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Sport and Competition

In Defense of the Value of Football

The Fightin’ Chick and the Naturalist

Robert Mather
A brain and a signed helmet from the 1993 5A State Play-Off Football team from Chickasha High School (Oklahoma).
Source: Robert Mather

“This one’s closed, too” he said. The tall, hungry man peered inside the window of the dark empty restaurant in South Oklahoma City. It was the third restaurant we had tried, and I was beginning to worry that the eminent Harvard Professor would not think highly of me or the other two professors in our dinner group of four (the other two were my parents). I said “It’s Wednesday night. Many places close down on Wednesday nights for church and Friday nights for high school football. This is the Bible Belt, sir.” Having read his autobiography, I knew I had two aces in the hole and needed to deploy both right away: We were both from small towns in the South, and we both played high school football. His discouragement gave way to an immediate, enthusiastic smile. He exclaimed “I know the Bible Belt! I’m from a small town in the South!” Reinvigorated, we found a restaurant, settled in as the only four patrons, and had the meal of my lifetime. About an hour and a half into that meal, at a very socially appropriate time, he leaned over and said “You know, I played football in high school in Alabama…”

Nothing could be better. My intellectual hero, E. O. Wilson, and I were not only at dinner, but talking about our very brief experiences as part of the cultural fabric of our hometown communities: members of the high school football team. In small towns and rural communities, high school football has a tremendous value to the community. Towns shut down on Friday nights, and a sea of headlights light the way to the opponent’s town for away games. Those that can’t go to the games listen on the radio. H. G. Bissinger captured this well in the book Friday Night Lights. Wilson discussed the cultural relevance of football in the film Of Ants and Men.

Recently, football has had a great deal of bad press due to concerns over concussions. As a psychology professor and youth sports coach, I have encountered many players whose parents have asked me to support their decision that football is too dangerous for their young athletes. They are surprised when I explain that 1) the research on football and chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) is only on players at the highest level of professional competition, and 2) new concussion protocols take players out of the action and keep track of the number of concussions, making it safer than ever to play (See links to Engber, 2015 and Rothman, 2015). Of course football is a violent, physically demanding game and concussions are serious injuries to be avoided. But this article is about some of the positive things that come from football.

Football teaches young men how to prepare a game plan, a lesson I have carried into my preparation for every class session I have attended or taught, every project submitted, every test taken, everything I have ever done. Football teaches young men how to work hard toward a goal under challenging, unpleasant circumstances. Life is not always easy or fair. Football captures that lesson for competitors very well.

Football teaches teamwork and brotherhood. Shifting roles from being a leader to being a team member is a skill that is needed throughout life, in the board room or on the job site. Football teaches you to protect yourself and your brothers. There are virtues of in-group loyalty that are often lost in the rhetoric of our world. While unnecessarily excluding others because of their group membership (discrimination) can often be detrimental and undesirable, there are many times when a group is in fact competing with your group in a zero sum game, and there will be winners and losers. The more cohesive group that can organize and work together and favor each other in doing so has an advantage.

Football teaches physical fitness. It is important to be physically fit, and there are many health advantages to being active. Perhaps one of the most interesting things I have witnessed over my years in higher education, football can make kids want to go to college who otherwise wouldn’t want to even try. Some of those kids only go to school for a year or two, but it was a year or two more of college than they would have gone to without football.

Do not fall victim to the hype surrounding the CTE research. Although concussions should be taken seriously and athletes protected, football will not automatically destroy the mental health of its competitors. Your kids will not automatically lose IQ points every time they make a tackle. They will not be sentenced to a life of crippling depression. E. O. Wilson and I played high school football, and our brains seem to be OK. I know four other men with doctorates in psychology who played high school football (two played in college) and are productive scientists. The violence of the collisions in college and professional football, and the accumulation of those hits leave many unresolved questions at the highest levels of competition. But parents should embrace football at the youth, junior high, and high school levels for the value it brings to the community and the individual.

As for me, my teammates are all still bonded together in our collective minds from the sweat and pain we endured in an attempt to lift our community up though the only means we had at the time—winning football games. When you have endured that effort and seen what each of your brothers is made of, it creates a powerful bond. I have nothing but respect and admiration for my Fightin’ Chick teammates, and social media has allowed us to peer quietly into each other’s lives and feel pride in our individual successes and sadness in our individual failures. We helped to forge the character of each other on the practice field. We know how to go to our reserve of energy when life is too tough. We know that we can do it because we saw our brothers do it and we know they will always be there for us. Real or perceived, we have a sense of belonging to something. Small town high school football is a powerful thing to the culture of a community and the psyche of players.

To the parents of youth athletes who will ask me to tell them that football is too dangerous to play—I can never be the one to take these potential experiences away from your son. Life is tough and football is tough. What better preparation?

References

Bissinger, H. G. (1990). Friday night lights: A town, a team, and a dream. New York: Harper Perennial.

Engber, D. (2015, December 21). Concussion lies. Slate.

Rothman, S. M. (2015, December 22). Parents, stop obsessing over concussions. The New York Times.

Wilson, E. O. (2006). Naturalist. Washington, DC: Island Press.

Wilson, E. O. (2015). Of ants and men. PBS.

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