To start, let me say that i know most people really like football, American football, to be precise. I however do not. Please, don't be offended, just as i accept that not everyone likes soccer or mt. biking, i don't like football. Actually, i can't stomach it at all.
I do believe that the majority of America is winding up for the Superbowl. The archaic championship game takes place sometime soon, i seem to be seeing more and more replica jerseys and fitted caps in my travels around town. I, honestly, have no idea who is in contention or what the big story of the season has been. I don't even know who the usual suspects are. I have to be honest here, very honest, i hate American football. Let me be very clear, however, that i don't care if other people like it. I know i can't change the culture surrounding the sport and i can't/won't try to change the hearts and minds of passionate fans. I can appreciate the passion for sport, the desire to support a winning team or regional team or whatever team that, as a child, you introduced to and as a result it is the team you support now. I don't mind if other people like it. It doesn't bother me. But i absolutely can not watch football. I can't. I can't even drink enough beer to make it enjoyable.
I feel like a culture of anamilistic machismo has been woven into the fibers of the sport. There is a sense that if you can't take the hit your not man enough and if you can't or won't play injured or with an injection your not man enough. It reminds me of the "cowboy up" sticker, a saying that has been taken by the rednecks and wannabes and splashed across ridiculous trucks and pathetic cars.
At its core, there is some value to the sport. The tactics involved, running plays to confuse and beguile the other team, and driving the ball forward to the in zone--these aspects of the game are elegant and exciting and if football could be stripped of its gladiator like culture and destroys bodies and brainwashes its players and followers, then it would be a sport worth following. In my mind. Alas, the elegance is lost. The grace of the game is buried in the tackles and hits and i don't believe that the players are human after they take the field, they are truly animals with a desire to hurt, injure, and destroy their opponents. It is easy to do, hidden behind helmets and pads, they no longer see the opposition in the eyes and suddenly they are only the opposition and what element of humanity that remained once they engaged on the field has vanished behind the face mask.
There is a saying, and i don't know who said it, but i learned it as a young boy: "Soccer is a gentleman's game played by animals, rugby is an animals game played by gentlemen, and football is an animals game played by animals." Every sport has elements that take the humanity out of the athlete. For most, even soccer, the fans forget that the players on the field are men (or women) and they have families and baggage and commitments and lives away from the game. I don't know how it is that we have made some of the these athletes into multimillionaires. In my mind it is a tragic waste of resources and time.
I will concede that i do follow the English Premier League, and the soccer players at the top of their game in England (and Spain, France, Germany, and Italy) are on a similar pay level to the top athletes the U.S. So it isn't just the money that bothers me. It seems so unreal, this money they are paid, that almost seems imaginary or fake. But we fans drive it forward and legitimize the ridiculous pay packets and absurd contracts and astronomical transfer fees.
I grew up in a smallish town in Eastern Oregon, it was a football dominated high school in a football dominated town. Most of the players on the team had fathers who had played or older bothers or uncles, the ties that bind ran deep. I was lucky to be the son of a man who did not play and who had little interest in high school football. It was the passion of the town and a considerable section of the round-up stadium would be packed with people watching the game. The radio would run a live commentary and people would be hyped for the game. No matter when or who it was against. Football was big. And wrapped within this town culture that elevated high school football to an ivory tower an inflated belief that we were a big school. But not even close. My high school was a very small fish in a very big pond. Evident by the lack of team sport championships on the walls of the gym. I think that the dance team is the only competitive sport to have, ever, won a state trophy. Ever. The rest of the sports never came close. To this day, they don't come close.
It isn't as though you should only support a winning team but the culture of blindness and ignorance is hard to swallow. My high school is a microcosm in the scope of the American football culture and doesn't come close to the assumed culture in places like Texas where it is life. But it is only high school and most people grow up embarrassed or ashamed of themselves and strive to be different, better people.
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