jrn 362 - lecture twenty two

JRN 362/SPS 362 Story of Football

Rich Hanley, Associate Professor

Lecture Twenty Two


Review

• “DEDICATED TO THE JOY OF

MANLY CONTEST BY THE CLASS

OF 1879” reads the Harvard Stadium

dedication plaque unveiled in June

1904, less than a year after the

stadium opened in November 1903.


Review

• Sports writers in Boston considered

Harvard Stadium to be “sacred

ground” that stood as a rival to

buildings in the “in the ancient world

solely given up to athletic games."


Review

• Sacred ground is an appropriate

description.

• Football is America’s national

religion, celebrated throughout

autumn in rites marked by the

ecstasy and violence of the nation’s

dream life.


Review

• The game emerged as a solution to a

problem of the disappearing

American frontier and the lack of

opportunities for the educated class

to prove its manhood in front of other

men.

• From a rough “cross between rugby,

soccer, and a bar fight,“ football

evolved quickly into a spectacle.


Review

• From the 1890s to the 1920s,

football’s popularity soared wherever

it was played.

• From its cradle at Yale, to the West

Coast, to the football crescent

rimming the Great Lakes, and to the

deep South, football ruled autumn.


Review

• Within just a few short years from its

first recognizable, modern shape in

the 1870s, it had even come to

dominate the one national holiday

everyone celebrated – Thanksgiving.


Review

• Football on college campuses

became a socially acceptable and

exciting spectacle for both men and

women, who would attend games as

part of their autumnal social

calendars.


Review

• And the sport produced lots of stars

for the emerging electric media age

of radio, film and, after World War II,

television and eventually the internet.


Review

• Red Grange of Illinois became the

first immortal star of the electric age,

running for Illinois and the Chicago

Bears.

• His appearance in a NFL game in

1925 gave the professional game the

credibility that it needed to grow.


Review

• Knute Rockne, an immigrant from

Norway, transformed a small college

in Indiana called Notre Dame into a

national football power with his

understanding of publicity and

relentless road trips that took the

team to the West Coast and to the

South.


Review

• Other pro star players and coaches

followed, from Sammy Baugh of

Washington. Johnny Unitas of

Baltimore and Jim Brown of

Cleveland to Joe Namath of the New

York Jets, Lawrence Taylor of the

New York Giants, Walter Payton of

Chicago, Jerry Rice of San Francisco

and Tom Brady of New England.


Review

• Great coaches likewise became

larger-than-life figures who stood for

authority and innovation.

• Paul Brown, Chuck Noll, Vince

Lombardi, Tom Landry, Don Shula,

Bill Walsh and Bill Belichick stand

among the great NFL coaches.


Review

• College players, too, became

immortal athletes, starting with the

All-American from Yale, Pudge

Heffelfinger, in the 19th century on

through the great running back and

two-time Heisman Trophy winner

Archie Griffin and afterward.


Review

• College coaches who stand

alongside Rockne include Amos

Alonzo Stagg, Glenn Warner, Fritz

Crisler, Fielding Yost, Bud Wilkinson,

Ara Parseghian, Nick Saban and the

great Bear Bryant.


Review

• Football’s capacity to attract kids who

would become lifelong fans grew in

large measure because of these stars

and coaches and started as soon as

the press started covering games in

the 1880s.

• Fictional heroes such as Frank

Merriwell of Yale created what would

become the dream life of football

stardom achieved through virtuous


Review

• And they were conditioned by popular

magazines to dream big to fit into the

defined narrative arc of the underdog

overcoming obstacles to win the

game and date the girl.

• Movies such as The Freshman

popularized that arc that persists in

the 21st century.


Review

• Yet football always had a dark side,

one that could not be ignored in the

face of its unyielding violence and

capacity to corrupt academic life.

• Deaths and injuries became

common, so much so that critics

sought to ban the game as early as

the 1890s.


Review

• Mass momentum formations such as

the flying wedge developed by

Harvard’s coach Lorin Deland caused

an untold number of injuries and led

to rioting in the stands and the

temporary cessation of emerging

rivalries between Yale and Harvard

and Army and Navy.

• Calls to ban football multiplied.


Review

• “The American game of football, as

now played, is unfit for colleges and

schools … As a spectacle football is

more brutalizing than prize fighting,

cock fighting, or bull fighting … “

wrote Charles Eliot, president of

Harvard, in 1894, even before the

Yale-Harvard game that year that

featured an astonishing level of

violence.


Review

• “It is to be expected that before the

close of the season other young men

will have sacrificed their lives on the

gridiron … arms are being broken

daily, legs are wrenched, faces are

disfigured, scalps are torn, and a

thousand and one other accidents of

a more or less distressing nature are

occurring in the mad rushes of eleven

against eleven …,” wrote the Literary

Digest in 1897.


Review

• College football banned the flying

wedge, and by 1905 had transformed

the game in the aftermath of the

death of dozens of players.

• Mass and concentrated momentum

plays gave way to open offenses that

featured the forward pass.


Review

• The 1905 rule changes also showed

football’s governing committee that it

could neutralize criticisms by

modifying rules to soften opposition

to the game.


End of Football?

• Yet as the 20th century deepened, it

became clear that despite advances

in equipment and rules to make a

violent game if not entirely safe than

safer, the game would always be

accompanied by physical trauma.


End of Football?

• As the game nears the 150th

anniversary of the 1869 contest

between Princeton and Rutgers that

is considered to be the birth event of

modern football, its future has never

been as profoundly in doubt as it is

today.

• The pathologies stemming from the

game have turned the dream life into

something else altogether.


End of Football?

• The pathologies extend into the

stands and into the homes of fans.


End of Football?

• Officials at large state universities are

increasingly describing game-day

drinking as a major public health

issue.

• Some 20% of student fans were

legally drunk before the game

started at a large university in the

Midwest during a typical game,

according to a 2011 study. Only 10%


End of Football?

• One study found a nine percent

increase in assaults and an 18%

increase in vandalism during home

games at a southern college.

• An upset loss at home increased

assaults by 112% while an upset win

at home increased assaults by 36%.


End of Football?

• Upset losses lead to a 10% increase

in violence by men against women in

the home.

• Game days overall are associated

with higher rates of violence by men

against women in the home.


End of Football?

• Research shows the emotional

attachment between teams and fans

is real and can be measured by

increases in blood pressure.


End of Football?

• According to the NFL, up to 68% of

NFL players may be injured in a

season.

• That leads to “consequences from an

increased risk for more serious injury

and pain,” reported by researcher Dr.

Linda Cottler.


End of Football?

• The Cottler survey of 644 players

who retired before 2009 showed:

- Only 13% reported current

excellent health compared to

88% with excellent health at

the time they signed their

first NFL contract.


End of Football?

• Some 93% reported pain, with 81%

describing pain as moderate to

severe.

- That’s three times the rate

in the general population


End of Football?

• Knee injuries were the most

commonly reported NFL injuries,

followed by shoulder and back.

• Nearly half (47%) had 3 or more NFL

injuries.


End of Football?

• Nearly half (49%) reported diagnosed

concussions.

• 81% reported undiagnosed

concussions.

• The average number of reported

concussions of either type was 9,

Cottler found.


End of Football?

• The consequences emerged in the

survey results regarding medication

to ease pain. It showed that:

- 52 percent used opioids

during their careers.

- 71 percent of that group

reported they abused opioids

during their careers.


End of Football?

• Players who misused opioids during

their career were more likely to

misuse opioids in retirement, Cottler

reported.

• Former NFL players also use

marijuana to ease pain.


End of Football?

• “Current misuse was associated with

more NFL pain, undiagnosed

concussions and heavy drinking,”

Cottler concluded.


End of Football?

• Pain pill abuse proved to be deadly.

• Former Giants’ defensive back Tyler

Sash died after an accidental

overdose in September 2015.

• He was 27.


End of Football?

• Nothing concerned football

administrators, coaches and players

more than head injuries because of

the potential for long-term

consequences, including the risk for

dementia and early death, a fact that

football helmet manufacturers point

out on the label of their product.


End of Football?

• Zach Langston (No. 39) was a star

player at Pittsburg State in Kansas, a

Division II power that has won four

national championships, including the

latest in 2011.

• Langston’s family estimates he

suffered some 100 concussions in

middle school, high school and

college football


End of Football?

• In February 2014, Langston

committed suicide at the age of 26

after periods of depression, rage and

anxiety.

• His mother, Nicki, sent his brain to

Boston University to see if he had

chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a

brain disorder triggered by constant

hits to the head. He did.


End of Football?

• CTE is a “progressive degenerative

disease of the brain found in athletes

(and others) with a history of

repetitive brain trauma, including

symptomatic concussions as well as

asymptomatic subconcussive hits to

the head,” according to the Center for

the Study of Chronic Traumatic

Encephalopathy.


End of Football?

• The center, at Boston University,

examines the brains of deceased

players who either willed their brains

or whose families agreed to have the

organs examined.


End of Football?

• Some 99 percent of the brains of

former NFL players had CTE, the

center announced in July 2017.

• For college players, the percentage

was 91 percent.

• Some 21 percent of the brains of high

school players studied had CTE.


End of Football?

• In November 2017, center director

and neuropathologist Ann McKee told

a conference that an examination of

the late Aaron Hernandez’s brain

showed the most extensive CTE

damage of anyone ever studied

under 40.

• Hernandez played at Florida and for

the New England Patriots before his

conviction for murder.


End of Football?

• The kinetic force of modern players

who are much larger and faster than

players from the 1960s and earlier

plays a role but the evidence

suggests the constant hits to the

head accumulate and trigger the

onset of CTE, dementia and other

brain disorders.


End of Football?

• Studies show that all players are

potential victims of CTE but some

positions tend to be more dangerous

than others.


End of Football?

• The positions must susceptible to

brain trauma and, hence, the onset of

CTC in players are:

- Defensive backs

- Kicking team

(kickoffs)

- Running backs

- Linebackers


End of Football?

• The NFL first responded to increasing

scrutiny of concussions in 1996.

• Since, the league has changed rules

and funded research into helmet

technology and tackling techniques to

dampen criticism.


End of Football?

• The NFL moved kickoffs to the 35

yard line to make touchbacks more

likely.

• The league also barred players with

concussion symptoms from returning

to the game and left the decision for

that in the hands of independent

neurologists.


End of Football?

• The NFL is also enforcing hits to the

heads of quarterbacks and to what it

describes as defenseless receivers.


End of Football?

• Helmet size, meanwhile, has evolved

over the past 50 years, with each

iteration designed to protect the head

from trauma.

• More innovation is expected in this

area as the NFL increases funding for

research and development.


End of Football?

• After years of denial, the NFL

acknowledged a measure of

responsibility for the long-term effects

of head trauma on players.

• It settled a lawsuit filed by thousands

of players for what eventually

reached more than $1 billion in 2015.


End of Football?

• As of November 1, 2017, 15,950

retired NFL players, 1,183

representative claimants (authorized

people representing deceased or

incapacitated players) and 3,2432

derivative claimants (spouses,

parents, children, etc.) have

registered for a settlement.

• Maximum benefits for each claimant

are $5,000,000.


End of Football?

• Two European scholars sees a

reconfiguration of the concept of

masculinity already in play among

NFL players.

• In a recent paper, Eric Anderson and

Edward M. Kian argue that:


End of Football?

• “ … the devastating effects of

concussions, in the form of chronic

traumatic encephalopathy, combined

with a softening of American

masculinity is beginning to permit

some prominent players to distance

themselves from the self-sacrifice

component of sporting masculinity,”

they wrote.


End of Football?

• Are players beginning to question

why they play and endure the pain,

which for most lasts a lifetime?

• Take this exchange between Tom

Brady, quarterback of the Patriots,

and Steve Kroft during a piece on 60

Minutes in 2007:


End of Football?

• Brady: “Why do I have three Super

Bowl rings and still think there’s

something greater out there for me? I

mean, maybe a lot of people would

say, ‘Hey, man, this is what it is. I

reached my goal, my dream, my life.’

Me, I think, ‘God, it’s got to be more

than this.’ I mean this isn’t, and can’t

be, what it’s all cracked up to be.”


End of Football?

• Kroft: “What’s the answer?”

• Brady: “I wish I knew…. I wish I

knew.”


End of Football?

• Brady’s answer may be found in

interviews with the players who took

part in Cottler’s pain study.

• Her summary is as follows:


End of Football?

• “At the conclusion of the interview,

players were allowed time to share

additional thoughts. Many of them

provided compelling anecdotes about

the terrible pain they live with. They

also confirmed that players should be

continuously monitored during their

careers for misuse of prescription

opioids …


End of Football?

• “While some noted that playing in the

NFL was not worth the accelerated

loss of health, others said they still

would have played despite knowing

the risks.”


End of Football?

• That same theme is evident in a

November 2012 story in the New

York Times Magazine about a first-

year NFL player who at the time

sought a spot on the roster of the

Atlanta Falcons, Pat Schiller.

• The story is titled “The Hard Life of an

NFL Longshot,” written by Charles

Siebert.


End of Football?

• “Dude,” he said, as I stood staring at

his dresser. “I swear to God, if

someone tells me right now there’s

some miracle body cream out there

that would make me feel 100 percent

and prevent me from getting hurt but

that could also cause cancer or liver

damage down the line, I’d use it in a

heartbeat. I would.”


End of Football?

• Players such as Schiller fully

understand that the game can lead to

horrific injuries, lifelong pain and the

early onset of dementia yet they still

play.


End of Football?

• Who are these people who endure

long practices, constant pain and

anxiety over losing their jobs in

exchange for money and just 16

hours of game-play in the NFL and

just 12 hours in college per year?


End of Football?

• Look at a couple of players from the

2012 New York Jets, whose

backgrounds are part of Nicholas

Dawidoff’s article on the team in the

Sept. 27, 2012, issue of The New

Yorker magazine.


End of Football?

• “The Jets, like every team, have

many players who experienced

severe neglect as children – a mother

who died in childbirth, a father who

died of an overdose or of AIDS.


End of Football?

• “There are Jets players who have

seen murders up close, who have

been shot at or stabbed, who were

abused by relatives, who have been

jailed.


End of Football?

• “Antonio Cromartie went to twelve

Florida schools in twelve years,

because his family kept losing its

home.


End of Football?

• “Santonio Holmes, as a child, took

care of his siblings in a bullet-riddled

apartment while his mother worked

as a migrant farm laborer.”


End of Football?

• The team doctor, Kenneth

Montgomery, said in the article that

football players are “naturally inclined

to endure pain.”

• And that includes emotional pain, too.


End of Football?

• “And, while football is often seen to

be an outlet for aggressive young

men, a more common expressed

attraction of the game among Jets

players is the company of coaches

and teammates who offer some of

what was missing at home.”


End of Football?

• “Football is my father.” – cornerback

Julian Posey.


End of Football?

• Why do such broken men endure

knowing that they may be pursuing,

as Tom Brady acknowledges,

something that is empty of meaning,

that may leave them physically

broken for the rest of their lives?


End of Football?

• Another writer for The New Yorker,

Malcolm Gladwell, searched for an

answer in an article that listed the

recent death roll of former players:


End of Football?

• “Mike Webster, the longtime

Pittsburgh Steeler and one of the

greatest players in N.F.L. history,

ended his life a recluse, sleeping on

the floor of the Pittsburgh Amtrak

station. Another former Pittsburgh

Steeler, Terry Long, drifted into chaos

and killed himself four years ago by

drinking antifreeze …


End of Football?

• “Andre Waters, a former defensive

back for the Philadelphia Eagles,

sank into depression and pleaded

with his girlfriend—’I need help,

somebody help me’—before shooting

himself in the head …


End of Football?

• “There were men with aching knees

and backs and hands, from all those

years of playing football. But their real

problem was with their heads, the

one part of their body that got hit over

and over again.”


End of Football?

• And then there were the stories of

Junior Seau (suicide) and Dave

Duerson (suicide) and other former

pro players that were not included in

Gladwell’s piece?


End of Football?

• Gladwell concluded that the reason

players play and coaches coach and

spectators watch in such

extraordinary numbers is simple:


End of Football?

• “We are in love with football players,

with their courage and grit, and

nothing else—neither considerations

of science nor those of morality—can

compete with the destructive power

of that love.”


End of Football?

• And that leads to a question: why is

football – a game bursting with

violence and pathologies - the one

true religion of America, the force the

unifies the nation and stands at the

core of patriotic celebrations?

• Are ecstasy and violence required for

our Dream Life to be whole?


End of Football?

• The fan/media reaction is easy to

understand.

• Teams play a role in creating a tribe

of our own, which is of particular

importance when times change or

when our lives are fragmented,

according to sociologists.


End of Football?

• Football occupies a full day as a

ritual, with pre-game tailgating, in-

game cheers and chants and post-

game revelry.

• It’s a way to live vicariously without

suffering the pain, rejection, loss and

other elements of physical

competition.


End of Football?

• Participation rates, however, are

falling.

• The number of high school players

dropped in 2016-17 by some 26,000.

• It is still the most popular high school

sport with 1,086,748 participants.


End of Football?

• Even more troubling is the decline in

tackle football when all teenagers are

included in the figures.

• The percentage of teens playing

tackle dropped from 7.1 percent of

the population between 2014 (1.631

million, and 2015 (1.566 million, 7.1

percent).


End of Football?

• There is a clear dividing line in

America in participation rates.

• The numbers are falling in the North

and East, rising in the South.

• In Texas, a $70 million high school

stadium recently opened.


End of Football?

• Television ratings for the NFL, too,

are slipping, down by several

percentage points since the game’s

viewership peak in 2015?

• Was it the silent protests by players

kneeling for the national anthem?


End of Football?

• There are several elements in play,

including the saturation of games on

for 12 hours on Sundays and on

Monday and Thursday nights and the

lack of big-name players who have

always driven the story of football

beyond the game and into pop

culture in each generation.


End of Football?

• Still, football matters and remains the

top-rated attraction on television and

in fantasy sports.

• As C.W. Whitney of Harper’s Weekly

put it near the start of the 20th

century, football makes us ‘the

people,’; it makes Americans, well,

Americans.


End of Football?

• The playwright Arthur Miller, author of

Death of a Salesman, understood this

at an intellectual level.

• Julian Posey lived it as the patriarchal

head of the family; it was his father.


End of Football?

• For a century, American presidents

grasped this psychological point, as

several had watched, coached and

played the game, using that

experience as an expression of their

“American-ness” and “manly”

qualifications for office.


End of Football?

• Grover Cleveland (1885-89; 1893-97)

posed in 1906 with his nephew and a

football after he left office.


End of Football?

• President Theodore Roosevelt (1901-

09) burnished his credentials by

hosting a White House meeting in

1905 to find ways to dampen criticism

of the game.


End of Football?

• President Woodrow Wilson (1913-

21), who coached the Wesleyan

football team (stressing loyalty and

teamwork) before becoming

president of the United States,

pointed to the game for giving men

preparation for victory in World War I.


End of Football?

• President Herbert Hoover (1929-

1933) served as student manager of

Stanford football in the 1890s.

• He would invite his Stanford football

classmates to the White House in

1931.


End of Football?

• President Dwight Eisenhower (1953-

61) competed for West Point before

leading the Allied victory over Nazi

Germany in World War II and twice

winning presidential elections.


End of Football?

• President John Kennedy (1961-63)

made sure to attend football contests

and banquets and mention the name

to further political goals.


End of Football?

• Richard Nixon (1969-74) likewise

attended college and pro games,

talked to coaches and even

suggested a play to coach George

Allen of the Redskins for the Super

Bowl.


End of Football?

• President Gerald Ford (1974-77)

played at Michigan and coached at

Yale, facts popularized during his

time in office.


End of Football?

• And President Ronald Reagan’s

(1981-89) resume included his time

as a football player in college and

later playing one in the movies.


End of Football?

• If football is, indeed, our nation’s

father, if we watch because we love

the players and their capacity to

combine ecstasy and violence in a

single game, it suggests America is

willing to accept the toll the game

extracts to a point.

• The question is: have we reached

that point.


End of Football?

• The answer is no, at least not yet.

• The players themselves shows us

why they care, and perhaps we care

because we share the same

elemental sense of honor, pride and

tradition, the stuff that makes people

– and their existence – worthwhile.


End of Football?

• We are all football players in a dream

life of our own making, where it is still

possible, as the writer David

Maraniss stressed in the title of his

biography of Vince Lombardi, “When

Pride Still Mattered“ to retain that

sensibility even as the game evolves.

jrn 362 - lecture twenty two

Education