David CookWe are three days away from the biggest sports event in the known universe: the Super Bowl.
You'll probably be watching; I know I will.
But what -- exactly -- will we watch?
"Football is amazing as a form of entertainment. The spectacle. The athletic heroism," said Steve Almond. "Unfortunately, it's all these other things too."
Almond is the author of the New York Times-bestselling "Against Football: One Fan's Reluctant Manifesto," a profound examination of NFL culture and America. He also is a lifelong Raiders fan, which meant, until recently, he did everything a die-hard fan does: scour the sports pages, curse his fantasy team, turn blue all week when the Raiders lost. (He's had lots of those weeks.)
Then, slowly, it all turned sour.
"I felt empty after watching. Kind of dirty," he said. "Sure, it's very pleasurable, but so is smoking cigarettes and drinking a bunch of booze."
Almond began to ask himself why. His journey took him into what he calls "the dark side" of American football culture. Today's column, and Sunday's, will focus on what he found.
Like the way NFL culture affects how we view masculinity.
And women.
And gay Americans.
The way an NFL Sunday (or Monday or Thursday) fills our innate need for meaning and community.
Yet how that often happens at the expense of players' bodies and minds.
If the NFL has become the most powerful cultural force in America -- more than politics, even religion -- then it's time we started looking in the same dark places Almond has.
"It is the biggest thing in America, and for that reason we should be aware of everything it is," Almond said.
The NFL is played against a backdrop that is unquestionably racial. Most of the players are black. Most of the fans are white. Almost all the head coaches are white. So, too, the team owners.
How does that racial dynamic affect our national consciousness?
What does it do to our racial soul when each week we watch thousands of tiny acts of combat-like violence, nearly all of them committed by black men upon one another while white fans yell and scream?
What does it mean for America that our favorite form of entertainment -- "our central national narrative," as Almond said -- involves the glorification of such black-on-black violence?
"What is the relationship between our nation's racial history and our lust for football?" Almond asks.
Listen to our language. We call players "studs" and "animals." We exclaim: what a beast. In our fantasy leagues, we can "own" them. It all carries the scent of something long-ago, and very distorted.
"Can anyone really watch the NFL Combine -- in which young, mostly African-American men are made to run and jump and lift weights for the benefit of mostly old white coaches, and us coach potatoes -- and not see visual echoes of the slave auction?" Almond writes.
In his book, Almond devotes an entire chapter to race. Boldly so.
"Does football provide white Americans a continued sense of dominion over African-American men?"
"Do their huge salaries give us the right to pass judgment on them incessantly? To call up radio programs and yell about how they're lazy or money-hungry or thuggish? Do we secretly believe they belong to us?"
"What does it mean that football fever tends to run so hot in those states where slavery was legal and Jim Crow died hardest?"
"What does it mean that millions of white fans cheer wildly for African-American men in the context of a football game when, if they encountered these same men on a darkened street, they might very well reach nervously for their cell phone?"
These are hard questions. They make us uncomfortable. Maybe even angry.
But so can NFL football.
And if we're going to keep watching, we need to get tough enough to think through all that we see.
Contact David Cook at dcook@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6329. Follow him on Facebook and Twitter at DavidCookTFP.