No, I am not a contrarian, but I am leaning into a hurricane strength wind with my suggestion that tackle football be banned in K-12 school systems, yes even in Texas. You should see the tight-lipped, wide-eyed looks I get when I blurt out that proposition. My standing among, well, nearly everyone, plummets to persona non grata. Might as well be a Buddhist at a Baptist tent revival. So be it. I don’t care. Banning America’s favorite blood sport would raise eyebrows, as well as people’s distain for the troublemakers who urged the foolish game be shuttered. But that’s my proposition: ban the game for America’s youth because it is a pernicious sport. Its chief attraction is violence—"rock’em, sock’em, go team go”—which popcorn-munching, soda-sipping spectators love. The game is a territorial struggle, an internecine war, and a metaphor for how to succeed. On a college and professional level, it has one purpose and only one purpose: to make money. Lots of money. Billions of dollars. That’s why the game is irreplaceable to the team owners and television executives, not to mention the thousands of businesses that feed off college and NFL football frenzy. On a K-12 level, tackle football offers recognition and a threshold to the competitive adult world, a chance to be a winner.
Sadly, football culture often teaches Vince Lombardi’s bunkum manifesto: “Show me a good loser, and I’ll show you a loser.” Really, Vince? And, if that is not bad enough, “Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing.” Boy, Vince, that sort of talk might find a welcome audience at a salespersons’ convention, but it is specious advice in other contexts, especially given to young people facing choices that will determine their futures. In my view, what’s important is not so much treating everything in life as a win-lose contest, a binary outcome. Of the nearly 33,000 participants in this year’s New York City Marathon only a couple of runners were winners. Are we to believe that the remainder are losers and should be ashamed of themselves? Should we admire a poor loser? You know the guy who whines and claims the fix was on, the loser who refuses to accept losing. Remember Woody Hayes striking a Clemson player on the sidelines, a foolish moment of anger that cost the legendary coach his job and reputation? All because he was feeling a huge surge of being a loser. Nothing to admire there, is there? I don’t admire poor loser Trump for buying a lifetime subscription to Lombardi’s junk philosophy via Norman Vincent Peale’s cult distortion of Christianity. Beyond teaching the art of being a bad sport, too many football coaches espouse that don’t-be-a-sissy locker room talk, be-a-man-and-shake-it-off entreaty, which finally adds nothing to a young person’s character but long-term aches and pains, chronic even lethal health issues.
When our local high school hosts a Friday night football game, the event draws the Steilacoom community together: parents, neighbors, pep band, cheer squad, teachers, school board members, local police, business owners, Rotary folks, and a few casual supporters who have nothing better to do before the weekend sets in. Over the years, I have served as a spotter and assistant for the stadium P.A. announcer, an old friend, so he could get an accurate account of the names and numbers of the players as they crashed into each other. Whether the home team wins or loses, the evening usually proves diverting, a welcome break from the weekday grind.
Well, not always. There is that ambulance parked at the end of the field. Too often, play will stop so an injured player can receive medical care, and then we hold our collective breath as the trainers and EMTs huddle around the fallen youngster. After years of watching young people suffer injuries, some life-changing, my taste for football has soured. Face it. Tackle football is injurious. It can be lethal. A common scene: a player is down and being attended by a huddle of trainers and medical people. Then forming a wide circle around the injured player, all the other players taking a knee, some praying, others looking blankly off into space. Even though tackle football is the reigning king of the American sports world, it should not be part of K-12 sports programs. Moreover, college and NFL game rules should be altered in a way to save players’ from devasting brain injuries. Dr. Ann McKee, a neuropathologist at the Boston University School of Medicine, studied the brains of 202 American football players. Through autopsies, she and her colleagues found that, of the 111 brains belonging to players in the National Football League, 110 of them showed CTE — more than 99 percent.[1]
Yes, I know, if encouraged by parents, kids will play football and learn valuable lessons in teamwork, friendship, and discipline. But let’s face it, those lessons can be a part of many other sports. Given good coaching, tackle football for young people may offer valuable lessons, but more and more, parents are opting out of youth tackle football programs for their children because known risks eclipse presumed benefits.
Jon Gruden’s recent departure as a football coach encapsulates the malaise of NFL football. He knew his Xs and Os all right but brought an ugly old school brand of racist tropes, anti-gay affronts, and hyperbolic smash-mouth football blather into his role as head coach. I’m sure he is not half as bad a person as the media have portrayed him (who hasn’t written regretful, off-the-cuff emails?), but his way of doing things is not the tonic professional football needs.
On a K-12 level, football needs to become close to a non-injurious sport. Flag football comes to mind. On a college level, tackle football needs to be greatly altered to protect players, and perhaps advances in safety gear may curb serious injuries. On a professional level, tackle football will continue to ruin lives until the day the captains of the industry realize that it must change radically or just fade away.
As is, the game dings players’ brains. Heads are not battering rams. During youth and adolescence when brains are developing, repeated knocks to the head mean trouble. On that conclusion, the experts agree.
[1] (Chan)