We now have high school football on Friday night, college football on Saturday and pro football on Sunday, Sunday night, Monday night and Thursday night. It’s nice of the sport to give us a break on Tuesday and Wednesday. I used to begin a Sport Sociology class with this thought: If Aliens are indeed visiting and observing Earth on a Saturday or Sunday, they will see many stadiums filled with 80-100,000 screaming fans. They must conclude that whatever is going on down there is clearly of great importance to these strange earthlings.
American football is badly misnamed. The number of times that a foot actually touches a football in a game is minuscule compared to other human body parts. Americans are also notoriously known for exaggeration. We have the World Series. It is not. We have the Miss Universe Pageant, and it is not. So, we should not be surprised by the miss-naming of football.
Remember the days when you actually had to get into the end zone to score a touchdown? Today, the nose of the football simply has to break the plane of the goal line. Old-fashioned? Yes, but I miss the days when you had to, physically, be in the end zone and touch the ball to the ground, ergo “touchdown.” To be fair, this was before my time, but I think it is still a worthy goal.
Kickers are now allowed to use their own personal ball when they kick off, now confined to half court, or attempt a field goal or point after. These balls have been “worked on” by team managers to fit the preferences of the kickers. They have been softened, harshly brushed and scuffed, just as a pitcher prefers a baseball. Quarterbacks have had this luxury for decades. Remember the 2015 “Deflategate” when Tom Brady and the New England Patriots used underinflated footballs in the AFC Championship Game? An NFL investigation found that 11 of the 12 balls used by the Patriots were underinflated, likely making them easier to grip. The penalties were a four-game suspension for Brady, a $1 million fine for the Patriots and the loss of two draft picks. Think of this personal preference for a particular kind of or feel of a football as your own personal relationship with your baseball glove. It needs to be formed, softened and molded to the way you prefer it.
Quarterbacks, who don’t really get hit anymore, also have cheat sheets on their arms now, earphones in their helmets and computer tablets on the sideline. Are we not overprotecting QBs enough already?
Receivers are making some amazing acrobatic catches these days. They are incredible athletes to watch. They certainly practice catching with one hand, which would have been considered showboating in my day. However, they also benefit from wearing gloves with sticky fly paper. In my day, when we walked to school uphill both ways in a snowstorm, a player wearing gloves would have been considered a pansy. Let’s allow Velcro on the balls and gloves and eliminate the skill of making difficult catches with your bare hands.
Further evidence of the decline of American football: The Tush Push. Now there’s an exciting play. In addition to which, there is no way an official can determine whether the ball carrier scored, let alone is alive. When I coached high school football in the 1970s and ’80s, discipline and play execution began with a meticulously organized huddle. Huddles today look like a bunch of guys on a street corner getting ready to sing.
Columnist George Will nailed it when he said: “Football combines the worst of American society – Violence punctuated by committee meetings.”
OK, but ..... Go Broncos!
Jim Cross is a retired Fort Lewis College professor and basketball coach living in Durango. Reach him at cross_j@fortlewis.edu.
