From Creation -- Rutgers beat Princeton on Nov. 6, 1869 -- college football has been criticized for being violent, commercial, and a higher-education distraction of the first order. That's why we love it. Not to mention the chance to play war, invent fungible icons, and engage in acceptable homosocial behavior.
The true heroes of the game have not been the players -- usually too young to be interesting in their firefly careers -- but the loud, devious, flim-flam artists who convince the young that winning a game as a group is more important than any kind of individual expression. The most manipulative of them succeed by convincing "their" boys that they are a "band of brothers" who can trust only each other and need to sacrifice their bodies (more and more often now at the expense of their future health) for the greater good. Most college players understand that they are being played, but they do genuinely love the game, the contact, their friends, the steam of the locker-room.
From Pop Warner at the Carlisle Indian School through Bear Bryant at Alabama to Tom Osborne at Nebraska -- who, after I questioned his repeated "forgiveness" of a felonious running back, asked me if I'd rather have the player loose in my neighborhood -- the unstated mission of coaches has been to provide a model for controlling and exploiting young manhood for factories, corporations, and armies.
6 comments:
"the unstated mission of coaches has been to provide a model for controlling and exploiting young manhood for factories, corporations, and armies."
Who is giving them this mission?
My guess is that certain people love and crave competition, and if they also happen to be good at sports, that's where they choose to engage their talent and competitive urge. It's no different than competition in any competitive occupation, except it's more overtly physical rather than mental, and thus it's easier to identify and condemn injurious behavior.
I haven't been too much exposed to coach behavior (save Hooper...cringe), but I am aware it goes way over the top sometimes and can harm players. However, players know what they are getting into when they choose to play physical sports, and they know what it can do to someone. It's a risk, and giving kids a shot at success and mild glory, for whatever it's worth to you and me, is the payoff for them.
In most cases I would think that nobody directly gives them the mission. It is just understood that the role of a coach include certain core behaviors, many of which support the unstated mission. Any of those institutions that benefit have a role in glorifying sports and coaching, particularly those aspects of coaching that benefit them.
Maybe the key is to look at all of this as a supersystem, as opposed to a conspiracy. There's no puppetmaster pulling the strings; the whole system perpetuates itself.
Okay, then wouldn't the "whole system" just be the inexorable constancy of human psychology and behavior?
I'm inclined to agree that there are certain core behaviors for coaches, such as delivering impassioned speeches which really amount to nothing but a regurgitation of meaningless sayings and hackneyed expressions.
to answer the question and nothing else, no.
Then I am curious to know what you think is perpetuating the whole system, and from where the system comes.
Human nature does drive the system, as you suggest, though I don't think human nature necessitates the system. The way our society is structured is an important factor as well.
What started it? Let's say the rise of agriculture.
I think it helps to look at "the system" from a biological perspective. This version is the "offspring" of yesterday's, etc. When systems meet, there are options for conflict, combination, etc.
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