The NY Times Posts the Worst Anti-Football OpEd Ever Written

NY Times – To the partisan battles of red and blue America, we can apparently add another culture clash: football. Yes, the N.F.L. remains widely popular, despite its annus horribilis… Yet for all its popularity, the ground is shifting. As David Leonhardt writes for The Upshot at The New York Times, “Blue America — particularly the highly educated Democratic-leaning areas of major metropolitan areas — is increasingly deciding that it doesn’t want its sons playing football.” He cites a poll conducted by the RAND Corporation for The Upshot: “Nationwide, only 55 percent of respondents said they would be comfortable with their sons playing football. The numbers for baseball, basketball, soccer and track were all above 90 percent.” The ostensibly “liberal” view holds that football — especially at the professional level — poses risks both to players’ health and to American society at large. At The Los Angeles Times, Steve Almond, author of the book “Against Football,” criticizes “the cynical commercialization of the sport, its cultish celebration of violence and the more subtle ways in which football warps our societal attitudes about race, gender and sexual orientation.” Its culture is also, Louisa Thomas argues at Grantland, toxic for many women: “I can see that within the culture of football, as a woman, I’m not respected. The women I see are cheerleaders, sideline reporters, WAGs. I hear men talk, and I know that when they use the word ‘girl,’ it’s shorthand for something weak.” And Charles P. Pierce, also at Grantland sees a “moral chaos in the game’s essential culture that may very well be unredeemable.”

I’m going to ignore that part about the horrible anuses and the “liberal” stuff and go right to the heart of the matter.  To steal a phrase from “Patton,” the bilious bastards who wrote this crap don’t know anything more about real football than they do about fornicating.  If any of them had ever been within 20 yards of the parking lot of a youth football practice, they’d know that 99% of kids who sign up love it.   Every part of it.  From the practices to the games, from the first cals of camp to the final ticks of the clock in the Super Bowl.  All of it.  The whole “cultish celebration.”  Especially the part these pearl-clutching elitist dopes call “violence” but the rest of us call “hitting.”  Show me a kid on a youth football team and I’ll show you someone who can’t wait for the coach to stop yammering on about 3-point stances and start a hitting drill already.  And they don’t give a tuppenny damn about the cynical commercialization of the NFL or societal attitudes about race, gender and sexual orientation.

Guess what: Some guys are built for football, some aren’t.  Some kids don’t want to play, and that’s fine.  It’s still a free country.  Though it probably won’t be for long if the NY Times Op Ed page gets its way.  But why take it away from the kids for whom it’s a great part of their lives?  Because Louisa Thompson doesn’t feel like she’s a part of it?  Or because of the alleged danger?  I’ve had more players get hurt on the playground at recess than in football games.  And have you actually seen the “culture” of your average playground?  It’s like Lord of Flies at those things.  A male dominated society where only the strong survive.

But you know what the culture of football is?  It’s about being part of a team.  In a way no other sport even comes close to.  It’s about pulling for the guy next to you and everyone working together.  Show me any other sport where a kid plays his whole life knowing he’ll never get to touch the ball or make a tackle but he plays anyway because he knows the satisfaction of throwing the block that springs some other kid for a touchdown.  Or that gives the less athletic, slower fatter kid the chance to be a hero because he’s got the toughness to stick his nose in and make a tackle.  I grant these hysterical ninnies that it’s not for every kid.  My at 9 years old, my younger son was the smallest kid on his team, getting his ass kicked and was probably a couple of practices away from quitting.  But he figured out how it hurts less to dish out a hit than to absorb one, the light came on for him and it became the most fun thing he ever did.  Most importantly, he was part of a team.  A group of kids he got to share that common bond with.  That might be upsetting to chicks who write for Grantland or Charles Pierce, but putting my sons into football was the best thing I’ve ever done for them.  And if I had a polygamy cult worth of sons, I’d encourage them all to play.

I’ve used this quote before in a similar context, and I’ll use it again here.  “Of all games, I like football best.  And would rather see my boys play it than see them play any other.  I have no patience for those who claim against it because it necessitates rough play and occasional injuries.  It is a good thing to have the personal contact about which the New York Evening Post snarls so much.  I would hundredfold rather keep the game as it is now – with the brutality – than give it up.”  I’m sure the NY Times wouldn’t endorse Teddy Roosevelt if he was around today, but I’d want him to be President for Life just for this gem.  Pray for football.  @JerryThornton1