Thoughts at the Start of Football Season

I love football season. I love the bleachers, hot in August and freezing in October. I love the smell of home fries from the concession stands and lollies and sodas that never have the right syrup/carbonated water mix. I love the players, sweaty and grass-stained, their hair messy from wearing helmets. I love the referees, older guys, working for their passion of the game. I love the coaches, those dads who can’t get enough. I love watching boys who started out little bitty guys in flag football, gain skill and confidence and strength over their “careers.” I just love football.

Football season started this weekend with our jamboree games. Teams who aren’t in the same bracket play each other for practice, to get those first-game jitters out of the way without it mattering if they win or lose. But sitting on the bleachers on Sunday (cool in August for a change), I was reminded of the one thing I hate about football…The Ugly.

I arrived with my son the required one hour early before his game. The game on the field was starting the second quarter. I took a seat and set out to work on my day planner, glancing up now and then to watch the game. It was a good game. Both sides played well. I found myself paying less attention to the work in my lap and more attention to the action on the field. I was feeling the football spirit once again.

Then, as one team scored, The Ugly began. The coaches across the field started screaming. The fans in the stands started yelling. Not just cheering the players on, but also yelling ugly things like, “KILL HIM!” and “HURT HIM!” and “TAKE HIM DOWN!” One man said of a player on his own team that he “played like a faggot.” They screamed at the referees, yelling, “Can’t you see, Ref?” “What are you? Stupid?” I even heard the f-bomb thrown out a time or two.

Since I had no stake in this game, I stopped what I was doing and observed the people around me. It occurred to me that if someone was doing a documentary on Catholic youth football, that the people in these stands would not look very Christian. I daresay that they would have been ashamed of themselves if they were to watch their behavior on screen afterward. The coaches looked less like dads and more like Bear Bryant on a really bad day. One coach was called for an unsportsmanlike penalty. Really! In a jamboree game!

A lady (and I use that term loosely) behind me was out of control. After a player on the opposing team was called for a late hit, she stood up and screamed, “Is that how you do things up there off Westport Rd?” When the penalty was announced, she waved her arms back in forth in the air shouting, “Oh yeah! Oh yeah!” She ranted throughout the game, making derisive comments about the other team’s players, coaches, school, and neighborhood. Nobody asked her to be quiet. A few people tried to shush her, but no one said, “That’s enough.”

After the game, one of the people around me stopped and said, “She’s not with us. Don’t judge us by her behavior.” I agreed that there’s one like her at every school. What I thought to myself though was, “Why do we let it go on? Why don’t we say, ‘Enough?’ What are we afraid of?” I have 3 kids who started playing sports at school 9 years ago, and I have never been moved to act like I was at this game.

I’m guilty of not speaking up. I have sat in the bleachers with equally vociferous parents and kept my mouth shut. I’ve sat there while our fans screamed at the referees, the players, and the other fans and not said a thing. I’m guilty as well of being a less-than-shining example of a model fan. I’d like to think I’ve never acted as ugly as the people I sat around on Sunday, but I don’t think I’d bet too much on it.

I plan to change that.

This past Saturday, our parish leadership team set a goal for the year for our church. We are challenging our parishioners to become “Eucharist-centered” people, meaning that we keep Christ in our minds in all that we do, whether it is at mass, at work, at Kroger, or on the playing field. All we do should be for the glory and praise of God.

I would like to extend this idea to the entire Archdiocese. I would like to challenge everyone to act in a more Eucharist-centered way, not just on Sundays in church but on Sundays in the stands and on the fields. Ask yourself, “Would I act this way if Jesus was on the other team? Would I scream at Jesus if he made a bad call? Would I yell, ‘KILL HIM!’ if Jesus was running for a touchdown?”

Don’t get me wrong. I am all for competition. I love the cheering and the yelling in the stands FOR good plays, FOR touchdowns, FOR the win. I love the challenges and the heartbreaks and the wins and the losses…well, not so much the losses, but you know what I mean. I love the excitement and the anticipation and the team spirit and the fun. What don’t love is The Ugly.

I think that if we all behaved as though we were being filmed for a documentary on youth football, we could get rid of some of that Ugly. If enough parents stood up and said, “ENOUGH” when things got out of hand, we would get rid of more of the Ugly. If we all try to remember to keep Christ in the game, we wouldn’t even know what Ugly was.

I love football, but it is a GAME. Contrary to popular belief, CSAA football is not a blood sport. We quit those a couple of thousand years ago. Remember, those players out on the fields, while they may look huge in their helmets and pads, are in grade school. They are CHILDREN. Would you scream at your own child like that? Would you scream at God’s?