Football Addiction
It strikes me that men in most American households use their free-time tediously. Rather than read, write, paint, or call up old buddies on Sunday, forty million males in our nation resign themselves to a couch and take in between six and nine hours of televised football. Imagine - we spend six to nine consecutive hours prostrate, with our feet in the air staring at a piece of glowing glass. There are methods of tortures less injurious!
Let me add perspective to my criticism with a confession: I, too, am an addict. Between the months of September and January, I watch a full day of professional football once every week. Living on the West coast, this means I am a vegetable on Sundays from 10 a.m. to about 7 p.m. What's worse: so as to catch every minute of footage between the first kick off and John Madden's burly adieu, I rarely shower. Yes, I am an unclean vegetable.
So what do I do while I watch? Well nothing really. I recline and root for particular players (members I've selected for my 'fantasy team') to hemorrhage through defenses, rack up yardage, and score touchdowns so that a tally of their combined statistics will top an aggregate from others that a friend has selected. I also cheer for the United States Saints - but then, who doesn't?
What does football do to me while I watch? With the drought of locomotion my knees stiffen, through each score and pause my heartbeat races and slows, and, absorbing the polemic from commentators, the creative half of my brain withers into oblivion. Patiently, though, I am an eager witness to each play, replay, and analysis. At the end of the day - when the television tells me to do so - I switch it off and step outside. The world has spun halfway around, and there is a chilly darkness out there to greet me.
Like so many other men, and like so many other addicts, I can justify what I've done with my time today, for I am happy - albeit complacently so. New Orleans has won, and I feel a bounce in my step knowing my favorite team is atop its division. I mull over their improbable victory with glee, which is tempered by the knowledge that my 'fantasy team' has been defeated, and I must endure groundless smack talk from a friend in the morning.
Look at the broader picture: Through the week I work feverishly, cursing a lack of time, and falling dangerously low on sleep. At my job I have day-dreamed of spending hours with my girlfriend, reading, learning more Mandarin, writing parts of a short story, or phoning family or friends. I have judiciously postponed all of these aims for the weekend. However, on Sunday night I lament, for I've spent the full complement of those hours as a spectator. With little to show for a day spent away from the job, I wonder: is my interest in football hurting me?
Using an internet search engine while watching football this past Sunday was a challenge, but I was equal to the task. I found that Bob Andelman authored a book: Why Men Watch Football (1993: Arcadian House Publishing), ostensibly exploring the roots of our addiction to the game and assessing the impact the game has on our lives. I was surprised to read that Andelman testifies on behalf of football, viewing spectatorship as a healthy diversion, something of a modern panacea for male psychological necessities.
Concede Andelman his points that men likely need to bond with other men and also need to vent aggression, and you will still find his conclusion objectionable. True: football constitutes the de facto lingua franca at the office water-cooler, and some violent men really do get their rocks off watching a quarterback go down under a pile of linebackers. Still, I wonder: How well does watching football serve us compared to other leisure pursuits? How efficiently am I bonding with other men sitting alone all day in my house? Does the slow-motion replay of a successful safety blitz provide the proper valve to palliate my ever-building aggression? In other words, do I really need football? Does anyone?
In spite of the gossip and schadenfreude we garner from an afternoon spent as spectators, we find ourselves bereft of accomplishments that we might marvel at once the set is switched off. Post-game broadcasts permit us to mull over the feats of our avatars, but concede only an ersatz sense of attainment. Our friends are still other places. Our welling vitriol has only been stirred.
Instead of watching LT bang through another shoddy run defense this Sunday, I am going to consider other pursuits - creating an artwork, penning a story (a violent one if necessary), or catching a meal with a friend. I would like to see if I am not more prolifically satiated. If I am, as I expect I will be, I will issue the following plee to all wives (football widows), girlfriends, concerned daughters, mothers, and friends:
On behalf of my community of circumspect football aficionados, I beseech you to come to our aide! We are adversely dependent on a Sunday routine and require your intervention. Will you kindly coax us from our habitual spectatorship and permit us to sample other, potentially more rewarding pastimes? May I suggest that next Sunday we try baking something as we watch the games? Next Sunday, we will watch only the post-game recap. In this way we might at least see what a full weekend in the Fall season could be had we not become compulsive voyeurs of the National Football League.
In the impending shake-up, the workplace may be transmuted into a Tower of Babble. Allegedly inexorable masculine rage may consume us. But I will be willing to bet that we will survive the traumatic excision of football from our lives. At the very least we will see some fruit of our own vitality, and, what is more, our knees may thank us on Sunday nights.
