Super Bawl

Football season is getting underway, and soccer, the beautiful game, has long since been forgotten in the United States despite the World Cup.  Football, simply put, is the national game in the U.S. of A., having replaced the pastoral, slow game of baseball.  And a professor at the University of Virginia, Mark Edmundson, has a new book arguing about how being an American requires one to understand football: "Why Football Matters."

In this book, due out today, Edmundson argues that football is the quintessential American game because it teaches discipline and teamwork, and it fulfills the (Theodore) Rooseveltian ideal of developing the body along with the mind.  Edmundson explained this theory in a promotional interview with Jeffrey Brown of the PBS NewsHour, adding that there are parallels to - wait for it - Greek mythology. 

"I’d like to see kids who are out playing football reading a book like the Iliad," Edmundson said to Brown. "And look at instances of courage there, Achilles' kind of courage, Hector's kind of courage, Diomedes' kind of courage. Figuring out what those things are, using their brains and then applying them to their own lives."  He even cited to a quote from Plato in reference to football safety:

"Not being afraid of anything is not an admirable quality. Knowing what to be afraid of is an admirable quality."

Excuse me . . . is he talking about a sport which involves going on offense, stopping your opponent with brute force, and smashing your opponent's defenses to score six points?  All while taking several blows to the head?

Football happens to a sport with numerous references to war, from the helmets and the padding, to complicated plays that suggest the planning of an amphibious invasion.  Even Edmundson acknowledges that.  It dovetails nicely - much too nicely - with the militarism we Americans have perfected since we first became a superpower. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, we've engaged in even more military bravado, buying SUVs and playing paintball games.  Football also makes a lot of money - something else we Americans love - thanks to savvy marketing and splashy promotion.  The advent of masked helmets and skin-tight pants, replacing the wimpy old leather helmets and pleated pants, gave the game more pizzazz and glitz. And for sex appeal, we added cheerleaders. Ever notice the absence of cheerleaders at New York Red Bulls soccer games?

There's nothing intellectual about football that I can think of.  It is a circus.  Its players are clowns. So are some of the coaches.  And the news stories about domestic violence committed by its players make me wonder what sort of character it builds. So, if you'll pardon me, I'll spend the 2014-15 football season once again ignoring it . . . mainly by catching up on the MLS standings.

And when the Super Bowl is on, I'll probably be here blogging about something completely different.