Posted on 01/20/2014 11:16:36 AM PST by deks
Subtitle:
Fathers and sons have bonded over football games for generations, but today it's harder for parents to ignore the growing concerns surrounding the sport.
Excerpt:
My son, unfamiliar with the NFL’s pieties, assumed that hurting the other team’s players was the goal. To his untutored eye, the violence that guilt-ridden fans like myself decry was a feature, not a bug. He didn’t cheer the injuries; he’s too sweet for that. But despite my insistence to the contrary, I suspect the message he took from the experience was: The only thing you need to know about the large man writhing in agony on the screen is whether he’s on our team.
(Excerpt) Read more at theatlantic.com ...
I watched neither game yesterday but I know the results so I know who will be in the superbowl. That is about the extent of my interest. I may watch the game for its novelty factor of an open air stadium in winter in a cold climate but to be honest living in Canada the Grey Cup is often contested upon frozen tundra so its no big deal. This weekend there will be a hockey game played in the open air of Dodger Stadium. That might be even more of a novelty than this years superbowl.
Rush is an idiot.
I played football. My kids played football. Given what we now know, I wouldn’t have played nor would I have let my kids play. There is no question that the dangers of playing were covered up. There is “violent sport” and then there is “gladiators dying for others amusement”. Pro football became the latter. I SO love the game and I hope they fix it. It looks like they may. But there comes a time when I can find other ways to be amused that do not involve someone dying ... or worse.
Walter Peyton said he didn’t celebrate because he wanted to act like he had been in the endzone before and would be again. (something to that effect)
That show is funny.
I agree. It is a modern version of gladiator games. My older boys played, 10 years later my youngest teenager will not, ever.
Turf also changed the game for the worst and creates more injuries. Bowman’s injury (IMO) may not have been so severe had his leg been able to slide back but the turf held it.
You mean it took these lawsuits for you to realize that you could get hurt playing football? I hope you don’t stand with the liberals when they eventually ban the sport. As usual rush is exactly right.
Rush Limbaugh is talking about this today...saying “pointy headed intellectuals” are agonizing about football, the eventuality being that it will be banned
...that is true...to an extent...the pointy heads want football banned, all right, but not because it’s unsafe (if studies should emerge about dangers in soccer, these same people wouldn’t say boo), but because little girls can’t play football, and therefore it upsets the gender equity bunch and their utopian visions...the ideal sports scenario is a school fielding only teams which have both male and female versions...
“The cheerleaders are BARELY broadcast on NFL games at all (you have to really look to see a glimpse) and on SeeBS yesterday (same network that aired Elvis on Sullivan over 55 years ago) they were shot strictly above the waist.”
My wife, who was an outstanding marching band member in high school and our DIL who was a cheer leader in HS and college started complaining a couple of years ago about college tv dropping halftime coverage of the good college bands and cheer leaders, and pro football not showing the cheer leaders any more.
Instead they have bunch of aging jocks dissecting each play several times during the half time with a dozen so called instant replays of each play.
I’d like my son to one day be able to assess football dispassionately, and thus do his part to help society progress. But in helping him accurately judge the game, I’d also be inviting him to judge me. Far easier to curl up with him for this Sunday’s AFC championship game as father and son—co-conspirators.
His ideas about football are completely wrong and he obviously never played the game at any level past grade school. Here's why I say that...
Football is a very personal team sport. It teaches a lot of great things about life. It's personal because it is tough. The team effort relies on individuals physically dominating opposing players. And it is violent starting at the high school level (to a lesser degree and not before). While there are seemingly "big" collisions in 7th and 8th grade football, they are infrequent and made more dramatic by the otherwise slow motion of the game surrounding them. By the time one gets to college, the violent collisions are on most plays. Watching a game distorts the image of how hard the players are hitting each other precisely because the game is so fast. Only the open field high speed collisions seem to get noticed (and these are arguably some of the hardest hits). Unless you have experienced the amount of energy that is absorbed when a 310 lb guard and 275 lb defensive tackle collide after only accelerating for 3', you can't really begin to understand how personal it can get. But I digress...
The amount of miserable preparation, hard work, dedication and mental toughness that comes with the occasional (by comparison) glory builds the character of a man. The love of the game is not about the violence. It is about the bond that forms when men step onto the grid-iron together, with specific assignments, to engage in a physical battle. It's about the competition. You learn about dedication to a cause and individual self worth measured by teammates, coaches and fans. You learn about controlling emotions and pushing through pain and exhaustion when necessary. You learn humility and leadership. And yes, you learn to have respect for another man that you purposefully attempt to physically dominate in between the whistles. You also learn to accept that there is always a looming risk, danger even, of personal injury for the cause of the team that is greater than the individual. You learn to operate a levels most other people will never experience. You learn about physical, psychological and emotional limits, and you learn to surpass them. There is something about the end of an exhausting effort, battered and bruised as the adrenaline high starts to subside and the aches and exhaustion creep in, where you contemplate and reflect on your effort, the meaning of your pain. In victory and defeat there is intrinsic satisfaction in what you have done (hopefully) as a contributor to the team. That reflection continues the next morning, during films and turns back into work as you recall where you succeeded but focused on where you failed in order to work on how to improve both for yourself and for your team. Ultimately competition is what you love and glory is the reward you work so hard for.
I believe that only the military can otherwise teach and provide this experience (maybe wrestling). (I have never been in the military. So that is an unqualified assumption.).
I believe in the life lessons associated with the character development that football provides, especially at younger ages. There will be injuries. I have had several and my body has some lasting affects today (I only played a couple years of college football). But it was worth it in my opinion.
Rush had Beinart for lunch today. Especially telling was his skewering Beinhart’s hope that “a decent society” will someday eschew “violent games such as football”.
As El Rushbo often points out, it’s all about the chickification of America.
I agree. It is a modern version of gladiator games
...for the most part, that is due to the demographic change in the participants...the inner city youth have emerged and have dominated the game, and with it they bring the culture their lives reflect...
...I wouldn’t refer to the NFL as ‘gladiatorial’, as gladiators were after all slaves fighting for their freedom...hardly the case in the pro football...it’s more like who can be the most ‘alpha’ of all the alpha males on the field...all the woofing and chest thumping indicates such...
...by the way,I agree with the other poster in hoping you stand against banning the game...
Partisan Media Shills meme-building marches on.
Obviously Journolist is alive and well. Thanks deks.
Obama Compares Pro Football to Smoking, Says He Wouldn’t Let Son Play
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/bloggers/3113661/posts
The gyrating celebration posturing and self-aggrandizing chest pounding after every marginally successful feat make it basically unwatchable. Same thing with the NBA. Penalties affecting the result of the game, reviewable footage and modern officiating make other players self-policing the jerks impossible.
There’s a reason nobody breaks out into dance moves and points at the pitcher after hitting a routine single off him.
FReegards
“The love of the game is not about the violence”
I will argue that the last 10-15 years or so it is all about money, period.
Barry Sanders did the same but for a different reason. He said there was nothing to celebrate because he hadn’t won anything. “Now if I score the winning TD in the Super Bowl then I will celebrate”
People have the choice of whether they want to subject themselves to the risks of playing football. Government robs and controls all of us and we have no choice. Leave it to liberals to get all worked up about the wrong thing.
It was always 6 seconds of action followed by minutes of spitting, scratching, etc.
I played football in Jr. High, attended one football game in High School (1968) and have never watched a game since.
I know people enjoy it and that's fine with me.
However, the attraction is still a puzzle.
Geez, I always thought Peter Beinart was gay.
Beinart was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts. His parents were Jewish immigrants from South Africa.
His mother, Doreen (née Pienaar), is former director of the Harvard’s Human Rights film series at the John F. Kennedy School of Government. His stepfather is theatre critic and playwright Robert Brustein
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