Twice this year major sporting events have been the tableau for a corporate religious experience having nothing to do with church, but looking more like a worship service than many a megachurch techno-orgy. This isn't about pedophilia and Jerry Sandusky; I don't think many more analyses are necessary. Don't rape kids. There. Analysis complete. Of more concern to me this time around is the way in which football is portrayed both as unimportant (it's just a game) and critical to our health (let's play football so the healing can begin). Both of these perspectives are wrong, but they are entirely useful when offerd as counterpoints to the other at the appropriate time.
Penn State played the week after the firing of long-time coach Joe Paterno. Of course they did. Much as we heard calls for the NFL right after 9/11, we heard demands that the game be played so that Penn State could begin the healing process. We can't have terrorists and pedophiles winning the culture war, after all, so let's play football as a hearty fuck off to their attempts to ruin our culture and bugger our children. Makes perfect sense. In one of the greatest ironies of the year, the Penn State faithful linked arms and sang the alma mater. Ironic why? Stanzas 3 and 4 for your reading amazement:
When we stood at childhood's gate,
Shapeless in the hands of fate,
Thou didst mold us, dear old State,
Dear old State, dear old State.
May no act of ours bring shame,
To one heart that loves thy name.
May our lives but swell thy fame,
Dear old State, dear old State.
Indeed. The problem, or at least part of it, is this notion that universities are distinct entities with a system of values, a body of practices, and traditions that give shape to people's identities. This is ridiculous, of course. One need only interview a cross section of professors to see that the values taught at a particular university are all over the place. As for the practices, yes, some degree of uniformity and common memory is instilled in those who walk the old paths, but the student body doesn't even share the same sorts of practices unless they are members of the same fraternity or team or club. The most common arena for common practice is sports. Think of West Virginia's orgiastic entrance celebration or Kansas University' creepy chant to begin the basketball season. What those practices do besides give fond memories of drunken nights is beyond me, but we're supposed to believe that universities are distinct entities because of this sort of nonsense. (I'm sure the SCOTUS would grant them personhood if the money was right, by the way.)
However, as the Penn State fans linked arms and sang, flickering across the face of many was a deep sense of shared well-being, pride, and even anger. Collectively, they sang both to show their pride in their school (whatever the fuck that means) and to achieve a sense of catharsis. That sounds very much like a worship service. The announcers went along by intoning bullshit claims about healing coming out of this game. It's the most absurd justification of football's deep-rooted self-importance I'd seen since 9/11.
Less than a month later, Oklahoma State would experience a tragedy as well. This one wasn't due to the evil choices of a predator, though; rather, the vagaries of weather claimed yet another OSU aircraft. I want to be sensitive here, both because it was a horrible accident, and because I sincerely believe OSU does as fine a job as any university of making students and profs feel they are part of a larger family. (Full disclosure: I teach humanities at one of the schools in their network.) As with PSU, the announcers the night of OSU's epic loss to Iowa State spoke of healing as coming from the game, but at the same time, because the tableau included death, they spoke of football as only a game. It was a bizarre juxtaposition, and had they reversed the context, the statements would have been utterly appropriate.
Healing begins in shared communal experience. I absolutely believe that, but the idea that it's the game that creates the shared space for that is ridiculous. The game serves as a distraction, and because it's not "just a game" (someone is making millions, here, folks), the game must go on. The justification is in the portrayal of the game as a healing catharsis. How does the game heal the wounds of rape victims? How does it heal the hearts of the families of crash victims? What can football offer that community, shared grief, and mutual encouragement can't? Entertainment. Distraction. Sports as self-important cultural phenomenon. The triviality of grown men vying for a piece of leather is elevated by the priests of the game (the announcers who narrate the order of service) to a place of prominence in the psyche of gathered fans. You need football to feel whole. Has more banal bullshit ever been uttered? When someone tells me how important the game is for the healing of a community, that's when I remind them it's just a game. When they tell me it's just a game in a moment of false humility, that's when it's appropriate to say, no, it's more than a game. There is too much money, too many students, too much politics for it to be just a game, and because it's not just a game, you will find ways to justify its ongoing importance even in the midst of genuine tragedy.
