While sitting at the KU Spring Game, I overheard two young teenage boys discussing the odds for the players on the field.

However, unlike the grown men around me, these lads were not weighing the team’s chances of making it to a bowl game. They had more immediate matters in mind.

“Those guys have it made,” the first one said to his buddy. “Girls love jocks.”

As much as I wanted to turn around and assure the young Napoleon Dynamite that girls are not as concerned with skills as he might think, I refrained.

I did not think much more about them until a couple of weeks ago, when I stumbled across a book in my parents’ attic that my best friend and I had made the summer before freshman year of high school.

This book, a three-ring binder, was stuffed to capacity with our favorite articles on everything from how to flirt to how to apply the perfect amount of electric blue eyeliner. We included shots of our favorite teen idols, many of whom I did not recognize anymore, cut and pasted from the pages of old Tiger Beat and Seventeen magazines.

It was a journalistic masterpiece.

After flipping through the book with a combination of nostalgia and horror (Scott Baio? Really?), I thought about those boys at the Spring Game and decided they could benefit from a little insight into the mind of the teenage girl.

Contrary to belief, the whole “girls love jocks” field of thought is only partially correct. While a guy’s ability to throw, kick or shoot a ball adds obvious and unique value to a relationship, athletic prowess is not the only thing girls take into account when searching for a boyfriend.

Sure, the athletes walking the halls might get lots of female attention, but to hold it, a guy must offer more than good hair and a state championship.

Boys who can sit through “Letters to Juliet” without falling asleep? Boys who notice a new haircut but not a new zit? Boys who can spell? THESE are the boys that girls like to date.

What a girl really wants is a boy who will pay attention to her, break a rule or two, and hold hands … without stalking, doing jail time or eyeballing third base. (This last one, in particular, applies strongly to any boy interested in any of my daughters.)

In the end, it’s not about how much you can bench press. It’s about how you make her laugh, treat her with respect and return her phone calls in a timely manner. Broad shoulders are not nearly as important as inner confidence and proper verb conjugation.

So, to all the boys who will never wear a letter jacket, I say to you do not lose hope. Biceps can soften, and good hair might recede. But the boy who pretends not to notice when a tampon accidentally falls out of his date’s purse will have a special place in her heart forever.