Monday, December 01, 2014

Against Football? I'm Not

One thing I like about the Portland area is that there’s usually something interesting happening on any given day or night. Last weekend I attended a book promotion at Longfellow Books by author Steve Almond who published “Against Football.” I’m not against it. I love football and plan my weekends around Patriots’ games, but I wanted to hear the writer make his case.

When I go to these things, I’m closeted. Nobody knows me down there and I don’t ask questions which may hint that my thinking is diametrically opposed to almost everything being said. Sometimes I feel like an anthropologist observing another species of hominid in its natural habitat, the very progressive City of Portland, Maine.

Almond
A woman introduced Almond saying he wrote for Salon and Slate as well as several other leftist web sites and publications and they met at a writers’ workshop on the coast. He was dressed in jeans, collarless pullover, and organic-looking shoes. He had a slight build and didn’t look like he had ever played football. He looked like Obama’s “Pajama Boy” without the glasses. Nonetheless, I tried hard to keep my mind open in case he had a case to make. The woman wore tight pants, high leather boots, and a vest-like thing with a Patriots logo over a collarless pullover with extra-long sleeves that covered half her hands leaving only fingers visible. She moved them extensively when talking and claimed to be an avid fan. I thought she asked him too many questions, leaving little time for the audience to ask some.
He claimed he was a fan (which I doubted) and had a hard time weaning himself, but watching football had become a moral quandary. He said it was the concussion thing mostly — that football players had shorter lifespans and were more likely to suffer dementia. He claimed players, mostly black, were exploited by billionaire owners. Watching games would only funnel more money into their pockets. Players were highly paid, but their careers were short.
He said he couldn’t watch men from poor backgrounds sacrifice their bodies for his enjoyment. He said football was “militaristic,” after which I expected he’d say they were dressed in uniforms and took strategic orders from their superiors to knock down men in opposing uniforms - or something like that - but he didn’t. He said football was militaristic because it was like watching soldiers suffering in battle while he was safe and warm in his house, which made him feel guilty. That confused me. Did he feel guilty because he could be safe and warm in his house only because soldiers were willing to suffer in battle? He didn’t elaborate but I was left with the feeling that he just disapproved of the military in general.

He disliked football’s “medieval gender roles” too, and worried his daughters would see muscular men and cheerleaders as sex-role models. He said football was “heteronormative” as if that were something to disdain. It’s a made-up word to slander those of us who think heterosexuality is normal. It’s repeated often on college campuses where people major in “Queer Studies”; “Gender Studies”; “Women’s Studies”; “Whiteness Studies” and such things.

He insisted Richie Incognito bullied fellow Miami Dolphin offensive lineman Jonathan Martin because he was repressing his latent homoerotic attraction to Martin. That analysis seemed so off the mark to me that I looked it up when I got home. Looks like he got it from Keith Olbermann, a hard-left sportscaster who suggested it on ESPN.
He believes the NFL is “completely morally corrupt,” is “racially perverse” and “incredibly classist,” whatever that means. He said, “Football has militarized us” but I didn’t hear a coherent explanation for what he meant by that either. He sees football as an “engine of nihilistic greed” and he’d like “public ownership of teams.” Wouldn’t that be wonderful? Government running the NFL? Look what it’s doing to health care. Government-run schools banned dodge ball in gym class and tag at recess. Just think what it would do to football.
NFL team owners tend to be politically conservative, with most donating to Republicans, but not all. Robert Kraft, for example, donates to Obama. Many players and coaches are conservative Christians as well. None of this was mentioned by Almond in his presentation, but I have to think they were factors in his contempt for the game. Perhaps he goes into these aspects of football in his book, but I won’t be reading it. He said enough in Portland to convince me that would be a waste of my time.

6 comments:

Unknown said...

So did he always get picked last? Had to play center. Wanted to be an end but couldn't catch? Sounds like it to me. Again, I agree that sometimes the people who want to celebrate diversity are so ready to see everything not like them as evil and destructive. I do believe that football is diverse. I has blacks and whites, straights and gays, and even some females have been given try outs. And I do believe that there were militaries and militarism before football. Oh, and the first step to a militaristic society is conformity of thought. Ask a drill sergeant.

Alex said...

He sounds like a pretty lousy advocate of some ideas I actually think have some merit. However, having learned the devastating consequences of traumatic brain injuries (and witnessed several TBIs from the stands at my university), there should certainly be a focus on developing better head and spine protection for players. Hopefully these developments can come from technology rather than rule changes. Because seeing players literally leap over defensemen is too cool. I'd just hate to see someone's life destroyed by a kick to the face during it.

Troy said...

Name six players currently in the nfl.
Name three current college players.
What conference does the univeristy of maine play in?

Football fan? Haha...Please.....

Tom McLaughlin said...

I have to pass a test to be a fan? Are you from the government?

Troy said...

No, I'm from the integrity police.
And the military industrial complex heavily influences the nfl. Ever watch an nfl game? How many commercials did you see for joining the army, navy air force or marines?
Th wear camo uniforms on/near Veterans Day. The color gaurd often accompanies the national anthem. And the Super Bowl halftime show? A huge military industrial complex produced "show".
And the public already owns a team. And it works rather well. Has for a long time. The citizens of Green Bay collectively own the packers. But you already knew that being such a football fan. And public is not synonymous with government.

Anonymous said...

"No, I'm from the integrity police."
Say the secret password, and describe the secret handshake, otherwise.....

CaptDMO