I heard the book, Against Football: One Fan’s Reluctant Manifesto by Steve Almond, being discussed on NPR: It prompted the following comments.
I was never a huge football fan, but I did follow the Cowboys and OU football. The Cowboys I first became enamored with when we lived in New Jersey and they were a new NFL expansion team. Dallas was close to Oklahoma, and Oklahoma was one of the few touchstones I had in my young life as a rolling stone. It is difficult to live in Oklahoma and not root for the Sooners, or at least the OSU Cowboys.
Another reason that I feigned a large interest in football was because it was the manly thing to do. All my male peers seemed to love the game and to have something to discuss with them a basic knowledge of football current and past events was needed.
I had a brief decade in Arkansas where I was able to grow a little moss, and I became interested in Razorback sports. If you know nothing else about Arkansas know that they are Razorback crazy. You see the red hog everywhere you go in the state.
The winds of time changed, and my rock in Arkansas dislodged and resumed its rolling ways. Without a strong regional identity (somewhat to the South), I have lost affection for any particular collegiate team. Jerry Jones came along, and America’s team became America’s Joke. He ended my childhood obsession with da ‘Boys from Dallas. I bring this up because without the bloodshot goggles of a fan it is possible to look at the game in a different light.
I long ago began to avoid movies that were excessively violent. As a young man , I once went to the drive-in with a buddy to see a double feature. The first move was the one I wanted to see. The second was his choice. The title should have clued me in, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, but I thought how bad it can be. I spent the whole second feature with the sun visor down wishing I had some cotton for my ears. There is enough inhumanity in the real world that I do not need to go watch it. While the studies seem to go back and forth, my intuition tells me that watching violence has to desensitize people to violence. Have you ever been around an obnoxious smell? After a while you just quit noticing it. The first time I was around a cadaver I thought I was going to faint. After a while I was eating lunch with them.
So it is with football. Football is an inherently violent sport. As it progresses from high school to college to professional the violence increases exponentially. What everyone loves is the “big hit”. As I really looked at the sport I realized that violence was such an integral part of the game that I could no longer watch it. I also have to pass on boxing and whatever that atrocity is that takes place in a metal hexagon or octagon cage.
My “willful ignorance” bubble burst when I read an article on the long term health of NFL players. While the culprit getting all the attention right now is concussions, there are a whole plethora of maladies that persists life. There is also a debate going about shorten life spans for NFL players. Is our entertainment worth that price to those players? I can only hope you say stop long enough to think a little before you answer the question.
Sports are a wonderful part of the human experience. They allow us to push and test our physical and mental abilities. They allow us to compete with each other in structured way. Sport teams give us a sense of group identity. It is a delight to watch any athlete at the top of his game perform well. A well executed double play makes my heart glad. However violent sports cater to darker side of humanity. Is that something we should really be promoting as society? When you have a sport whose participants are routinely carted off the field of play it is barely above the carcasses being dragged from the coliseum. I have come to believe that football has come to have the same purpose as the Roman games, keeping the masses entertained and distracted from the real issues of the day.
If you are interested in learning some more I have included some links below.
Do no harm: Retired NFL players endure a lifetime of hurt
NFL players union and Harvard team up on landmark study of football injuries and illness
Is Football Just Too Dangerous?
It’s time to ban high school football