This blog entry won't be as enormous a linkfest as it can be, simply because the Post did my work for me. It will link you to Antwaan Randle El's regrets from last week and the infuriatingly sad story of Michael Keck. It offers up a number of other links, even one tying the brutality of football to the brutality of the Civil War.
And the editorial comes to a striking conclusion: football has to change.
Not that football has to go away.
Not that football has to be preserved at all costs.
But that football has to change.
It's a striking statement, beyond what has been offered by much of the mainstream media. But it's out there now where it can be safely ignored.
But from this viewpoint, and even within the confines of this blog, it strikes the right chord.
I find it most useful at this point to lay out three basic principles for consideration. They are hardly all-encompassing, but I hope that they offer a useful starting point for consideration in deciding how to approach football, in its current damaging state, and deciding whether to watch or not.
1. Any consideration of the Christian ethical concerns about watching football in the age of CTE, knowing the deleterious effects of repeated subconcussive blows, cannot begin with the unchallengeable premise that the game of football must be preserved or “saved.”
Football is not a necessity.
No sport is a necessity. Not football, not hockey, not soccer, not baseball, not lacrosse or boxing or basketball or any sport.
No sport can be labeled as indispensible in the formation of character. There is no game that cannot be corrupted and become as destructive to human character as it might be constructive.
To be frank, football has at least one major detriment to its character-forming qualities, as the most gender-exclusive sport out there. Baseball and softball aren't exactly the same, but at least the opportunity for a diamond sport exists for both genders. With extremely rare exceptions, football is pretty much an all-guy affair, with "girls" relegated to the sidelines in a supporting role. That is a character detriment right there.
There is nothing football (or any other sport) supplies that cannot be formed elsewhere. And maybe other pursuits might be better at forming character.
Football is not a necessity, and it is not a necessity that football be "saved."
1a. Furthermore, complaints about potential changes to the game of football – complaints about “turning the game into flag football” or other similar rants – cannot be a factor in a Christian ethical contemplation of football and brain trauma. Again, football is not a necessity, nor is it mandatory that it remain unchanged by this current controversy.
Here the reasoning is pretty simple: football has changed before, and not only survived but ultimately thrived. Remember the flying wedge, or forward passes being illegal? No, you don't, but those were the rules backintheday, before Teddy Roosevelt laid down the law. I don't think football has suffered for it.
There are, even now, some pretty basic changes that could do a great deal to reduce the amount of head contact in football. It's a little extreme to use language like "save pro football," and his second point still smacks of "waiting on science our savior," but is the three-point stance really that inextricable to the nature of football? And it's worth noting that baseball's economic status hasn't really been dimished by the requirement of guaranteed contracts in that sport (the kind of thing that fuels Antwaan Randle El's regrets very strongly these days).
Football has a pretty strong reserve of popularity to draw upon, even with the swirl of scandal and damage around it. The sport can withstand change, as the Post suggests.
1b. At the same time, any presumption that football must be eliminated or destroyed is also not a viable starting point for contemplation. The point of the discussion is not about football surviving or not surviving; the point is to work out a faithful response to what we now know about football and its destructive effects on a non-minimal number of those who play the game.
Guess what, folks? The Chris Contes of the world absolutely have the right to bash their brains to a useless, tangled pulp.
If he wants to end up in the condition of so many who have died ugly and premature deaths, that is his prerogative.
The goal of this contemplation is not to eliminate football. That would potentially be as unethical or even as unchristlike as continuing to fawn after the idol that is football.
The world is a deeply ugly place when Christians try to wield power over it. Wielding power is not our job. Our job is to bear witness.
And it is my contention, at this point, that the business of financial or other participation in the football industry is no longer compatible to that witness. So I don't participate, and I hope to have some influence on others. I'm not alone, but I have no illusions that it's a popular position I've staked out.
But banning football? Not going to happen, and not my place.
If football dies off because people quit watching or quit letting their children play, that's a different kettle of fish.
If football dies off because it becomes uninsurable, that's a different issue as well.
Boxing still exists, and we've known for decades that boxing does this to its participants. Football isn't going anywhere, and I have no doubt it will get along fine without me.
Chris Conte can kill himself if he so chooses, but he won't get my support in doing so.
NFL game? Why, yes, I will pass on that.
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