand,” noted foosball aficionado George F. Will told me recently over a steaming mug of chai caramel latte at McDonald’s. “Of the three major American sports, one, snooker, is primary mental, and another, lawn bowls, is primarily physical. In either, it’s possible to come back from a losing position simply by applying a quality the game typically neglects. The reason foosball is beloved by so many writers is that it’s mental and physical. There’s a classic link between table soccer and the American ideals of pragmatism and self-reliance. On the mean sticks, as Grantland Rice famously called them, mere survival takes everything a man has. Which is simply a long-winded way of saying that you don’t come back from match point often. Not against an SEC school.”