Football needs to go: more examples

Here's a headline of note. It's from "Bring Me The News." It reads "Brainerd football player hospitalized after suffering serious head injury." 

It's not like we haven't been warned about how this risk hovers for all football players. Anyone who pays attention to the news knows. And yet, we find it hard to give up our grip on this game, or how it grips us. It's fun to watch. The big-time football creates sort of an addiction. I have been through it and then withdrawn from it. 

On the day of the 2022 Super Bowl, I went to check my Yahoo email and found a link to watch the Super Bowl live on my laptop screen. With full-screen feature if I chose. Only out of curiosity did I check this out for a couple minutes. There it was, just as if I were watching on TV. I no longer get TV. 

After satisfying my curiosity, I had no interest in watching any longer. My addiction had been beaten. I want to assure you all: it can be done. 

So next to the headline about the Brainerd boy is a photo of him. There he is in his blue jersey with the number 21 on it. Such pride these young men have in their football. Such pride the parents, fans and community take in this ritualistic activity. Gives us so much to talk about, right? But we are only observers. It is a completely different proposition to be down on the field playing this dangerous game. 

I have a theory now: all this emphasis on "heads-up tackling" and more contact-free practices may be counterproductive. In that, the kids lose their sharpness in execution of the game's skills, perhaps making them vulnerable when they are actually called upon to make the old-fashioned heavy-hitting play. And when the chips are down in a game, wouldn't you expect the standard instincts to take over for these young men? 

It's ridiculous how we continue putting up with this activity for young people. But we knew all this as much as ten years ago. Yes, change can be slow, glacial. But I got over watching football and engaging in the weekly chatter about football. It can be done. 

The Minnesota High School League has come close to approving boys volleyball as an officially sanctioned activity. Once approved, look for football to maybe take a nosedive. We can pray for that. 

Previous to the Brainerd player incident, there was another in the Twin Cities area. Perhaps y'all read about it. The affected player was a mere freshman. Why did he get involved in football? Peer pressure? Pressure from parents, school and community? Ethan Glynn, age 15, was paralyzed from the shoulders down after making "a routine tackle" during his first game of the season. He underwent surgery of more than seven hours on Friday, Sept. 2, to repair the "severe neck and spinal cord injury." 

We learn that the injury came during a "normal play." Heavens. How much more of a wake-up call do we all need? If this poor boy requires a lifetime of special care, what will be the $ cost of that be? The money has to come from somewhere. Of course we're not focused on cost, but my point is that this was avoidable. The young man was not engaged in some sort of inherently rewarding activity. He was just playing the 19th Century sport of football. 

Good God.

 

A better subject: music

Ah, school music! There's an activity with inherent rewards. I'm certain that for schools, keeping music prioritized can be a struggle. A certain core of kids will buy into it, and bless them. But on the whole, we don't see the glamor or peer approval as with sports. Let's call sports the 800-pound gorilla. 

Yours truly is in talks now to make a $ contribution that would provide a nice little embellishment to the band program. Those of us involved are trying to get on the same page for how to do it. Wanda wants my opinion, but at the same time I'm aware that anything that gets done in her program has to meet her approval 100 percent. A quandary? I hope not. 

I visited Wanda personally at the school yesterday (Tuesday). I hadn't been in the band room in years. It is so wonderfully decorated. I gather that the "culture" of the school makes this activity rather uphill at times. So we need to surmount this challenge. 

I recently wrote about how I had reached the 50-year milestone since I began my media activity on behalf of Tiger athletics. We were "MHS" at the start, then evolved to "MAHS." I have written several times how I'd like to see us go back to "MHS," Morris High School. It is understood that we take in students from a considerable radius. 

I believe high schools should be named for the town where the high school is located, as a convenience for everyone for making clear the location. Where is MACCRAY? BOLD? Those perverse names were coined back when small town politics counted for more than they do now. Man, I can tell you stories from times gone by, the awful pettiness of it all. 

We have moved forward. The "mom and pop" model for main street businesses has faded. More businesses have a "manager" and these businesses are part of area-wide ventures. The old owner or bank president with a parochial focus is gone. The "managers" just do their job. In some ways this is nice, but maybe we have lost something too. 

I remember when Cyrus High School phased out: a lot of pointless pettiness and contention. 

So I'm hoping to move forward with a gesture that provides a neat new wrinkle for MAHS music, specifically jazz band.

It was 50 years ago when I began media work on behalf of the Tigers, and it was also a half-century ago, in 1971-72, when I was on the roster of Minnesota All-State Band. I appreciate MHS setting me up for the opportunity to audition for all-state. It has always been a nice little feather in my cap. I have a souvenir record album from the experience. 

Thanks to Del Sarlette for recently photographing the album jacket. You'll see below, the front and back along with a close-up of where my name appears. Representing Morris! How about that? My director was John Woell, not as nice-looking as the current director.

 

- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com