From Super Bowl to Roller Ball

I was there for Bo Jackson’s last football game. During his last play with the Raiders, the Bengal’s Kevin Walker got a hand on him and brought him down, no small feat considering that in his prime, Bo was perhaps the greatest athlete in the world, a marvel to behold. And yet that simple play was the end of not just one, but two careers. He was also a great baseball player. He continued to play baseball for a short time but he was never the same again.
The 2009 Super Bowl is over and I confess to being of two minds on the event. In one respect it is a year’s worth of competition to decide the best team in football. It is also a dangerous, demeaning activity that sacrifices many bodies purely for the purpose of entertainment. We look back at history when the gladiators were popular and judge it to be barbaric. Likely in the future, people will look back at this period and consider football to be barbaric as well.
That being said, I still find myself caught up with the NFL and getting involved a bit too far. There are indeed great athletes with great skill and so the games can be great to watch. Football is a bit like a mini war, with the owner as president and coaches as generals, trying to outmaneuver, overpower and in general, trick the other side. The goal is to invade territory. The problem is the emotional and physical cost of what is essentially entertainment. Football is called a contact sport but during an interview, Mike Ditka, a member of the NFl Hall of Fame called it a collision sport, a big distinction. Hall of Fame player Howie Long from the Oakland Raiders said that after one play in the NFL, your body will never be the same.
It’s not all bad. Many are getting rich from the NFL but at what cost to the players? The average career of an NFL player is 3 years. These players will then go on to walk, talk and sleep in pain for the rest of their lives. They will have trouble getting medical treatment for injuries that last a lifetime. This is no call to put the NFL out of business. There seems to be a deep need for people to witness some sort of intensity, usually in the form of violence, and the NFL is indeed violent. Some would argue that it is a safe and vicarious way to experience dangerous situations, a therapeutic experience for people. For full disclosure, I will confess to going to a heavyweight boxing match and it was captivating. Not from the place of the mind or the heart, but the gut. Very primal. Football gives a similar reaction. Needless to say the goal of boxing goes several steps beyond the NFL. It is no longer collision, but submission.
The latest in popular sports are Ultimate Fighting and Mixed Martial Arts. These sports are one sword short of the gladiators. And once again, some people are getting rich, some are going broke and many are getting injured. How long will this latest group of sports remain popular? Is it a fad, or just more bad taste? Perhaps this recent descent is just a swing of the pendulum. It will probably get worse, a lot worse before we see a sense of humanity creep back in and people come to their senses.
In the meantime, I watched the big game. There were some great plays, extreme emotions and the ultimate display of physical talent. There were also some questionable collisions, and some injuries. Most players will go on to play the game and live in pain for the rest of their lives. I’ll be sitting on the couch eating popcorn while it all goes down.

Thank You
Ron Brown