Football Mania

IN HIS BOOK On Human Aggression, the master of the human psyche, Sigmund Freud tells us that men have a penchant for violent behavior. If the society in which they live sanctions primitive primal rites like cannibalism and clubbing each other, then their anger will probably take such unhindered, natural forms. If, however, the society is more cultured and "well-developed," violence will be channelled into more acceptable, covert forms of expression namely, athletics.

With today's factuous, fast-paced, highly mobile society, the need to channel human aggression has increased tenfold. Not only have running and nautilus, as a result, become increasingly popular, but so has the narcissistic quality of mastering control over the human body. The message seems to be that if we cannot control our relations in society, we can find comfort in the control of our own bodies.

In our timid, ostensibly non-brutal culture, the need to channel human aggression has always proved somewhat of a problem. The macabre nature of Spain's bullfights revolts us, and even our own ancestral tradition of duelling gives us chills. Instead, we prefer something more in the vein of a game, where sportsmanship and fun--not victory and blood--are the central factors. The all-American solution to what we consider an un-American trait of violence has become football.

Football traditionally has always been a popular sport. In part because the game appeals to our sense of the macabre, but perhaps more importantly, because it seems to unify our highly splintered society. If we share nothing else in common, it is a respect for Bob Griese or Woody Hayes, who represent the wholesomeness of American society, an image we would like to think our mothers would be proud of. A dislike for football is commensurate with a dislike for America.

Yet the wholesomeness and "all-in-good fun" spirit that has traditionally surrounded the game is rapidly giving way to a darker, less sportsmanlike side. Stories documenting the sue of drugs and dangerous pain killers by players have surfaced. Unethical recruitment policies in the NFL and NCAA have been exposed.

And now, it seems, even high schools have fallen into the trap. An article in the Oct. 30 issue of The New York Times Magazineexamining a prototypical suburban high school in Brownwood, TX revealed some rather alarming information. Corporal punishment is regularly used on players who misbehave or demonstrate conduct unbecoming a team member. Some parents hold their sons back a grade so that "they will be bigger when they try out for the high school team." And on one occasion, after a season of repeated losses, a coach received so many threatening phone calls before an upcoming game that he was forced to wear a bulletproof vest to the stadium.

SUCH INFORMATION is horrifying when we reconsider that high school education is purported to train our children how to live responsible adult lives. The type of mentality that such unhealthy competition fosters is detrimental to society, no matter how many helmets and shoulder pads we wear to disguise it. Perhaps more disconcerting, though, is the cultural situation that has given rise to such an unwholesome condition. In Tom Cruise's new movie All the Right Moves-- the story of a hypothetical high school football team in a blue collar Pennsylvania milltown--the coach reminds the players that they are nothing but "Dagos, Polacks and Spicks." and that they'll only be able to get a scholar ship to college by eating dirt and "kicking the other team's ass."

By itself, such rhetoric is disgusting. But more reprehensible than the words themselves are the alarming truths they epitomize. If poorly educated students from impoverished backgrounds are repeatedly told--by coaches, by parents, and yes, by college recruiters--that their only chance of salvation is to mash the other guy head better than their teammates, eventually that sense of desperation will soak in. And equally likely, that sense of desperation will most likely backfire--if not in murder or child abuse, in more subtle, less blatant forms of hostility.

Currently, there is talk by H. Ross Perot, chairman of the Governor's Select Committee on Public Education of stiffening academic requirements for high school athletes, cutting athletic budgets, and changing eligibility requirements to eliminate the incentive for holding student back. Such recommendations--several of which are supported by President Bok--are both reasonable and well-intentioned. But the committee must keep in mind when formulating such reforms that eliminating athletics programs will not just protect students from exposure to an unhealthy environment: it is also closing off perhaps the only avenue many students have to "getting out"--a painful reality that culturally arrogant policy makers often overlook.

The necessary changes in our attitudes to football--and high school football in particular--will not come overnight. And perhaps, as what many consider an unhealthy level of competition during reading and exam period here illustrates, it is beyond the power of regulations to change. As long as we continue to sanction violent behavior in our public schools. We can express no surprise that citizens they breed will respond in kind.