Continuing the ideas from last week, a majority of the participants in my study*** criticized the prevalent ideas of sacrificing one's body and playing through pain within football culture. The idea of sacrificing one’s body is not unique to football, but seems to be a highly valued mantra across sports within American culture. I remember watching a football game one Sunday night and listening to the announcers praise one of the quarterbacks for playing through a ACL/MCL tear. They touted this young quarterback as tough, strong and as a real leader. It gave me reason to pause as I thought about this young man’s career and the likely permanent damage he was doing to his body in the hopes of making the playoffs. I realized my hypocrisy since I played on an ankle that needed surgery because it was my recruiting year and I was a captain.
The pressure to play through injuries is pervasive and glorified, but the participants in my study spoke of another fascination. Participants highlighted the glorification and vicarious experience of violence as part of broader American culture, and emphasized the media’s role in portraying football players as modern day warriors. Because their words are more powerful, here are a few of their thoughts (*pseudonyms are used):
Ryan: I was always trying to nail someone what wasn't paying attention and I think Americans love legal violence so the ability to watch football, I mean I'm sure everybody watches what happen to players. They're faster. They're stronger and it's not stopping...so I mean I think we all thirst for almost from a gladiator standpoint....So I think overall, I think Americans love the violence. I think they feed on it...
Connor: I think there’s kind of this thing around people who like watching people hurt each other. You can’t see that on the streets. You can’t see that in public. So there is this kind of feeling that I get that people think that football players are objects, kind of like modern day gladiators almost...
Patrick: Football is just a representation of like human brutality and like, and form, right? Like if you think through, like, the evolution of what humans love to watch –they love watching violence. Like gladiators, right? People killing each other. Like, humans love watching these things. Up until a few years ago, every Monday, they’d play the NFL’s biggest hits from the week. Like that just stopped over the past few years because of the concussion stuff…Um, so I think that if you look at the culture of football, it’s, it’s one that’s always been kind of predicated around, around, you know, masculinity and violence.
Patrick goes on to consider the language of violence used by coaches as they teach young men about the fundamentals of football.
Patrick: Like we would have coaches saying, “I want you to, you know, punch his heart through his chest.” Right? Or um, “Take him off the field. Get rid of him.” Like, like that is a culture of like violence really. Like right? Because the more violent team wins. Because half the game is physically dominating someone. O-line and D-line, you don’t ever touch the ball. It’s about taking the man in front of you every play and physically dominating them. So yeah, that’s, that’s definitely one of the cultural norms, is like being aggressive, being physical, violence.
Similarly, comparisons with the military were common across several of the interviews who described the language of “going into battle”, being a “soldier”, and “being in the foxhole”. In these ways, the language of the participants’ coaches and of the media reinforce the glorification of violence within the sport and within broader American society.
As clinicians who work with athletes, we must look for the opportunities to discuss this value on violence and fighting. Football players are compared to warriors in battle on the field, but many players struggle with leaving the battle mentality on the field and have yet to develop anger management tools that don't involve physical engagement. Prominant wide receiver Brandon Marshall described his struggle:
'Football players are trained to be bipolar,’ he said. ‘You have to have a switch. You have to be able to turn the switch on when you touch the field, play with a lot of passion and emotion, violence, be able to hit a man, try to hurt a man. Be hit by him, and love it. When the clock hits zero, you have to turn that switch off. And 'The Beast' didn’t have that switch.’ (Deveney, S., 2011)
As we think about the ways in which we, as a society, vicariously consume violent media, we can also consider our own responsibilities in advocating for safe play and players' rights. For those who argue that recent rule changes which protect player safety "ruin" sports, I would argue that it's better to have sports evolve as the physicality of athletes evolve than it is to continue to have athletes be physically and mentally impaired for the rest of their lives.
***Based on results from my dissertation: "No pain, no gain: American football players' attitudes towards help-seeking and barriers to mental health service utilization" (2015).
Deveney, S. (2011). Brandon Marshall becomes unlikely voice for mental health. Sporting News, October 25, 2011. Retrieved on October 8, 2012 from: http://aol.sportingnews.com/nfl/story/2011-10-25/brandon-marshall-becomes-unlikely-voice-for-mental-health.