Grand Rounds

Thanks for your kind comments. I gotta say that you could not have picked a better guy than Franco Harris. He remains the one and only favorite first player that I ever read everything about. (How's that for a lousy sentence?) I remember his fluidity and his power, almost a cliche, the Ying and the Yang of Fullbacks who ran like a halfback when he had to. For a brief glorious 7th grade year my team called me "Franco" when it became clear that my early puberty made it possible for me to run people over with little skill but much imagined grandeur. More importantly, I am glad he gave you the strength you needed. I trust your RA is better. and that your love of the game and of life persists.

Best Regards

Steve Schlozman

thanks very much for your thoughts. We can't be human without being limbic - this is something it sounds like you understand pretty well. The really fun thing, I think, about being human, about having the opportunity to benefit from something as complex as our great big brains, is the way that these limbic moments naturally lend themselves to translation in higher cortical ways. I think this is why I was lauding and continue to laud football - not because it creates this constant tension in the way our neurobiology dictates our behavior, but because it represents in a codified fashion the means by which our neurobiology dictates our behavior. As someone else has commented above, football is life. Life didn't evolve to mimic football - we gravitate to the game because of the way it football evolved to show the best and the worst of us. Having just finished watching "The Longshots" with my 8 year old daughter, I fear I could go on all night. I will spare you this, and simply thank you for taking the time to comment. Best Regards, Steve Schlozman

Thanks for giving the game a shot!
In the movie "the Longshots," admittedly a corny and predictable flick, the first girl quaterback in Little League football history leads her down-and-out team to fame and triumph. When they start winning they do all sorts of crazy dances and celebrative moves in the endzone - break dancing, acrobatics, high and low fives burst out like thunderstorms. Then the head coach (played by Ice Cube, who, by the way, does a great job) shows them his endzone dance. He has one of the players act like a referee and he hands the "ref" the ball and says thanks. "Act like you been there before," he instructs, and the kids on the team are quiet and contemplative. That's what I watch for in a game. (Plus, check out the highlights of Pittsburgh-Dallas finish on last Sunday. Their brains were working overtime!)