Interesting contrast in the Tuesday, June 26th USA Today sports section between American style football and soccer – known as futball to the rest of the world – and how one carries oneself. This one is about perspective. I’ll compare and contrast alternate groups in both sports – the fans and players.
NFL Commissioner Roger Godell briefed the 255 newest draftess on the league’s stricter conduct rules. At the mandatory rookie symposium he talked to the new young professionals about how to be just that, professional on and off the field. It covered handling finances and relationships and how to prepare for life after football. With all the craziness we here about from some of these guys with no apparent home training (Michael Vick and half the Cincinatti Bengals), it’s good to see the league taking initiative that will impact these young guys the rest of their lives. From this day forward they will have no excuses because they can’t say nobody told them what was expected of them.
American style football is probably the most physically demanding game in the world except maybe rugby and soccer. Our fans can also be callous, verbally and physically. Players thru the decades have talked about racial and sexual comments from the stands and beer, popcorn and other stuff being thrown at them between the field and the tunnel at certain stadiums. But I have never heard of football fans fighting each other in the stands enmasse or in the stadium parking lot riot style. The occasional individual drunks jaw jacking and going at it are to be expected from time to time. But that’s usually it. Pretty small scale when it happens.
On the other hand, futball fans around the world apparently go psychotic on a regular basis. In the same USA Today column was an article detailing how rival fans of Argentine soccer clubs in Buenos Aires were swinging metal pipes and throwing rocks at each other. The melee spilled out onto a freeway during rush our. C’mon now, the fans stopped traffic with a fight from the stadium to the highway! One man killed, fourteen people injured. I’m sure their counterparts in Great Brittain – the hooligans, yep that’s what they call them in the British isles – or the European mainland won’t want to be outdone by their South American brethren so I don’t doubt that we’ll be hearing about the next fisticuff on the other side of the Atlantic very soon.
It just warms my heart to see stories like this after hearing how we backwards Americans won’t embrace the world’s most popular sport. Hey, if it drives the people to madness like that then to heck with it. And I played for a year and do appreciate the game but the fanatics have to get a grip. Americans fans almost never do that and when we do it’s for a national championship of some kind, not a daily game occassion. Besides those points is our variety of althletic choice. Fact is it’s an outward expression of our freedoms. We participate in what we like because we have options not because we’re obligated to the only thing around. That’s not about being better than everybody else in the world. It’s simply called freedom. And like a lot of the syndicated sports talk hosts will tell you, our home grown sports are more fun anyway. Just look at how every one of them have taken off in popularity all over the world.
Well, anyway, be a fan of your sport(s) because you like the game not because you’re having a “We Are the World” moment. If you think socker sucks or you believe it’s human chess to the greatest degree go with your heart, not with obligation. And be you athlete or fan don’t be a hooligan.
