Sat, 2007 Nov 10
Celebration
I sort of follow college football. I usually know who the top five teams in the country are and how the OU Sooners are doing. I also check out si.com or espn.com during the college football season to see what’s going on. And I enjoy watching the strategy during the games. But I’m not really up to “fan” status. I mean, strategy is great and all but you’re not going to see me freezing my rear off for four hours in the stands. Nuh-uh, son.
The point of the previous paragraph is that I don’t really know what I’m talking about here.
I have two complaints about college football. Well, I probably have more, but two I’m going to share. One is the “perfect season” ideal. For generally good teams, one loss in a season can be a big deal. As in, your hopes for the season are over. There’s probably no fix for that, but it just seems goofy to me, and detrimental to teaching the players life skills, or whatever the stated reason for collegiate athletics is these days.
My bigger complaint is the “excessive celebration” rules. I don’t know the history behind them. No doubt, there are at least some good and thought out historical reasons for such penalties. But I’m not going to check them right now. While there is a danger in not knowing history (the tendency to repeat the bad parts), there is also a danger in not examining something at its current state. For example, there are good historical reasons for why email sucks. It still sucks, and it needs to replaced, because the historical evolution of email, via each of its positive steps, produced a bad product.
NB: This is a rant. Grain of salt, please.
The problem I have is these guys get on the field in front of thousands of drunken people, under crazy pressure, making mistakes, getting booed and yelled at, not to mention their own self degradation, and then, finally all that practicing, all that work comes together and they make an amazing play, and by the rules of the game, they…smile…and, um, high five. Does nobody else think it a wee bit goofy that the fans at home with popcorn propped precariously on their laps celebrate more than the actual players? Cos, it just doesn’t make sense to me.
Let’s talk about self-esteem. Because I imagine that has more than necessary place in the argument against excessive celebration. Self-esteem and celebration of accomplishments are not separable. Yes, sometimes the celebration is very quiet, but let’s face it, the only things about football that could be described as quiet are celebration and the University of Nebraska’s ability to fire its dumb— coach.
Perhaps, though, the reason for the continuance of such anti-celebration tactics is the purity line. You know, “We must keep amateur sports pure”. This is the reason that teams lose their wins because a player got paid too much; meanwhile, the games are interrupted for commercials. To keep the game pure and non-commercialized, right?
Celebration likewise disrupts the purity of the game. To see this clearly, we must go back to the early days of American football. The game was invented as a practice of religious penance. A few folks in the village of G’nash were getting too prideful. So, the religious leaders invented a game that required dedication, training, effort, brute strength, and intelligence, so that when a player succeeded, he, she, or it would have every reason to be proud, but…here’s the catch…they had to content themselves with a head butt. Instant humility, baby.
What would I like to see instead? I don’t know. But I would like to see the “minimal celebration obsession” be at least re-evaluated, because I think it leaves out one of the best parts of any game: rejoicing for no “real life” reason.
