It's midday Sunday. Soon I'll be watching the Minnesota Vikings--the pro football team of my dreams since I was eight--playing the Green Bay Packers. I'll be watching. But not with a clear conscience.
It's becoming harder and harder not to feel creepy about enjoying and supporting an enterprise that uses up men's bodies--and healthy brains--for the sake of entertaining the masses each weekend of the football season.
The ugly and increasingly unavoidable reality about pro football was brought home for me last week by two chilling articles.
One, by the New Yorker's Malcolm Gladwell, explored the mounting piles of evidence of the devastating effects of football-playing on the combatants' heads and cognitive health. As Gladwell provocatively asked, is football all that dissimilar from the "sport" of dog-fighting that we unanimously reject as cruel and barbaric?
The other convicting piece was a blog post at the Sojourner's website in which writer and football fan Ernesto Tinajero said Gladwell's piece had hit him "like a ton of bricks." He announced that he has watched his last Super Bowl.
I wonder if I'm on my way toward a similar declaration.
Truthfully, the bloom has been coming off the pro football (and pro sports) rose for me gradually over the past seven or eight years. In researching and writing my recently published book "Onward Christian Athletes" on Christian engagement with pro sports, I've had to examine the object of my fandom with a critical eye and a scholar's skepticism.
What was once fun and games for me--drama, eye-popping athleticism, the thrill of victory and agony of defeat--has become increasingly tarnished by my awareness of the profit-driven abuses and excesses of big-time sports in America. I have come to see our fixation on the sports spectacle as borderline idolatrous and largely unproductive in a time when so many urgent common-good needs are going unmet.
As a progressive, I have also found pro sports disturbingly complicit in the promotion of militaristic patriotism and religious nationalism. As I explore in my book, sports-world Christianity has often aligned strongly with the Christian Right ideology and interests that have harmed not just our national politics, but Christianity itself.
The taste in my mouth just got worse.
To read Gladwell's article is to feel your good conscience absorb a bone-crunching tackle by Ray Lewis or one of the other ferocious linebackers roaming the fields of the NFL. Retired players are experiencing off-the-charts rates of dementia brought on by the innumerable blows to the head that are a fact of life in pro football. We are witnessing more tales of ex-players suffering breakdowns, cognitive dysfunction and/or suicide. (Cases in point: Mike Webster and Andre Waters.)
Gladwell's gift is his ability to see things, and show them, in a different light. Given the drama around NFL quarterback Michael Vick and his incarceration for running a dog-fighting ring, Gladwell's comparison of football and dog-fighting is a highly effective attention-grabber. And absolutely convicting for anyone with a religious and/or moral compass. It has me asking how I can continue enjoying pro football knowing that some of those players entertaining me will end up with their brains scrambled and their lives in shreds.
Imagine the dilemma for the Christian men and ministry organizations that have helped make pro sports, and football in particular, one of the most outwardly religious sectors in American popular culture. Since the formation of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes more than a half-century ago, sports ministry has devoted itself to leveraging the visibility and influence of big-time sports to reach the public with the evangelistic message. It's called using "The Platform." But what if the platform is becoming so morally degraded that it robs the gospel message of any authenticity and credibility?
This unfolding drama is shot through with other dilemmas as well.
Contemplate the bind in which Commissioner Roger Goodell and the rest of the pro football power structure find themselves. If they appear dismissive or calloused about the mounting evidence and alarm, and a public relations disaster awaits. Exhibiting too much concern could lead them down a dead-end alley. Let's face it: Other than forcing players to wait longer before returning to action after concussions, there appears to be little that football can do to protect players from head injuries without turning football into something other than the action-packed, high-thrill (and violent) spectacle that it is.
To say there is a lot at stake is an understatement. Pro football is an enormous money-making enterprise, its two most valuable franchises (Washington and Dallas) worth an estimated $952 million and $851 million, respectively, in 2008.
I can't help thinking, too, about the race overlay. Like pro basketball, the NFL draws most of its talent from the African American community, meaning it's mainly black guys getting their heads bashed Sunday after Sunday. One has to be careful about going too far with this; the dynamics of football competition being what they are, offensive linemen appear to be the ones most exposed to head injury, and that's a "trade" within the NFL where large numbers of white men still find employment. Nevertheless, Gladwell's likening of pro football to dog-fighting seems especially poignant in view of the unmistakable race dynamics.
A day of reckoning may be coming for pro football--and those of us who watch it.
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Anyone who lives under the illusion that will ever be a "day of reckoning" for pro football because a player gets injured is living on a very strange planet. There is not a politician in his right mind who would dare offend those fans.
That is very true that this notion demonstrates a tremendous amount of ignorance about the game of soccer. The common play will be remembered for ages and would go on and on.
r4
Unfortunately Mere_Christian................It's not
I think Charles Cosimano is right when he states the solution isn't going to originate from our politicians. However, if a day of reckoning is to come (and it may come), it must come from citizens.
I doubt if football will go away in our lifetimes. The reckoning may come in the form of a de-sanctioning by our government. This might mean no more building of coliseums with public money or no more monopoly exemptions. If this were to happen, pro football could be reduced to Roller Derby status…a fun thing to take the kids now that it’s been “cleaned up.”
I think Charles Cosimano and a lot of the people posting these comments are blowing this way out of proportion. And I don't want football to go away.
Yes, there is an element in football that is tied to the extreme conservative movement in both politics and Christianity. There is also an element that has nothing to do with either of those, partially evidenced by the reaction to Rush Limbaugh's attempt to be part of the purchase of an NFL franchise.
Yes, football is a violent sport that has become a massively profitable business. It does no more to exploit its employees than any other business--INCLUDING the church.
Yes, the NFL should take more drastic action to decrease injuries and concussions, now that there is a lot more that can be done for these (better equipment, better medical knowledge, etc). Many of these decisions should not be left up to the players. And the players union should take a MUCH more active role in pushing for such changes.
But should we do away with football? Absolutely not--and don't waste your time trying.
Not to downplay the situation, but also keep this in perspective: A lot of the brain injuries that we discuss today happened in a time when we didn't know nearly as much about these types of things. One of the articles references Terry Long and Mike Webster. Both were very heavy steroid users before testing became the norm (Long allegedly used them in college, well before his NFL career). That probably had a significant impact on them as well. There are also hundreds of players who play for years without any negative impact from concussions.
The question should not be what the NFL should have done back then, but on what the NFL should do NOW. My problem is that they are not doing enough in the present, and that's where the focus needs to be. Not on perceived race issues, not on religion or politics or any of the other side issues...but what can/should the NFL be doing NOW to protect players? Stay focused, people.
And let us not forget that these men are CHOOSING to play a game that is known to be brutal and violent.
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