Posted by
Big Daddy on Friday, August 31, 2007 3:11:27 PM
At my son’s Pop Warner football practice the other day, I watched as a clear demonstration of all that’s good about the game crystallized before my eyes.
During a conditioning lap, a few of the slower players fell behind the faster ones. Once most of the team had finished, three or four remained, running slowly but steadily towards their teammates now waiting for them around the water station. Our coaches have a rule preventing anyone from drinking until everyone has finished the lap, which doesn’t sound too bad, until you’ve experienced the 100-degree Texas heat.
With no prompting from the coaches, more than a dozen players, all aged nine through eleven, left the comfort of the water station and ran to the three players still pushing against the last half of the lap. In an act of selflessness, these dozen or so ran alongside their slower teammates speaking encouragement to them without saying a word. Some ran beside the struggling players, some ran behind them, all forming a pocket of support that guided everyone to the reward of a cool drink and a few moments rest.
This display of teamwork and self-denial made me think about the differences between today’s NFL and the NFL of my youth. And it made me think about the unchanging values this, the greatest sport ever invented, can teach our children.
I remember going to sleep each night under the watchful eyes of the Dallas Cowboys team posters hanging over my bed. These were the posters sold for a nominal fee at McDonald’s each year as the season began. I looked forward to getting a new poster each fall, and most of the time left the previous year’s poster on the wall, adding the new one to the display. I’d pore over the poster each year, trying to match the names with the faces and jersey numbers without peeking at the roster printed towards the bottom. I was pretty good at naming most of the players, using jersey numbers as the primary clues. I mean, you really can’t see their faces with helmets on during games and back then, you only saw NFL players during the occasional sports report during local newscasts, so jersey numbers were better than faces for identification purposes. Of course back then, the jersey numbers rarely changed.
I could always count on jersey number 12 being on the front row towards the center. The only change my eyes detected in Roger Staubach each year was a slightly different hairstyle. Number 88 was there, Drew Pearson being my first inspiration to try my hand at wide receiver. Numbers 41 and 43 were always there as well, Charlie Waters and Cliff Harris a seemingly inseparable tandem of hard-hitting safeties. The rest of the second Doomsday Defense was there too, none more memorable to me than Ed “Too Tall” Jones and Randy “The Manster” White. I never considered for a minute these guys wouldn’t be on next year’s poster, and no one member of the team had a more prominent place than another on those bleachers. I don’t think I’ve seen a team poster from any NFL team in some time. I suppose you can find them somewhere, but isn’t it telling that they’re not prevalent any longer?
These are the days of Fathead, the low-adhesive vinyl cutouts that you can stick and reposition leaving no sticky mess on your wall. I’ve perused through Fathead’s website and I can’t seem to find a team cutout. There are plenty of individual players you can stick to the wall, but no team. You can celebrate your favorite running back, quarterback, wide receiver or other skill position player, but not the other 52 guys who helped them achieve their fame. Free agency, thy name is Individuality.
In the most team-dependent of all team sports, the focus has shifted from the team poster to individual cut outs of players who are flashier, louder, or more inclined towards criminal behavior, but that’s not football. Football teaches many things, none of which are actually related to the sport. The sport is simply a tangible framework used to embed values like sacrifice, perseverance, selflessness and pursuit of the greater good over individual achievement into the minds and hearts of its players. I can’t think of any man who will use a pass blocking technique beyond the gridiron, but I’m certain every man can and should use the values taught along with that technique. It seems these values erode somewhere between high school and the NFL for many players. Is it the lure of big contracts, or national fame that leads some players to put aside what their early coaches tried to instill in them? Probably, and for other reasons as well.
I love the game of football and all that it stands for in its purest form. That’s why on a hot Texas evening, I was mesmerized by the sight of young men doing what few NFL players would; delaying their reward to make sure everyone finished as a team. These players were poster kids for all that’s still right with football; the solid foundation of a sport whose pinnacle is a tad misshapen.