Time to speak out more about football

Maybe this idea makes too much sense: One (or better yet more than one) Morris Area school board member should make a public comment about how it is no longer wise for the school to sponsor the sport of football.
You know my logic here. You probably shake your head because of this assumption that football is a normalized part of American life. Frankly it's popular because of all the people watching it. We watch from our couches, munching on potato chips. So we feel none of the pain. The players most surely feel it.
At the youth or high school level, the boys feel encouraged to play because of the cheers showering down on them. In what other activity can these boys, many of them with typical insecurities for that age, get such resounding positive feedback?
I once fed the monster myself. Writing for the Morris newspaper, I regularly bestowed lavish attention on the sport of football. Each game was an "event." Fans would crowd our now-defunct Coombe field, named for a guy I had as a teacher in the seventh grade. He liked to refer to himself in the third person. The facility was totally acceptable for football. Each game was just as much a "town square" as it was a sport venue. Remember the idle socializing all over the place? Seriously, it sometimes seemed the game was secondary.
I learned the "town square" term from Lory Lemke. He noted that the phenomenon would fade away when the facility was replaced. It was replaced by something I would call an unfortunate shrine to the sport of football. Is Big Cat Stadium "nice?" Well of course it's nice. It would have been nicer if we'd had a benefactor like Ralph Englestad for UND. Englestad was the guy who got in trouble for celebrating Hitler's birthday in Nevada. He worshiped the sport of hockey which has its own substantial dangers just like football.
We must now seriously consider: What are we doing to the mindset of boys when we suggest that sports be so high-profile? As if sports should be the defining experience in the lives of so many of our youth. The newspaper in Willmar comes out with a sports section every day (now just five days a week due to retrenchment) with the predictable stock-type photos of certain kids doing their sports thing. It is "certain kids" because many other kids who lack the talent, physical attributes or interest do not get involved. Why is the non-sports segment left to be so anonymous by comparison? Is this something the non-sports kids passively accept? Or is there some resentment bubbling? Perhaps there is resentment but they see it as futile to express themselves about it. So they shrug and say "that's just life in America."
We used to shrug about people smoking cigarettes in public places. These things can change. Too many people wait to comment until the political landscape changes to make it seem OK.
 
Heartening signs
Regarding football, the landscape appears to be finally shifting. In the past we'd read of an outlier somewhere, always just one person on a board, making skeptical comments about football. Such comments might get widespread media attention because of their novelty. I still remember the name of a school board member in the Eastern U.S. several years ago: Patty Sexton. I quoted her in a post.
At present we are seeing the increased likelihood of more than one member of a particular board speaking up. With this trend, the public will be forced to take the comments more seriously. Unfortunately we are still a ways away from the skepticism really taking hold. Perhaps many of our education leaders are holding back as they harbor the proper thoughts, yes, but they're waiting to make sure it's OK to speak out. What a joy it would be to have a Morris Area school board member make such a comment.
Are there any UMM-connected people on the Morris board? I have lost touch. People in academia are supposed to have sharp judgment about such things. If any of you guys have inhibitions, please discard them. Please don't offend us by suggesting that you believe the spin of pro-football people who talk about "making safer helmets" and "concussion protocol." Please.
We are seeing cracks in the dike at the University of Colorado. December saw the school hire a new football coach. This individual made the tired old comments about how "tough" his team would play. Hard-hitting, yes. We ought to cringe. I remember writing an article about an MHS season opener which I described as "rough and tumble." I remember interviewing coach Jerry Witt many times where he might describe an upcoming opponent as playing "smash-mouth football." Jerry and I would not conduct ourselves that way now, I'm quite sure. We'd have to soft-pedal the violent stuff.
Football can never be made non-violent. You might note that other sports have risks, with hockey seeming high on the list. The problem with football is that violence is the whole point. Colorado's football program has a background of former players who killed themselves. Other former players have documented, serious problems with the after-effects of football. They are human beings. Do we no longer care about them after they're done dancing around on our TV screens playing football?
Not one but two Colorado university regents decided to be dissenters. The new coach's blunt talk about the asset of "hard hitting" in football fed the skepticism. The coaches are so slow to learn. They are paid to win. Football has defined them for a long time. It becomes learned behavior for these souls to preach football's religion.
People who watch football on TV are too quick to just shrug and go along with it, while they point fingers at skeptics like me as being sticks in the mud. I have totally overcome any desire to watch football any more. I'm not just saying that. It did take some time. My current cable TV package does not even include the Big 10 Network.
The two skeptics at Colorado did not win in the end. But a salvo had definitely been fired.
The pro leagues fight the enlightenment with a strategy just like the tobacco companies. It is a $14 billion industry. Our universities and public high schools simply must do better. In this sphere, morality and science are supposed to matter.
We cannot expect the boys and young men to take appropriate action themselves, and that is partly because of the "invulnerability of youth" syndrome.
At age 64 I think more and more about my limitations and frailties. I am in position to be most thankful that I never had the talent or interest in playing football. But why should I be blessed just because of that?
Sports for kids was developed long ago, I would argue, as a means to keep kids out of trouble, to combat boredom. An idle mind is the devil's workshop I guess, but today in the digital age, I don't think boredom is nearly the kind of issue it once was. It would seem boredom has been obliterated.
The feminine gender is blessed by not being exposed to playing football at all. Why should one gender be so blessed? Why are boys and young men made to suffer? It is quite simply unconscionable.
How exhilarating it would be to see a Morris Area school board member make a high-profile comment about this - be assertive and don't worry about blowback. You would be surprised how many people would feel heartened.
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com