It's officially football season. I count college football (Let's Go State!) on Saturdays as the real start, but as a Pennsylvania resident, Steeler's on Sunday is a way of life. Today though, I've had many mixed emotions about football in-particularly, they started with me being annoyed, then concerned, then back to loving the American game.
The Annoyance: I consider myself a fan of football. While die-hard is long from my repertoire, I tend to understand the game, know a lot of positions, and all in all can be entertained hours on end on Sundays watching. On the other side of things, I also have played sports competitively and I continue to coach. One thing I have always prided myself on, and the athletes I have played beside, and the athletes I have coached, is sportsmanship. Sportsmanship ranges over a variety of actions throughout a game, but the one that really irked me during the Steelers/Titan game was the players continually getting in each others faces talking “smack.” There is obviously a bit of tension between these two teams but really they're all adults. A good heated rivalry is great for sports and competition, but is it really necessary after every run to get in a guys face and say what, “I ran faster than you!!!” “I tackled you, what you gonna do now?!?” Any other comments are completely irrelevant to the game, and those comments make you look like an idiot because it's obvious you ran faster, knocked a guy down!! (*side note/disclaimer, I'm well aware that probably no professional athlete is making the comments I have listed!) As a player, coach, fan I think it's ten times more awesome when a player makes an amazing play, or even when they simply get the job done, and act like it was nothing. Simply walk away. And I could go into a whole other tangent if we discussed how yeah, its your job to tackle him, so do it and be quiet! I don’t know what you want to call me, but the game to me is so much more appealing, and the players get so much more respect, when they're the bigger man. My example player, and you can't even call me biased, just honest, is Troy Polamalu. He flew through the air today over the entire offensive line and sacked the quarterback. He got up and got ready for the next play.
That requires no smack talk.
The Concern: I was reading a column by Michael Rosenberg (SI) about the long-term impact of playing football. His column alone is a great read to really get you to step back and think about the sport America loves and how far until it's too much. But what really came to my attention was the New York Times article on the autopsy findings of Owen Thomas, a University of Pennsylvania football player who committed suicide this past spring. The entire article brings great concern to the fact that 1.) a college player already had the same trauma-induced brain disease that NFL players have been diagnosed; and 2.) the disease is linked to depression and impulse control, and this is a possibility it played a role in 21-year-old Thomas' suicide.
The Love: I'm a sap when I watch TV and movies. One show that gets me every time is Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. Don't worry, this is going back to football!! I hate when I miss the beginning of an episode because that's what makes you really appreciate what the crew is doing. But of course I missed it tonight. However, I caught enough of the episode for it to bring me back to loving football. Here's why. The Williams Family was the featured family. Without going into all of the details, the Dad of the family, Jeremy was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig disease (in short, muscles weaken and aren't nourished taking away those normal everyday functions). Jeremy coaches high school football and the field house is redone and named after him. Jeremy talks about how great it is, and how football isn't his life, but has made him who he is. He talks about the values that we hope and admire in sports. Hard work, responsibility, commitment, time-management, the list could go on. But this man dedicated his life to making these young men better people, not just better athletes.
Football is an American favorite. Weekends are dedicated to it. Millions spent on it. Like everything it has its good and bad and ugly. It's just determining how to weigh out each and decide if it's love or hate or if there is a way to be in the middle and not falsely elude ourselves and give credit to a game that might not be all its cracked up to be.
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