Emma, football and her dad

I had my children over this past weekend. My commitment to be an accessible father after a divorce is just one of the reasons I decided to stay home from covering the AFC Championship Game. It was my weekend to take care of the kids.

With kickoff close to 7 p.m., the deadlines are terrible for a beat writer. Besides, Mike Chappell of the Indianapolis Star knows a lot more about the Colts than I do. It was a more manageable assignment for Enquirer Sports columnist Paul Daugherty than for me; he wrote an excellent column about Peyton Manning.

I stayed home and combed through the Bears, Saints, Colts and Patriots media guides during the day, in search of local connections. We published a story this morning. It's also on this blog.

I will fly Sunday to Miami and report from the Super Bowl for the entire week for what will be the seventh consecutive year. The March league meetings also are on the horizon, after the scouting combine in late February, not to mention free agency in early March and the draft in late April. Talk about a hotstove league.

What unfolded this weekend, though, while I attempted to continue to better balance my life, was memorable time with this little girl I'm crazy about. Her name is Emma, my daughter and the spitting image physically and spiritually of my older sister Joan.

Emma is 9 and in the fourth grade at St. Vivian School.

When my mother died in October, Emma and my sons insisted on going with me to Illinois for the visitation and funeral. We began to strongly identify ourselves as a four-person family unit, once broken but now coming back together in a stronger way -- like a fractured bone. The boys were pallbearers along with other grandsons. Emma never let me out of her sight and tended to me, as the only divorced sibling of the seven, as would a wife. She sat beside me. She had tissues available if she spotted me tearing up. She took my arm to make sure I knew I wasn't alone. She patted my back and stroked the back of my hair and neck if I was overcome by grief. In football-speak, she stepped up.

So, Emma and I are pretty tight. Always have been. Getting closer every day.

Friday night, we headed to Bethany School in Glendale for her volleyball game. Same thing Saturday morning back at St. Vivian. A friend thinks quality time with a child is a subset of quantity time. I think sometimes all you have in life with your children are trips to the hardware or grocery store, so you had better make them good. Emma and I do enjoy our numerous trips to Finneytown Kroger.

Sunday was football day, and Emma's growing interest in the NFL blows me away. She's a girl's girl.

But this is the same little girl who has pretty much taken ownership of the one piece of NFL clothing I own, a gray Bears sweatshirt, that was a gift from my brother. She watched a lot of the Bears game and sat with her brother to take in most of the Colts-Patriots game last night.

"Why does the clock stop?" she asked me at one point, kicking the toes of her black, high-top Chuck Taylor Converse into the carpet.

"It stops on an incomplete pass."

A few minutes later, she asked, "Dad, do you know Peyton Manning?"

"I have been in his press conferences and asked him a couple of questions."

"He seems nice."

Emma also asked me why I said I was happy for Colts coach Tony Dungy. I told her about his son having committed suicide at the end of 2004 and how Coach Dungy came back to work and lived out his faith for the world to see.

"He's a great example," I said.

"He has a nice face," she said during his post-game interview on TV.

The beauty of sports is the community it can help build both in a city and even one household that's trying to piece itself back together, where a little girl has taken a huge interest in football and her dad's work. It's another common bond. She has met Bengals players Bobbie Williams, Shayne Graham and Rudi Johnson. She has talked to coach Marvin Lewis a few times, and he has been kind to her.

Bobbie is her favorite player. We have a Bobbie Williams replica No. 63 Bengals jersey on order from NFLshop.com.

This girl is the same one who asked for and received her own copy of Springsteen's "Darkness on the Edge of Town" CD for Christmas. She wants "Tunnel of Love," too. Her favorite Bruce song is "Jesus Was an Only Son" from "Devils and Dust."

Last night, as I tucked her into bed and kissed her forehead, she said she wished there were a way she could go to the Super Bowl with me to keep me company.

I said, "Me, too, baby girl. Me, too. Do you know that I thank God every day that you are my daughter? He must really love me to have given me you as my daughter."

"I know. You tell me that all the time."