I’ve been watching TV football lately. Alot. Probably more than is healthy for me. First it was the college playoffs (with my team, the Michigan Wolverines, winning it all) then the NFL playoffs started up with my team, the Detroit Lions (who are only about 50 miles from Ann Arbor the home of the Wolverines), going almost to the Super Bowl before losing to the powerful San Francisco 49ers.
The games start off pleasantly enough with an inspiring song about the land of the free and the home of the brave and the flip of a coin to determine who gets the ball first, but once that’s over with it’s a gladiator sport. I know. Young men being maimed and carried off the field or limping off under their own power atleast 3 or 4 times a game. Sprained ankles, hyper-extended knees, dislocated fingers, concussions and lacerations and broken bones. They’ll never be the same. It’s brutal, worse than boxing almost, I know that, but still I have a strange addiction to it.
Something about it engages my mind at a mythic level; the hunt and kill of our ancient hunter/gatherer ancestors I guess. We mimic that with the run and tackle of football. Get him down on the ground is the point of it if you’re on defense and if you’re on offense it’s running like a scared deer through the line of scrimmage trying not to get pummeled and buffeted and knocked down and tackled and jumped on, trying to make it to the end zone where you’ll be safe.
And then there’s the numerical progression of it. Counting out the yards to go or how many yards you’ve already got appeals to my modern analytical mind. First and ten rings out triumphantly when the team manages to achieve that goal. Third down and twenty is not auspicious. That means you’ve got to throw a bomb all the way down the field to a speedy wide receiver that has a step on his defender. See what I mean? I’m into it.
And also I’ve watched it since I was a kid, so give me a break. We watched it every Sunday afternoon, after church, and before the evening service. It was a ritual. Once the pot roast was finished and the dishes were done and accounted for, we adjourned, well we meaning us males, to the living room to watch the game. Of course TV’s were only about 14” back then and encased in a wooden cabinet that looked like a piece of furniture. Which it was. It was a cabinet with wooden doors that opened to reveal the TV. It seems like there might have been a radio in there too with a long illuminated dial.
My father, the Baptist minister, was resistant to having a TV in the house. He suspected that it was an evil influence, a dalliance with the devil, but in the end he too fell to its spell.
“I can feel it coming in the air tonight. Oh lord. Oh lord.” sings a hard core rock band in the lead in for the NFL Playoffs. Later in the song they explain, ”I've been waiting for this moment, for all my life. Oh lord. Oh lord.” It’s the Phil Collins classic ‘In the Air Tonight’ from 1981.
Then they switch it over to the NFL theme song and zoom into the stadium, cut to the announcers and you’re in the game. Your emotions triggered by the music, your sense of justice triggered by the visual effects, your sense of duty triggered by the uniforms of the soldiers, I mean players, your sense of loyalty triggered by a fly over from a F-22 Raptor, the Air Force’s most advanced fighter. All these emotions get triggered and you’re ready for your hit, I mean game.
After a few commercials for pickup trucks, car insurance and fast food, the game begins. They line up and scrunch down, face to face, helmet to helmet. On the secret signal, they go, activate the plan, smash into the other side, try to take over everything and push the other guys out of the way, control the line of scrimmage. March down the field. Throw a bomb. Cross the line into enemy territory. Score a touchdown. All those terms are familiar to me and strangely comforting.
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers shoot off a cannon when they score a touchdown. The Texas Longhorns run around the field with a Long Horn cow (actually). It’s held in place by two guys who have a tether thru it’s nose and they run along with it. Every team has their mascot and their ritual of how to celebrate. The chant, the wave, the screaming fans trying to disrupt the opposing teams snap count.
And the cheerleaders. Those girls really want their guys to win. They look very excited and happy or atleast confident. Jumping and spinning and flying thru the air. Of course some cheerleaders are guys. Don’t want to be gender exclusive here.
It’s a spectacle and it’s a ritual. Ritualized warfare or atleast ritualized hunting. Chasing and killing. Better to do it on the football field than on the battlefield. I always thought it would be great if the leaders of the countries who wanted war went out in the middle of a field somewhere with boxing gloves and had at it. Or better yet knives. Yeah, work it out with knives you stupid ego head world leaders. Last one standing and the war’s over. Go home. Nothing to see here.
football as ritual warfare