In Praise of Football

Today will mark the third week of the football season, and I can't wait for the next 14. Although I'm aware that it makes me sound a bit like an American male cliché, I'm not afraid to say that I love football.

Not soccer, American football. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate soccer: I admire the athleticism, the fluidity, and the artistry of the athletes, and the jingoistic passion of the fans is exhilarating.

Baseball too will always occupy a special place in my sports heart: I'm intrigued by the idea that the defense starts with the ball, that there is no time limit to the games, and that there are quantifiable statistics that link generations of players throughout history. On a fine summer day, I can't imagine a more lyrical incantation than "Play ball."

My initial love as a child was basketball. It's a simple game - simply put the ball in the basket - whose emphasis on teamwork and spacing has always intrigued me. I enjoy the process of melding of the individual with the team and the personal nature of the contest. And there's nothing like the sound - swish - of a ball passing cleanly through the hoop.

During the winters, my friends and I played a lot of hockey. The speed of the game is hypnotic as is the geometric sophistication entailed by having play circumscribed within the boards. Add to that the unpredictability of a goaltender and the fact that hitting is encouraged and hockey is as much fun to play as it is to watch.

In college I played lacrosse, a sport that combines the real estate of soccer, the strategic philosophies of basketball, the physicality of hockey, and an emphasis on trickery and fakery that has its roots in the Native American origins of the game.

However, it is football that has a firm grip on my imagination these days. Football boasts sudden moments of adrenaline transcendence interspersed with shining moments of good fortune (or tragedy depending upon the team for which you are rooting).

Football is also nasty, brutish and short. And it is this Hobbesian emphasis on violence to which I am undeniably attracted.

I'm not exactly sure how to explain the vicarious pleasure I take in the violence of Sunday combat. Perhaps it's some vestigial remnant of a Darwinian past when violence was the ultimate arbitrator of conflict, or perhaps it's something about the Newtonian physics of two bodies colliding?

Regardless, there is something elemental about the violent struggle over a finite plot of ground, the simplicity of mano a mano contact, and the finality of knocking someone to the ground which animates me.

What doesn't thrill me in football is the continual preening in which players engage these days. A linebacker may bring down a running back after a three-yard gain, and jump up into some pre-meditated funky dance meant not only to bring attention to himself but also to embarrass his opponent.

The coaches I played for would have benched me immediately had I pulled any such antics. One of my high school coaches in particular derided such braggadocio as (loosely translated) "Harry High School bunk," and if he ever thought we were engaging in such self-aggrandizing behavior we would find ourselves sitting on the pine for the rest of the game.

Coach's motto was "Act like you've been there before and that you'll be back again." For him egocentrism had no place on his team. Coach understood that there is a fundamental difference between exuberance and exhibitionism, and he expected us to know the difference as well.

In these modern times, football is a sport which Americans have embraced as a kind of cultural metaphor, for the sports emphasizes teamwork, execution, and the conviction that might makes right (or at least almost always wins games).

Football is also cathartically violent. And as long as Harry High School stays on the bench, it's a game that I will continue to love.

--Steve McKibben
9/24/06