Ty for grabbing the bait "(hand-egg / rugby for wussies)" with 2 hands. Football and futbol are just different languages both mean using your feet to move a ball, so no calling it futbol while speaking Spanish is never wrong. Using a different language for 1 word in a sentence at worst would be a bit odd. If american football started as a new form of football than that is the way it is. For people outside the US (yes we exist) just looking at the sports side by side, both have an egg shaped leather ball and 2 teams bumping into each other trying to get the ball to the other side, granted 1 off the sports has a mouth guard as protection and occasionally headgear while the other dresses their players up in all the protective gear they could think off making them look twice the size they actually are. But if you enjoy either of them and can use it to get your education or make money all the best to you. I was just surprised why the consistency regarding headmaster/professor and football/soccer wasn’t there.
O, if you must know, I am from the Netherlands and I don’t think there is an american football club here so I can’t try that but a have played a lot of hockey (field hockey) and handball. My current first choice is now MMA as that would have more uses in day to day life compared to other sports.
I like to think of it like this...
Soccer=75% endurance, 25% toughness
American football=25% endurance, 75% toughness
Rugby=50% endurance, 50% toughness
To add your favorite, MMA=20% endurance, 80% toughness
One of my college team's(American football) former players became a MMA fighter. He said MMA was easier to recover from but required more patience, finding an opening. I left out intelligence from those numbers above, just giving the physical needs percentages.
As for my experiences, I played American football in junior high(think age 13-14) until I got all three ligaments torn in my left knee, when one opponent hit me above the knee, while another hit me below the knee. I started running cross country and distance running(5K and 10K races) to rehab the knee. Played on the tennis team and ran for the track team in college(university).