I hope our leaders don’t screw up football too
I hadn’t thought about it until recently, but a “silly game” is probably more important than many people realize.
This story started out as an effort to list all the negative trends I see in college football, trends I think are going to end up hurting the popularity of my favorite sport.
I was going to expound on topics like Name Image and Likeness (NIL), the wave of athletes transferring, conference re-alignment, TV networks increasingly ruling (and probably harming) the sport, etc.
Per my bottom-line conclusion - and based on a dozen reasons - all of these converging changes will culminate with fewer colleges offering sports programs in the future and fewer kids wanting to play football.
Then I asked myself this question: So what?
Even if football does become less popular in the future, how or why does this matter in the big picture?
My answer is that the game of football is actually quite important to our country. Given this, we should probably reconsider any reforms that will end up harming the popularity of this sport.
I can hear readers now … This can’t happen to football
One might think there’s no way people in football-obsessed states could lose their passion for a sport that’s been popular for more than a century, but this can happen … over time.
Once upon a time, Major League Baseball was “America’s pastime.” Today, attendance and TV ratings for MLB are a tiny fraction of what they were four decades ago.
Today, more young children are playing youth soccer than football.
When I was 7, I knew the name of every starter on Alabama’s football team. Today, my seven-year-old son has yet to watch one Alabama football game.
When I was 10, every fall day after school a pick-up game of football was taking place in one of my neighborhood’s front yards. Today, when I drive around my town, I never see this.
The popularity of computer devices explains much of this, but so do other significant changes.
Add up all the “trends” I’ve identified and I see far fewer kids playing the game of football in the future - something which won’t be a good development for America.
The benefits of football far outweigh the risks …
Playing a sport like football can be dangerous. However, the benefits of the sport far outweigh the risks.
For example, football can foster toughness, cultivates leaders, promotes teamwork, exposes children to positive role models and requires physical fitness (weight lifting and running, which gets kids off the couch and away from those dad-blasted addictive devices).
Football also brings kids from different walks of life together and brings entire communities together. As Coach Paul “Bear” Bryant once famously said, “it’s hard to rally around a math class.”
Small towns (or even bigger towns with bigger schools) are often as strong as their school system is perceived.
And those towns and schools which have excellent sports programs provide more tangible and intangible benefits than schools with poor programs, where apathy and disinterest is the real scourge.
I’d argue that the most important person in many school system isn’t the superintendent or the principal, it’s the head football coach.
If this coach is a quality individual (which most are) … and he can get kids out for the team … and the student body and town take a great interest in the local team, everyone usually benefits.
The band program is often better if the football program is relevant. The school has better student leaders if the football players care about remaining in good standing with their coaches and teammates.
Show me a school where 2,000 fans travel 40 miles to Friday night’s away game and I’ll show you a school and town that’s doing something right.
Conversely, show me a school where only 100 people (pretty much only the parents) travel to an away game and I’ll show you a town or school that probably has major issues.
The conceited jock is a stereotype that’s always existed. These athletes certainly make up some rosters, but much more common is the school where the athletes are solid all-around students.
And if the kids are engaged in a worthwhile extracurricular activity that’s important to them, the parents are probably also taking a greater interest in the school as well.
As any coach or teacher will tell you, absent meaningful parental involvement, teaching becomes an almost impossible challenge.
In short, I think the United States of America benefitted from a sub-culture where football was a big deal at many schools and in many towns.
Colleges as well, although the college game is increasingly becoming unrecognizable compared to what it was several decades ago. Still, pulling for a beloved college team also allows positive bonds to be formed among people from all walks of life.
Some people impugn silly sports fans …
I’ve never understood why some people look down their noses at people who enjoy sports.
Speaking for myself, I’ve never belittled anyone who had a keen interest in, say, opera or classical music, cultural arts that generally bore me.
I’ve always thought sports are unscripted dramas where the talents of the top practitioners can provide redeeming entertainment.
As I view things, any extracurricular interest that engages people has the potential to inspire us and can leave us in awe of the talents and poise-under-pressure of our fellow human beings.
If nothing else, a healthy interest in our favorite sports teams gives people something to look forward to every weekend and takes our minds off other worries and sources of stress.
Americans need football to remain popular
For multiple reasons, football is the king of American sports. (Probably because more young boys can play this sport. At most schools, anybody who goes out for the team - and at least tries to get better - gets to be a part of the team).
So if the medium and long-term trends of this sport are heading in the wrong direction, this would be cause for concern, even for those who don’t know what a first down is.
I wouldn’t go so far as to call it a “causal relationship,” but I would note that America became the greatest country on the earth in the decades when high school and college football were extremely popular.
A plethora of society leaders grew up playing the game and just as many leaders who never made a tackle still took a great interest in their school’s or town’s teams.
For some, the violence associated with the sport is cited as a negative, but the toughness the sport requires perhaps provides its most redeeming feature.
If you played football through high school, you have probably surmounted significant physical and mental challenges. Not unlike Marine boot camp, if these challenges didn’t defeat you, you probably ended up possessing greater self confidence.
Today, “manly virtues” are not as fashionable as they once were. Some bolder critics have identified the “feminization” of males or modern society as an area of possible concern.
I agree. Traditional masculine rites of passage - where boys could tackle, sweat, cuss and bond in a locker room or on a hot practice field - made future achievements more likely for individuals and for society.
If future generations eschew football - if our “leaders” or societal trends dramatically reduce the popularity of this sport - America will not be as great in the future as it was in its past.
Football is just a game, but it’s our nation’s most important game. In a war, if one side’s soldiers grew up playing soccer and the other side’s grew up playing football, I’m betting that the nation of former football players will prevail.
We better hope that football remains a popular sport in America for centuries to come.
For a number of reasons, I don’t like the way the trends are heading. Like they do with just about everything else, our leaders’ efforts at “reforms” will probably make things worse.
My fear is that, just like they have in so many other areas, our enlightened leaders might screw up one of our country’s most important games as well.
The more I think about it, the silly game of football is more important to society than many people might realize.
NOTE: I discuss some of the trends I think will ultimately harm the popularity of college football in today’s Reader Comments.
In my state and many others, besides your faith, family and job, the topic that most people are most interested in is NOT digital currencies or Climate Change, the next presidential election or even a respiratory pandemic .... it's college football. Hands down.
It occurred to me that big changes are now engulfing this sport and that, as amazing as it seems to even me, college football might not be as popular in years or decades to come.
The "most important thing" could be screwed up ... so I took a stab at writing about this.
Now back to Covid topics!
Good piece.
There is, however, one country where football is fairly popular and has long roots (McGill University lays claim to having invented - or at least formalizing the rules of - football) outside the U.S. and that's Canada. The Canadian Football League is actually older than the NFL and the Grey Cup is the oldest trophy in North American pro sports.
Obviously, the game isn't a part of the cultural fabric as it is in the USA. The success of the NFL(and College football) is a phenomenon. In fact, it doesn't come close. The CFL has always lived a precarious existence. Hockey dominates here and lacrosse is the official national sport.
I'm generally fascinated with the history of sports here in North America and its 'Canadian-American' connections. For example, there was a lot of inter-collegiate play between universities from both countries.