Ban football, really!

The other day I wrote a piece on the Penn State scandal entitled "Ban Football."  Later I changed the title to JoePa (Joseph Paterno, the Penn State football coach) as I decided that the original title was a bit extreme, throwing out the baby with the bath water so to speak.  I just finished reading an article in today's New York Times which suggests that my first title was appropriate.  Not just Penn State but colleges all over the country routinely cover up sex crimes that involve football players and their coaches.  Playing football does not, as we have been led to believe, build character--just the opposite.  I won't present the evidence here as you can read the article for yourself: On Campus, a Law Enforcement System to Itself  Or for a different but equally damning slant on college football, read Joe Nocera's column:  Nocera: At Penn State, the Institutional Pass

As a sport what exactly does football do for those who participate?  For the watchers, it provides entertainment much like the Colosseum provided entertainment for the early Romans (if the end result is not as brutal, the psychology is still the same). And for the players? The purpose of football is to move the ball over the goal line of the opposing team more times than the opposing team moves the ball over your line.  This is a pretty good description of most contact sports, including international football (soccer as we call it in the United States).  But soccer is poetry in motion (if you don't agree you haven't seen the great Pele score a goal with his head).  The players are always moving and the excitement of watching the ball move rapidly from one player to the next by intricate footwork can arouse even a sports' idiot like myself to scream "goal."   American football, on the other hand, is deadly slow.  It stops and starts and stops again and is completely lacking in the elegance and beauty of soccer.   Worse, stopping the ball from getting to its destination involves a bunch of overweight, overly muscular men piling on top of the guy with the ball.  The lasting damage done to those who play American football (brain injuries, in particular) has been much written about.  Soccer players occasionally break a bone, usually when a player from the other side gets vicious and sticks out a leg, but permanent injuries are almost unheard of.  So, if American football does not build character but instead encourages those who participate to see themselves as above the law, and it does not improve the health or fitness of the players (are men with huge necks and overly developed muscles fit?), what's its purpose.

So, I return to my original thought when I first read about the Penn State scandal.  Ban football altogether.  The damage done to the boys sexually abused by Jerry Sandusky is not the price we should be willing to pay for a day at the Colosseum.