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Football Mania

The following is a long-ago assignment given in a college-level expository writing class. The requirement was to read or watch some media offering – newspaper, magazine, TV, etc. – over the weekend and write a commentary or a review to be handed in for a grade at the next class. It is presented with a few minor edits to the original.  I chose to watch the Super Bowl on TV.

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Football Mania

To give this commentary a fair kick-off, I confess, even in the face of its powerful popularity, I detest football. I realize such a statement approaches something like sacrilege and puts me in a position that is not only unpopular, but nearly indefensible among most of the people I know. Some of my disparaging remarks will easily expose my ignorance of this revered “sport” but I’ll tackle my commentary from an offensive rather than a defensive position.

My impressions of football are offered from an admittedly biased perspective as I watch it enacted on the  monocled box I so rarely sit before. I only subject myself to this inactivity from time to time to participate in my children’s TV viewing preferences. Apparently, this is a particularly important weekend game they have looked forward to called Super Bowl XVI; they are rooting for a team called the 49ers.

As I understand it, football is a “game” involving two teams and one pointy-shaped thing called a football (isn't a ball supposed to be round?) fashioned out of the skin of some poor little pig.  This “pigskin,” as it is often called, is passed around and abused by all the team players on a huge grassy field with a bunch of white lines drawn on it and structures called goal posts at each end.

First, we see the two teams distinguished by different-colored uniforms come out on the grassy field, each player named and numbered on the back of his massively padded shoulders; heads jailed in helmets; some eyes blackened underneath; and hands, legs, and feet take on miniature proportions. If I described a circus clown in detail, he could not look more preposterous than these guys.

However, I try to adjust my demeanor to match the seriousness, the unaccountable fervor and fiendish expectancy I sense in the spectators packed around the arena. Excuse me; it’s a field. My mind often works in metaphor – in this case flashing me scenes of ancient Rome.

There is one thing that occurs on this field of “play” that does impress me. It is when each team briefly huddles together in some secret capacity after which the players position themselves in a predetermined and impressively organized formation, one team facing the other just inches apart. I feel as though I’m about to witness a beautifully staged demonstration of civil gamesmanship. Two players break away from their end positions and in perfectly choreographed synchrony, seemingly in slow motion, begin to run behind their teammates toward the opposite end of their formations.

I am mesmerized.

But my positive impressions end abruptly when this lilting illusion shatters with startling force. The two slow-motion runners along with all the other players suddenly explode into barbaric physical assaults on one another. The ensuing chaos is indecipherable.

Then I notice one player skittishly backing away from his onrushing antagonists, nervously hoisting that pointy ball in one hand, looking desperate to get rid of it. I sense that if he doesn’t do it quickly, he faces annihilation. Just before his attackers reach him, however, he hurls it toward some unseen rescuer across the field which turns the attackers to this new direction.

The camera shows a guy catching the ball but, rather than attempt to get rid of it as sensibly as his teammate, he tucks it under his arm, lowers his head, and actually tries to bulldoze his way through the attackers! It’s obvious he’ll never make it. My immediate reaction is, “You damn fool!” And sure enough, he is savagely tackled, crashing hard to the ground. As if that is not enough punishment for trying to rescue and protect that little ball, the poor guy is crushed by as many as five or six other attackers forcibly throwing themselves on top of him while he’s still down, still clutching that ball. I wince in disgust, not understanding the need for such brutality.

In the meantime, an insane hysteria fastens itself on all the spectators evidenced by the screaming, cursing, or cheering, depending on who “got it.” All this and much more is reenacted over and over again before the game ends. It’s so confusing, I can’t keep up with it; but I hesitate to query my kids fearing I’ll cause them to miss some exciting turn of events while trying to explain it to me.

So I just keep asking myself, “What is the point? Why do people like watching this physical brutality? What need does it satisfy? How do they relate to this bizarre violence?” My mind just can’t help thinking of those ancient Roman gladiators who most delighted their spectators by causing as much blood and gore and physical mutilation as they could.

I can only conclude that somehow the technical progress and civilization of humanity have not overcome some of our baser instincts and mental processes. Acts of violence continue to prevail all over the world, let alone practicing it, perfecting it, and glorifying it for what: entertainment? If the point of this game is to get the ball over a goal post, why do the rules require doing it with such brutality?


And yet, I guess that’s precisely why people love it so. If they have this need to vicariously experience physically aggressive acts, then maybe it’s an acceptable way to meet that need and perhaps defuse it. After all, unlike early Roman times, it is a matter of choice. Football players do choose to go out there and take part in this organized violence we call sport and entertainment.   And even if it is an unpopular choice for me, I can decide to pass on it.