for sure, and you would definately be more qualified to run a team based on your experience. But as far as X's and O's- and strictly X's and O's- it's not like that info isn't abudant on the Internet.
You can find all kinds of old playbooks on pretty much any offense, defense, or ST out there- and from people like Bill Walsh, Bill Bellicheck, Bear Bryant, and I've even found a MSU playbook from Joe Lee Dunn out there, and all of those are pretty informative sources of info, and the stuff that doesn't make a lot of sense can also be looked up fairly qiuckly with google. This is going to sound a little bit silly to, but I really think the Madden and NCAA football video games also are helpful as far as "educating" the casual fan on some of the X's and O's. If I want to see some Spread offense plays, I can download a MSU playbook on PS3 on NCAA and see some "sample" plays are generic for that type of offense. Now, by no means does looking up a bunch of playbooks and playing video games make someone an expert, but it does educate to a degree.
Also ESPN, and stuff like the NFL Network does a lot of really cool stuff explaining X's and O's as well to the casual fan.
Personally, as far as baseball, I never played myself above 8th grade competitively. But, my Dad played baseball at MSU, and he would take me to Jackson Mets games as a child- I was six or so, and he would educate me on the game. He would tell me stuff like why a manager would do something or why a pitcher would throw a pitch in a certain situation, or what a hitter would be thinking. I also had an uncle that played professionally for the Kansas City Royals and St. Louis Cardinals in the big leagues for nine seasons as a relief pitcher, and later he coached minor league baseball for years. When I was in college at MSU, I would spend my spring break in Florida at spring training, and my uncle would let me hang out with the team. I learned a LOT about baseball just by doing that and seeing what they taught and how they taught it, and also how they coached it. My Uncle taught me a LOT about pitching and also what it really takes to make it and stay at the MLB level. A lot of people don't appreciate how much work it takes to get to that level, along with the God given talent. I honestly believe that I have the work ethic to make it and the desire, but I don't have the talent. Even though I don't have the talent, I am very blessed to have even been in a situation where I was allowed to hang out with those guys for free and just learn.
My favorite memory of all time growing up was watching the 1990 Mayor's Trophy Game with my Dad, and we were sitting behind first base. The umpire screws up a call at first that allowed Ole Miss to have a runner that shouldn't have been there. My Dad goes- "Todd, you're about to see an arguement, so let's get our shots in". My Dad then proceeds to yell at the umpire, and thus teaches me how to yell at an umpire- you know stuff like if you use a lot words with P's, you can get a lot of spit on an umpire, use technical stuff like "you were out of position" and sure enough Ron Polk comes out, argues with the home plate umpire for a little bit, and then Polk trots out to the first base umpire and just goes off on the guy in classic Polk fashion right there in front of me and my Dad. The umpire actually kicked Polk out twice because he wouldn't get off of the field. It was the BEST arguement I have ever seen live. And the whole time, my Dad is telling me what's going to happen. Stuff like- "Yeah, this is going to take awhile", "He's going to try to take him down the RF line", and "The other umpires must think that guy is a real *******, because no one is helping him get Polk off of the field". It was awesome.