Honestly, I couldn't have planned this so well if I'd tried, believe me.
A few days ago I picked up Steve Almond's new book Against Football. I had to order it. Strangely enough, neither the big-box bookstore nor the "local" bookstore were carrying it as football season opened. I can't imagine why.
It had to wait until after a couple of writing obligations (including yesterday morning's sermon), but last night I finally settled down with it. The first thing I can report is that it's quite brief, only 178 pages. It is not a lifetime commitment to read the book.
Second, it is not a dense, evidentiary argument in the manner of League of Denial. It is probably best described by its full title: Against Football: One Fan's Reluctant Manifesto.
By his own description, Almond is a rather pathetic sort about his football. A former journalist turned author, Almond did a little sports commentary in his day. That's not the substance of his book, although it does inform his pointed deconstruction of the role football talking heads play in the rationalization and justification of the game's routine brutality. No, his viewpoint is strictly as a fan, particularly of the Oakland Raiders (adding a different level to the term "pathetic" applied earlier). The opening chapters of the book establish Almond's bona fides as a fan, from his highly subjective review of the history of the sport's place in American culture. While quite hyperbole-ridden in its estimation of football's hold on the culture before the 1960s (which does seem to mark the rise of the NFL in particular), he is quite perceptive on its courting of television, corporate culture in general, and even the military.
He touches on the Michael Sam issue, although at the time he was writing Sam had only barely been drafted. He also goes as far as to suggest that the pervasiveness of football subconsciously encourages a tolerance of greater violence in society, and this is without any reference to Ray Rice at all. The New Orleans Saints bounty scandal shows up, too, mostly to point out that in the culture of the game, the only "scandal" about it was the fact that it laid bare the stuff the NFL doesn't want you thinking about. (You don't really think the Saints were the only team guilty of such a thing, do you?) There is of course much to say about concussions and CTE and their continuing march through the ranks of retired players, not to mention former college and high school players as well. The implicit racism of a whole bunch of white guys running a league with about 70% black players is not ignored (not to mention such unseemly spectacles as the scouting combine and its creepy evocation of the old-fashioned slave market). The obscenity of stadium-building and subsidizing gazillionaires with public funding of such stadiums is also skewered with righteous indignation, as well as the subversion of academics to football on the college level. In short, this is not a one-issue rant; Almond is accusing the total culture of football in America and laying the blame at the feet of those most responsible: fans, like himself. He reserves his hardest criticism for those who see the corruption inseparably woven into the business of football, on all levels, and can identify it as such, but who are unwilling to back up their words with actions. Bill Simmons, Chuck Klosterman, even President Obama fall into this category, along with Almond himself.
This is potentially where this blog entry gets offensive, and where I fully expect to lose some friends if anybody reads this.
Here's the deal: there is no more pretending that this doesn't apply to you, football fan who claims any kind of moral center. Especially you preachers and preacher wannabes out there.
Did you get outraged at the Ray Rice news today? Goody for you. But if you're still devoting your entire Saturday/Sunday to consuming as much football as you can, you're still complicit. Condemning an obvious monster is not enough to let you off the hook for supporting the less obvious monsters who run or participate in the game in some way. The mind-blowing greed of league and ownership, the crippling effects of the game on the bodies and minds of its participants, the mockery of higher education (and even high school education in many cases), the homophobia, bullying (did I mention Richie Incognito shows up too?), and general thuggishness of the insidious Real Man Sport culture, the anesthetizing effect of the game on our own tolerance for violence ... that's on you.
The book is ultimately a gauntlet thrown down on American culture. Not that American culture is going to go along with it, mind you. As I noted before, bookstores are not going out of their way to promote the book or even acknowledge its existence. Somehow I don't see ESPN (or any media with even a token financial interest in football) granting Almond an interview.
Merely acknowledging issues isn't enough, any more than it's sufficient to be outraged at the abuses in Ferguson without doing anything about the implicit racism in your own community, or to get all outraged about Ray Rice's assault on his fiancee without standing against domestic violence among your own congregation. I've seen plenty of you on social media demanding an end to rape culture, or institutional racism, among other things. Continuing to tolerate the monstrosity that football has become in American culture makes your words ring hollow. There, I said it. It's one of the biggest enablers of what you say you despise. What are you going to do about it?
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