Disgusting Fandom

Punishing hits and injuries are not the goals of professional sports. No points are awarded for violence, and victories are not measured in broken bones. When a fullback throws a block, or a linebacker delivers a hit, it is not with the intention (or at least should not be) to injure or intimidate. The action on the field is fierce and physical because it has to be, due to the nature of the game. Defensive players have to tackle hard because offensive players are strong and agile, not because there is anything good about being carted off the field or ending up with permanent physical damage.

Unfortunately, to the ordinary viewer, we don’t grasp that the fierce hits we see in football are made possible by sound fundamentals and years of strengthening. Most football fans have never strapped up pads and taken a bone-shattering hit from a defender, and so our understanding of the tactful nuances of a play can be reduced to a thirst for blood. Yesterday, in Kansas City, this pitfall of our culture was put on a grand stage in Arrowhead Stadium as the Chiefs took on the Baltimore Ravens. KC’s struggling quarterback Matt Cassel took a hit from a defender that resulted in a concussion. He was walked off the field, and as he was escorted to the locker room, the home fans cheered the defense that knocked him out.

“We are not gladiators. This is not the Roman Coliseum,” is how Chiefs offensive lineman Eric Winston reacted to the barbaric response of the home fans. Winston echoed what hopefully any rational fan would believe when he called the response of the home fans “absolutely disgusting.”

I would like to believe that I would have taken the higher ground this situation if I were a KC fan. I would hope that my knowledge of sports and my compassion as a human being would have superseded the temptation to resort to the lowest common denominator. But, hearing the roar that came out of the 70,000 seat stadium makes me wonder if I would have been able to resist. Surely there were good, decent fans that found themselves cheering on the injury.  So what is it about football that makes us think that our natural tendencies to show compassion and offer forgiveness don’t apply when we watch sports? Is it because professional athletes get paid so much? Is it because sports networks highlight rough hits as a part of their marketing rather than skillful play calling? Or are we really just bad people? I don’t think we are hopelessly evil, but I think that this incident reveals how dumbed-down our sports culture is.

Like a great symphony, great sports require a large number of great players working in tandem, under the coordination of a great leader to be beautiful. And like classical music, classic football is most appreciated by people who take the time to understand it, and appreciate its intricacies. Unfortunately, it seems rare these days that we are taking the time to teach the fundamentals and intricacies of football and other sports to our youth. Coaching defense is too often reduced to pure violence, and children are suffering both physically, psychologically, and in their knowledge of the game. Not only are children being taught blind aggression instead of important life lessons, but they are not as good in sports when coaches skip the fundamentals.

So let’s get back to the basics. When we coach sports, let’s teach our kids the fundamentals of sports, and how skillful and truly artistic they are. Hopefully then we will be able to show them that a trip to a game is closer to an evening at the opera rather than a night at a cage fight.