Why I hate AMERICAN football.

Football is bad for you. It's bad for me. It's bad for everyone. It should be ignored and left to rot and die. It won't, but that's my opinion of it. I would be happy to hear from anyone why it is not so. But first, here are the reasons why I hate football.

Simply put, football is racist, sexist, and not a very entertaining game. Despite this it remains popular, mostly because there is a lot of money to be made on it, and so, there is a lot of money spent promoting it, which leads people to think it is interesting, important and cool, when in fact, it is not. Not only is this the case with American football, and American college football, but with the Canadian game as well. The only difference is that Canadian football matters even less, yet is afflicted with an inferiority complex (next to its American brothers) that leads the institution to be even more annoying. Finally, of course, is the arrogance of this American corruption of the British sport of rugby in taking the name of the most popular sport on the planet, that is football, known to North Americans as soccer, of course.

Football is racist. Think about it. A bunch of overweight black guys from mostly poor neighbourhoods get recruited by colleges to protect the lone, skinny white kid who is the star. They pay these kids with a piss-poor education, and the false hope of making the NFL. Let's say they do (if they don't, they are left to go back to their poor lives, with nothing to show for it but a useless degree and quite possibly a drug habit, or the effects of the drugs they were forced to use during their college careers). So now they are again in the position of protecting the white man, getting paid at least, but certainly pumped full of steroids.

Now, black people don't need me to fight their battles for them, but even I can see that the game of football is pure exploitation of the poor black population of the United States. All the points are scored by white guys: the QB and the kicker. Yeah, there are sometimes black quarterbacks, but how is it that this is an anomaly? Let's look at hockey. Not too many black dudes playing hockey, but at least the reasons there are clear: it's an expensive game and many black families are too poor to play it. Or, in Northern Europe and Western Canada, the heartland of hockey players, there just aren't as many black people in the population . But tons of black people play football. Why are most quarterbacks still white? It's because it is a position of privilege and the sport's racist culture is resistant to letting blacks play QB.

Football is sexist, too. I'm sure that I would not be the first to suggest that cheerleaders are pure and simple sex-objects. The whole thing is a painfully obvious mating ritual. And that's ok. Or at least it would be if everyone one involved weren't so oblivious to the whole thing. Get some self-awareness. Perhaps cheerleaders can be self-actualizing their sexuality. I doubt it. Let's compare to hockey again. Women actually play hockey. Well. I know there are women's football leagues, but they are few and far between, and certainly not as accepted by the football culture (or regular culture) as women's hockey is. Women's hockey has a ways to go, too, for sure, but it is miles ahead of football.

The game itself is ridiculous. I read recently that in a 3.5 to 4 hour game, there is only about 11 min of actual game-play. The rest is waiting, referees deciding, moving chains, etc. Actually I think the clock stops when the chains move, but anyway...what is going on for 3 hours? Nothing. Some would say strategy. I would say you are flattering your game. Even if it is strategy, again, what we have is a chubby white man mastermind, playing war with his mostly-black soldiers. If this is entertaining, I'm disappointed in our culture.

Even the notion that football builds character through discipline and team concept is far mislaid. The idea that the sum of parts can be more than the whole is not unique to football, and in fact, a superior individual (usually the quarterback) can overcome a mediocre team more often than not. Skill and talent wins games of any kind more than any other characteristic. The "team concept" in football is mostly myth.

All of these things are frustrating to me and make me hate football. But, taken alone, they would only be enough for me to ignore it, or snobbishly criticize it from afar. Unfortunately, football's reach is longer than that. Because of the elephant that is American football (from the NCAA to the NFL), our Canadian university sport system has been hideously disfigured. We could have a lovely system, where amateur sports of all kinds could flourish, and the long-term development of young athletes would be best served by going through the university system. Instead, because of the need to "compete" (and no one in amateur sport really understands this word: it's latin origin means to strive together--not against each other) with the Americans, we have eligibility limits, and a host of other restrictive rules that prevent Canadian student-athletes from achieving their full potential. There is no reason to limit participation to 5 years. Only because of football's self-importance (i.e. coaches would not be able to help themselves) do we have this rule. Sports with high academic averages feature student-athletes who are at school first, and at play second. But not football. Or less so.

Then there are the drugs. CIS Football has by far the highest incidence of positive drug testing. Only 5 other sports (out of 12 possible CIS sports) have any positive tests at all. What is wrong with football? Here are the stats:

Football 45

Ice Hockey 4

Basketball 4

Field Hockey 1

Soccer 1

Volleyball 1

By gender is is 54 to 2 for the men, by the way. One woman is field hockey (there is no men's field hockey). I don't know what the other would be.

The other problem is that football programs drain funding from athletics departments so that other sports can not thrive. Of course I come to this from the perspective of a university cross country coach, and perhaps we are known (as are all the individual sports) for being confrontational with the big sports of football, hockey and basketball, likely for reasons of jealousy. So if you want to discount my opinions on that count, go ahead. But it doesn't change the logic. I don't suggest that other sports are inherently more valuable than football. It's just that football costs way more. Look at the costs and look at the revenues. Some people will say (and this may be true in some places) that all the sponsorship dollars that come in are attributable mostly to football. So even if there are great costs, without the revenue that football brings in, the rest of the department would be in the red. I have yet to be shown the numbers. Probably because if football breaks even it is because of alumni donations and private contributions. Yes, they have strong alumni networks, but that comes from being propped up and supported 100% throughout the years. If individual sports got the full support football gets, alumni might be more inclined to give. Most cross country alum I talk to are only inclined to give because they know how poorly their sport is treated relative to the big three. They don't give out of a sense of loyalty to a school or a crest. Maybe runners are individualist like that, I don't know. In any case, I'd still like to see the numbers. And I would count among football revenues the beer money our team made a couple of weeks ago. Sure, without football, we would lose that, but we would also have the benefit of a chunk of a larger budget, wouldn't we? Maybe.

So this is why I am annoyed at football. It's racist, sexist, boring and it takes away from my sport (and plenty of other good sports, too). I would not suggest that the players themselves, especially in Canadian university football, are bad people. No, they are just being used by a corrupt system. The coaches are more likely complicit, especially when you hear some of the things some of them have to say about recruiting. University sport is sport for students, not the personal sporting fiefdom of the coaching staff. I say this generally, as again, when you speak to individuals, sometimes they are ok dudes. But it seems like they just don't know any better. Or they just want to play their game.

Playing a game is great. I like most forms of competition. That's why I can bear watching football twice a year: the Grey Cup and the Super Bowl. But I probably won't anymore. If I do, it will be for the reasons I always do: to hang out with friends and do something together. So I guess if that's why you watch football, (or any sport, really), hey, why not? But maybe you can find something better to do together than support the racist, sexist, destructive institution known as American football.

Yes this rant is elitist and condescending. I am ok with that. I am better than football, and football is beneath me. (unless some linemen read this and come to crush me, but they would only be proving my point...ow!) If you can make a logical, coherent argument as to why football is not any of these things I've suggested, please do. I bet you can't.