Short-story writing requires an exquisite sense of balance. Novelists, frankly, can get away with more. A novel can have a dull spot or two, because the reader has made a different commitment.
“I think one game we played the Oakland Raiders and Jack Tatum and I had an accident on the one-yard line. The only thing that Jack Tatum didn't do was wrap me up so I backed into the endzone backwards.”
“Your friends will know you better in the first minute you meet than your acquaintances will know you in a thousand years.”