Our politics don't intersect at all, as far as I can see. Beyond that and separately, he's a little on the smug side (of course, some of you probably think I'm a bit on the smug side, at least on this subject), slightly oleangeous. It's not merely a matter of disagreeing, but of not finding much to enjoy even in the basics of writing style. It doesn't have the seductive readability of William F. Buckley or his like.
But there's always been one point of contact between us: baseball. Will is enough of a baseball fan to have devoted a book to the subject. My sports fandom isn't quite so narrowly focused, but baseball is still my first love. So, there's always been that.
Now Will has positioned himself among those who question the future of football. It's actually one of his less-pontificating columns, in fact. Will reviews the newly-broken stories of CTE diagnoses of Ken Stabler and Earl Morrall, and also mentions Jim McMahon and his publicly acknowledged struggles with headaches and other dementia-related difficulties (McMahon has been diagnosed with early-onset dementia, but those symptoms mirror those of persons posthumously diagnosed with CTE. The latter, of course, can only be diagnosed posthumously). From there Will pivots to wondering how long football's fans will be able to ignore these concerns and continue to consume the product on the field. In this case Will is probably more optimistic than I, although he does more or less expect to see Super Bowl C come to pass.
Will's column in the Washington Post was just one of the editorial comments across a few of the national media in the week before that game. The New York Times took the most shots, with one of their "Room For Debate" assemblages; a profile of a former NFL Films filmmaker who "went rogue," directing a PBS documentary (it won an Emmy in 1981) critical of the game and its harms to those who play (well before the advent of public awareness of CTE or the work of Dr. Bennet Omalu), with the author expressing his own qualms as well; and an op-ed from a pathologist and (once upon a time) football fan expressing the opinion that football will end up a more marginal sport if it doesn't change its ways, based on the trajectory followed by boxing in the past four decades. The latter isn't necessarily a unique position, though I have trouble believing it. Then again, I wouldn't have believed that significant American media outlets would spend the week of the game bringing these stories to the forefront in something approaching a relative balance with the usual pregame hype.
NPR, largely a laggard on this subject, offered a different take during the week, with one of its "Youth Radio" stories from a high schooler who chose to walk away from the game. Don't get too excited; by his own admission Garrison Pennington wasn't going to play football beyond high school. This isn't a story of a high-school Chris Borland.
Still, in a way this is the NFL's nightmare. Football, and the NFL in particular, aren't going anyway soon. Will's expectation of Super Bowl C is probably correct. Still, there's a decent chance that it will look quite different. Those who are determined to play in the NFL will. But high school teams can't sustain themselves on NFL prospects alone. Even Florida and California and other talent hotbeds need players who don't expect to play behond high school to keep those rosters full. NCAA schools similarly rely on some number of players whose future plans don't include pro football, whether they realize it or not.
Garrison Pennington isn't a trend, necessarily. His choice won't necessarily influence others to do the same, NPR or no NPR. It does, though, suggest another angle from which the game is going to be challenged in years to come, and the degree to which many voices are going to be influencing that challenge.
If you've read this blog at all before you know where I stand. But let me toss out this question for consideration:
Can the Christian church, already looking more marginalized than at any time in its US history, and already slow to respond to so many moral questions across American history past and present, really claim any moral credibility if it remains on the sidelines (or in the stands, mindlessly rooting) at this particularly challenging moment?
(Note: to be continued, although it may take a week or so as I'll be on the road next week. We'll see.)
P.S. the screen shot below is offered as evidence/acknowledgment that everybody wasn't/isn't necessarily on board with the concern. Worth noting that Crabtree had a Super Bowl to his credit with the Packers, while Kanell was mostly a professional clipboard-holder and now ESPN foof. Make of it what you will.
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