Television Has Ruined Football

I went to the Bears opener with the Packers. What a show. The Air force parachutists, the fireworks, the smoke, flames, the screaming fans. The voltage in the stadium was incredible. National television was there in force with all the interviews and cameras and talking heads. It was amazing. The National Anthem was amazing. The monstrous flag was amazing. And this was the biggest rivalry in the NFL. Then the game started. You know the outcome, but here is what I found amazing. The game is so slow. Not because of the players but because of television

A few plays and then a switch of sides and then everyone stands around and waits. And while you are watching the two hotdogs race on the big screen or a Veteran walk out or a race between two cars the players just stand around with nothing to do. Minutes pass. The players stand around the stadium gets quiet. Oh right. Commercials! Those things that at home give you a chance to get more dip, another beer, hit the bathroom. For the fan at the game it is dead time and for the players, it is an interruption to the game.

I know. Its great that television is there but I watched the momentum wither away. It is incredible how slow professional football has become because of this electronic medium. Television does not try and keep up with football, football slows down to television time. The intensity of a college football game is explosive and even on the opener when the Bears got behind the fans became quiet and every time the Bears started to move the game went cold with challenges, timeouts, and then just for nothing but to make sure all those sponsors get their commercials in.

And yes the Bears lost. So maybe this is just sour grapes but it sure seemed like every time the train started to roll, it ran out of steam.  Or it went to a commercial. 

The Meaning of the Star Spangled Banner

Words take meanings. Songs take on lightning. Anthems speak for the dead. The Banner captures the flag at dawns light over Ft  Mchenry. It captures the fog and the darkness and Francis Scott Key on the rolling battleship. It captures the existence  of the land of the free and the home of the brave even after the shelling by the British. It captures the cold bloody footprints of Valley Forge and the crossing of the icy Potomac by Washington during the Revolution. Then it is the glare of the burning of Washington during the war of 1812 with the flag hidden and the government on the run.

It is the men who charged up San Juan Hill with Teddy Roosevelt and died before they took three steps. It is the men in the trenches of World War I rising up to fall inches from their trench and dying in a foreign land. It is the men who came home without legs and arms and the men who never came home in the Civil War. It is all the men and women black and white who died to abolish slavery.

And then it is the GI's hitting the beach at Normandy and dying in the surf. The men who had just come through a Great Depression and then died before they were twenty. It is the hundreds of thousands who perished in the morning light of D Day liberating Europe from the Nazis . It is the Vietnam vets who came back and kissed the tarmac after being prisoners of war for years. It is the graves at Arlington, the hollowed out eyes of Shiloh.

It is a willingness of the heart.
William Hazelgrove
Forging a President

Could You Take a Knee?

Lets say you are on a company outing to a Cubs game. Everyone is there along with your boss and the company has bought the tickets and the beer and hot dogs and the peanuts. It is now time for the National Anthem. Everyone stands up and some people put their hands over their hearts. You are a middle class person with a house, kids, mortgage, dog, cat. You are solidly in the  middle of the middle and now everyone is standing and you decide you do not agree with some of the policies of the country or maybe you just don't go for the whole patriotic thing. So you take a knee. Your boss stares at you. His boss stares at you. You explain you disapprove of some things going on in America and so you took a knee. Your career is over.

You may not get fired that day. But essentially you better start looking for something else because from then on you are marked. Most middle class people can not take a knee. They have to feed their kids and pay their mortgage. They have to tow the line. Professional football players who make millions of dollars and get to be on television and live a life most people would kill for, they can take a knee. It is part of being at the top of the pyramid. Now you should be able to take a knee. No one is saying you should not be able to express how you feel. It is part of our basic rights as Americans.

But for most of us we can not take a knee. We do not have a million dollars in the bank. Only  the lucky few can do that. Is this fair? No. But we are used to that. So it is the NFL players right to take a knee. It is their right to bring up issues that need to be discussed. It is their right to make a million dollars from playing football. But I will say this; to whom much is given much is expected. Interpret that as you will.

Al Capone and the 1933 Worlds Fair