With the Super Bower number whatever looming on the horizon, my thoughts turn to youth and the power of football.
Growing up, I quickly realized that there were only a few things that I was really good at, and one was finding the guy on the opposing team with the football and throwing him to the ground.
as a kid I first followed the NY Giants and thrilled to the likes of Ya Tittle, Kyle Rote and Jim Katcavage. Then I discovered the Green Bay Packers and became a lifelong fan of Ray Nitschke, Bart Starr, Carroll Dale and of course, Vince Lombardi.
I tracked their progress all through high school and I could repeat their statistics thanks to the Football Encyclopedia I'd received one Christmas.
at the same time, thanks to aBC, we began following the fledgling aFL, and their bad boy teams like Kansas City and Oakland. My kid brother and I loved to watch Ben Davidson and Buck Buchanan and emulate their rough style of play in the full tackle scrimmages with the other country boys on our road.
Those first few Super Bowls, where Green Bay ruled supreme, and the two different leagues with two decidedly different styles of play clashed, were the ultimate in real football. Played outside, they actually had bands at half-time, and featured basic football skills against flamboyant styles of passing. These games were the clash of the leviathans for us -- the Greeks against the Trojans or the Romans against the Carthaginians.
Then things began to slip, the leagues merged, the NFL grew to outlandish proportions, teams appeared everywhere, divisions dropped into an insipid dreariness, advertisements eclipsed the play and my excitement waned. I thought that I had lost that special something that football had offered forever, and went back to reading with an occasional foray, to my wife's dismay, into the college football scene.
Then, last fall, as a Navy football fan, I was amazed at the activities I witnessed at the Navy/Notre Dame game. at the end of the game the Notre Dame coach, who went so far as to decline a reporter's question as he walked across the field, following the defeat of Navy, and the Fighting Irish team joined their Navy brethren for the singing of, "Navy Blue and Gold."
The Observer, a South Bend newspaper, said it best, "No yelling, no talking, not even an odd sneeze. Dead silence. That's what the Navy band received when they played their alma mater," and a lot of respect for a game well played despite the score.
Whoa, what's going on out there in Indiana?
and that wasn't all that took place in South Bend on that chilly day after Veteran's Day. The Notre Dame band was heard belting out anchors aweigh a number of times during the game and the fans actually cheered the Midshipmen when they ran onto the field. Later, it was reported, these same fans mingled with the Navy team after the game and many wished them luck for the future. That's a far cry from the idiocy that goes on at too many NFL home fields, which are fraught with booing and cursing and the throwing of beers.
and in a final send up of awesome proportions, the Notre Dame coach, Charlie Weis, shook hands with every Navy player as they quit the field. Imagine taking the time to do that anywhere else. Just think if it caught on today.
Suddenly, the old football of my youth was back. That small town where cars with banners on their sides drove around honking horns to alert the neighborhoods to the game swam into focus. The old football where everybody in the stands on both sides of the field yelled when each team ran onto the field. That special place where everybody cheered when an injured player got up and walked off. Where you shook hands with the kids you knocked heads with all afternoon and you chatted about the game as you walked off the field together. Those bygone days when parents limited themselves to cheering for their teams and didn't holler obscenities at the coaches for not putting their little shavers in the fray. Those games where it was your fault, not somebody else's, when an opposing player got past you.
and as I look at football today, especially the Super Bowl, that's what's missing, the vital piece to the puzzle. I guess there's no more time for respect anymore, what with all the official time outs for advertisements, the limitless harangues of the sports gurus, the outrageous half-time shows with their alleged wardrobe mishaps, the millions of interviews, and the ridiculous antics and buffoonery of everyone involved. Football has become entertainment writ large -- a gaudy indoor Las Vegas, replete with the lights and the fireworks, on faux grass, including the bandits, one-armed or otherwise.
Teams no longer line up to shake-hands, they vanish in a melee on a field crowded with fans, cops, and custodians. Coaches brush past each other in the briefest of acknowledgements. Sportsmanship has faded away and has been replaced by gargantuan special effects, scantily clad cheerleaders, the Rolling Stones and the yellowing pages in books by Ring Lardner, now relegated to the back shelves in poorly lit alcoves in public libraries.
But there's always hope for a full recovery.
In 1973 I was involved in a near fatal automobile accident, and during the course of my recovery one of my attending physicians offered a number of reasons for my survival -- I was in excellent shape, had strong bones and a thick skull -- evidence, no doubt, of a prolonged exposure to the gridiron.
Over the years I've always kept in touch with my high school football coach. He is a terrific man, a true gentleman, and always wore a blazer and a tie on the sidelines and had an uphill battle molding a group of roughnecks into a team that came within one touch down of knocking off the conference champs in the finest game we ever played in my senior year.
Coach Cashman keeps a copy of that game on VHS, in a safe, no doubt, in case any of the old gang should ever drop by to say hello and watch a gang of resolute kids say no to and shut out one of the state's toughest teams for an entire half back in fall of 1967.
There was a blurb the other day that Ted Kennedy was once considered for a position with the Green Bay Packers. I wonder how a yes to that offer might have changed his life and that of others.
The power of football.
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