Football. That’s right, football.

Make sure you get over to The New Republic and check out this article.  I love when brilliant people start in on analyzing sport and its place in American culture: invariably it takes on a scientist-in-a-lab-coat-watching-the-mice feel.  I do think, however, that Wilcomb E. Washburn is a football fan, in addition to being a brilliant person, and he captures, beautifully, that tension between those who get it and those who don’t:

Football is variously discussed by intellectuals under the heading of amusement, recreation, business, or mayhem. Those identified with the game, such as Gerald Ford as a player, or Richard Nixon as a fan, are pitied for having played the game too long without a helmet or for being unable to distinguish right from wrong.

Almost all intellectuals would, with Christopher Lasch, in a recent issue of the New York Review of Books (April 28, 1977), deplore football as one of the games which enlist “skill and intelligence, the utmost concentration of purpose, on behalf of utterly useless activities, …”

And, Washburn puts football in the context of what it means to be an American:

I must take issue with my friends and colleagues in the historical profession who can see little connection between football and American history. Any activity which engages not only the numbers of individuals who play and watch football, but the intensity of their commitment, deserves study. The game of football is a better barometer of American character than any other aspect of our culture because it reflects the true—and not the ideal—nature of our people. The brutality and insensitivity (along with the courage and intelligence) that characterize the game are integral parts of our national character. A game which recognizes and utilizes these characteristics is more consistent with our actual nature than one which appeals to our “better” nature.

Integral parts of our national character…I think our Mr. Washburn has gotten to the heart of the matter.