First Love

This is the first weekend that I have not attended a football game in person since late August. The withdrawal symptoms are starting to set in. Christmas is but a couple of weeks away and it is four months until I can attend my son's spring game at Columbia University in New York.

This year, I was able to attend most of my son's j.v. games as well as the Columbia varsity games (although they finished a quite unspectacular 4-6). In addition, I attended several high school games, a Division III playoff game in which the son of a friend of mine was playing, and a game at The University of Chicago on a weekend on which the university honored Jay Berwanger on the 75th anniversary of his being awarded the Heisman Trophy. This doesn't count the games I caught on T.V. or streaming video.

Some families are police families. Some are military families. Ours is a football family. My son is playing in the Ivy League and his two cousins are playing in DII and DII respectively. I played DIII football as did my brother. Both of us were captains and all conference in college. Our other brother played high school ball with me and blocked for me when I was a senior and he was a sophomore. I have told my son on several occassions that I have loved the game of football longer than I have loved his mother (carefully noting that I didn't say MORE than his mother, just longer). My uncle played football, so this is our third generation in the game. When we first got married, my wife made me vow not to push my son into playing. Despite my best attempts at being as neutral as Switzerland, the game found him. He was 6'2" and 245 lbs by the time he was in 8th grade, so it didn't take much for a mutual attraction to develop.


What is it about the game that is so consuming? Why do we love it so?


There are, I think, several reasons. First, is the unique nature of the contact. The hitting is intense and violent. It takes a certain amount of physical courage to tackle a 230 lb fullback running at you full tilt or block a blitzing linebacker. Not anyone can do it. I remember a really fast kid from the track team that came out for wide receiver one year in college. He did great for the first three days when there was no contact. He ran by defensive backs and caught several touchdown passes. But after the first day of hitting, when someone cleaned his clock after he caught a pass, he turned his gear in. It wasn't for him.

Second, the game is usually outdoors in the elements. You play in the heat. You play in the cold. You play in the rain. You play in the snow. There is something primordially gratifying about that. Now that only a small percentage of our society works outdoors, there is something about being in the elements, and having the weather be part of the game that takes us back to our boyhoods.

Third, it is a tribal experience. I believe there is something basically tribal about men. It is part of our genetic coding. And even if there are people on your team that you don't particularly care for, you need to put those differences aside and figure out how to cooperate to get a job done. And along with tribalism, it is egalitarian. Race, religion, wealth, what your daddy did and your family's standing are irrelevant on a football field. All that matters is your ability and willingness to commit and work hard for the team. Once you are in the huddle, there is a unique bond of brotherhood that forms, and I suppose it is not unlike a unit in the army. These bonds often last a lifetime. Last summer, we organized a reunion of my college football team and guys came in from all over the country to attend (one travelled from East Timor). Many of us had not seen each other in 30 years, and it was amazing to see us pick right up where we left off.


Fourth, it is of finite duration. Unlike many other sports--golf, tennis, even basketball or baseball, football ends at the age of 21 or 22 for most guys. There are no pickup games and flag football bears no relation to real football. Most players are aware that your playing days are short, and that awareness concentrates the mind. It is a microcosm of life itself. We know that it will end someday, and the game teaches us that we have to enjoy the moment, for there will come a time when we can't play anymore.

Finally, it is a uniquely American game. While the NFL has attempted to expose Europe and Japan to football, it has not really caught on. The object of the game is to go the full length of the field and score-- symbolic of Manifest Destiny, so I don't think the Europeans really get it at a gut level. It is a complex game. Underneath the violent surface is a game as elegantly strategic as chess. It is strength, power and violence. But it is also move and countermove. Jab, feign and attack.


But what I like most about football at the high school and college level is that it captures our youth at its very best. The papers are full of stories about kids getting involved in drugs and gangs. But football catches them at their very best, striving to be the best at something.

Recently, football has been at the center of some controversy, and many are wondering aloud if the game's survival may be at stake. Concussions and head injuries are making it harder to justify the sport. Cris Collinsworth, former NFL player and analyst wondered out loud if he wants his kids to play. Last year a Penn player that committed suicide was found to have a brain injury resulting from the repetitive hits. More reports are surfacing about ex-NFL players developing dementia at higher rates than the general population. Those are serious issues, and more research needs to be done. Hopefully, this risk can be dealt with through rule changes and better equipment.

Despite the risks, it's a great game and I can't wait for spring ball.