“If competitive sports build character, it is character fit for a criminal,” said G.B. Leonard in 1972, disputing the theory that athletics embody moral principles. Leonard might have had football in mind when he penned those words.
Football is a game of intelligence. But it’s a game of brutality, too. How can a person wrestle and shove and grab without eventually feeling like taking that aggression to another level?
Gene Washington, the NFL director of football development, has fined dozens of athletes for fighting. Thirty-five were punished for their parts in the Pittsburgh-Houston brawl in October 1996, with fines totaling $145,000. The Kansas City v. Seattle contest Oct. 17 showed fans another exhibition of mindless fighting, and brought better than $70,000 in player penalties. Gene Washington is considering an increase in fighting fines.
“There’s just more of it [an in-your-face attitude] this year,” says Washington. “I don’t know what is going on [or] what the hell it is.”
When you expect gigantic and powerful men who are blocking, tackling, punching, kicking, and poking one another to keep their emotions under control for an entire afternoon, you should also expect to be disappointed.
As Gordon W. Russell notes in “The Social Psychology of Sport”:
“It is interesting to consider that if the mayhem of the ring or gridiron erupted in a shopping mall, criminal charges would inevitably follow. Yet within the boundaries of sport, such controlled chaos is accepted and encouraged.”
Russell points out that, outside of wartime, sports is probably the only setting in which acts of aggression are applauded.
Off-the-field outbursts are condemned at random, as well. Chicago’s Bryan Cox is known to say and do whatever he feels like saying and doing. We’re talking about a man who’s thrown up many, many middle fingers to people he doesn’t agree with. He was fined $87,500 for having a fit on the sidelines during a loss.
After that game against Green Bay, Cox insulted officials and teammates without thinking twice. Should it be a crime to say what you feel, even if no one but you believes your words? Cox, like many people you know in your own life, will never hold back, regardless of media presence or absence. It’s a mystery, why those who disagree with someone in the sports world are made to pay (after the damage is done).
Again, sports mirror the rest of our world. There are so many regulations that supposedly keep us safe. Some of these rules do nothing but stifle the person. Some are meant to make the rule makers look as if they care. And some of these rules spank us for actions that are very subjective.
Think about hockey, where a man can legally slam his opponent through the side glass at speeds of thirty miles per hour… but is penalized for popping him in the nose during the heat of battle and emotion. Aren’t both acts intended to gain an advantage?
The hypocrisy is amazing. Let’s wonder, just for a moment, how much money the NFL has made off home videos like “The NFL’s Greatest Hits,” where player after player delivers career- and life-threatening tackles. Maybe the league should get fined for tolerating the very behavior they publicly denounce.Â