The Philosophy of Football...

( The author is a tutor in Eliot House. )

I used to look down on football fanatics before I became one myself. My conversion was like Alypus', as described by Augustine in his Confessions: "Quid plura? Spectavit, clamavit, exarsit, abstulit, inde secum insaniam qua stimularetur redire; non tantum cum illis a quibus prius abstractus est, sed etiam prae etiam prae illis, et alios trahens." New, as if to prove the medieval maxim that one must believe in order to understand, I have come to see what all the excitement is about.

It may seem strange at first to claim there is anything philosophical about the spectacle of twenty-two professional giants pounding over a field of plastic grass while 60,000 lunatics roar in pleasure or disgust. The players, of course, with their physical and financial survival in continual jeopardy, are no more likely to philosophize during the game than gladiators in the arena-But for the viewers, especially for the viewers watching for free in the eremitical peace of living room or den, protected from the elements, aided and enlightened by instant replay and running commentary, a well played game has all the ingredients of a genuine philosophical experience. Whether or not the fan realizes this is another question, but he can only blame him self, if he leaves the game no wiser than he came. The following is an abstract analysis of football, an attempt to see what goes on beneath the surface.

( Many of the arguments presented hereafter will also be valid to some extent for other sports. The peculiar superiority of football can be demonstrated, but only up to a point. Beyond that, one can only appeal to the reader's taste and instinctive good sense. )

I

Football is beautiful, but meaningless-i.e., it makes no sense, pragmatically speaking.

Certainly nothing could be more absurd than to hire a small army of godlike brutes, gifted with fantastic speed, coordination, grace, and strength, to move a leather ball up and down the gridiron. This very absurdity, however, serves to intensify the spectator's awareness of the beauty of the game. It is the old story of art for art's sake. Football is a sort of bone-crunching ballet, with an improvised and unpredictable choreography. Like dancers, the players acquire a large repertoire of movements, then spontaneously combine them as they go along.

Football, in other words, is a succession of functionally perfect operations serving an unnecessary function. It is autotelic: the fan enjoys the power and precision of the play for their own sake. Thus, we begin to see what anyone who has ever watched a good game knows or at least obscurely senses: that football is better-more satisfying, emotionally and intellectually-than everyday life. The remaining points will justify this claim.

II

Football, like life, is a fiercely fought contest, but with guaranteed justice.

The spectator can follow the violent give and take, with the happy thought that here (unlike the world outside, full of successful villains and downtrodden good guys) infractions are almost always caught and the referees are almost always right. Here. if nowhere else, the wicked are penalized, and the honest are rewarded. A football game gives us a glimpse of Utopia; a society where freedom flourishes under law. Here the police intervene only when necessary. The decisions of the judges are not only final, but prompt and fair. Hulking titans submit their quarrels to a midget arbitrator-and go along with the call. Finally, note that whereas in the real world the rich get richer and the poor get poorer in what often seems like a geometrical progression, the inverted order of the prodraft pick works this by favoring the poor.

III

Like life, professional football is violent, but its roughness is essentially non-serious no one ever dies and major injuries are rare.

A team of medical attendants, is always waiting on the side-lines, should anyone get hurt. There are bandages for sprains, and oxygen for the man whose wind has been knocked out of him. All this goes to bring about an age-old masculine dream; a tremendous war with only incidental suffering and sorrow. We can delight in the beauty of naked aggression without worrying about the consequences.

IV

Compared with life, which is so often messy, chaotic, haphazard, and inconclusive, a football game is a masterpiece of logic and lucid or ganization.

A football game is neatly divided up into periods and halves. There are detailed rules to cover every possible eventuality. Everyone knows what he is doing or wants to do. (Of course, this is one of the pleasures of observing any professional sport: liberation from incompetents who reign in the world outside.) Owing to the shortness of the season, every game, even if it ends in a tie, has strategic importance. (As against baseball, basketball, or hockey, with their interminable schedules, where a single game means next to nothing.) Then too, as the world becomes more and more secularized, the Sunday pro games have a nice liturgical quality about them: a common rite performed before enthusiastic crowds-no empty pews here!-all over the country, in the tranquillity of the Sabbath.

V

In football, as in life, there is continual conflict, but it is arbitrary and artificial, and hence has no real bite.

The teams "stand for" nothing, players are sold or traded, the leagues are reshuffled, etc. Thus, except for the hopelessly simple-minded, there is no real emotional commitment on the part of the fan, which precludes ill-feeling or bitterness, The players, we know, are playing for themselves, and not upholding any sentimental college reputation. In the game qua game there are no political issues at stake (hence the President watches football on TV as demonstrators storm around the White House), no economic or social problems, and best of all no tragic situations.

VI

In football, as in life, the spectator faces innumerable complications, but all the action takes place within a clearly lit framework and can be followed more or less easily.

The fast plays, the fakes, the great moments can be savored thanks to slow motion replay. Here there are no irrational mysteries to bedevil the mind, which can effectively master the patterns unwinding before it. The spectator, like the Eye of God, can scrutinize the same play from three or four different angles. (This is more significant for football, where the action is rich and diverse, than for linear and static sports like baseball, golf, or tennis.)

VII

The rest of the universe may still be in the grips of determinism, but in football, the charismatic, the unexpected, in a word Grace, is still present and potent.

The course of play is seldom a one-way flow. Fumbles, interceptions. field goals, and the "long bomb," among other things, can punctuate the game and turn it around. The long touchdown pass (an interesting symbol of cooperation between White Quarterback and Black Wide Receiver) is both the most exciting coup de theatre in sports and a revolutionary possibility liable to explode without warning. Finally, when the charisma is flowing, even time itself can be overcome: by time-outs, running out of bounds, incomplete forward passes, etc, the clock can be made obedient to human wishes.

In pro football, then, the spectator sympathetically participates in a heightened form of existence. During the brief hours of the game he sees the base matter of everyday life lifted up, purified, clarified, intensified: idealized figures, stronger, swifter, more cunning than ordinary men, fight a bruising battle in a make-believe microcosm (the stadium as ideal universe). Football is a synthesis of illusion and reality. A good football game is real enough to involve the spectator, illusory enough to liberate him. It creates a series of what Sartre called "privileged moments" -a temporary and imaginary redemption.