Notebook: We need football

EDITORIAL MUG: Larry Anderson

We need football. Oh, we don’t need it the way we need oxygen, but we do need it for sustenance of the soul. It is a pigskin rescue for the marrow of our beings.

Sure, this season has ended in a faded crescendo of distant crowds, but the significance lingers. Battles were fought. Victories were won and triumphs savored. Wounds were bound and broken hearts mended by the prospect of a more rewarding season forthcoming. The quick will become faster next year and the strong stronger.

Footballers, after all, play for what can be as much as for what is. They play as if the game is all that matters, and for three hours on an autumn afternoon, it truly is. Few things in life offer as much.

For years I neglected football in favor of balls that are round, but I have come to appreciate the game the way one does who arrives late. I wasn’t cut out to be a player any more than I was meant to be a cowboy, but I am fine with that. I have found contentment in my recliner with chips at hand and the television too loud.

I never doze in my comfortable chair on football day as I do waiting for the mail or watching Jeopardy. It’s too much fun. I wait all week for the big game. I need the thrill, and I need something to get behind, to boost, curse and care about. The satisfaction of victory remains like an afterglow while disappointment is a stain on the heart.

Football isn’t just a sport, you know. It is a master craft. A game is the product of planning, developing and executing, but perfection doesn’t happen as we spectators expect. The variables are too many: a fumble, an interception, an injury, a missed tackle, a penalty, an errant field goal. The possibilities are unlimited, so the response to the unexpected must be preparation with fingers crossed. Anticipation is everything; its reward is celebration.

I like that football excludes self-pity. There’s no whimpering or complaining or excuses. It’s all about getting up from the turf and going on. Football is about striving for a defined goal and getting through whoever is in the way. It is the antithesis of helplessness. Cry-babies are ineligible where muscle and bone rule and where endurance meets merit. Football builds men.

In football race or politics don’t matter. There’s no accusation or recrimination, no hate, no worries, no blame. There is only healthy competition and congratulations when the clock ends followed by slaps on the back. It’s all good, every bit of it.

Football is uniquely American. It belongs to us. It overcomes, binds, and gives us all something to glom onto as we face the uncertainty of the week. We can count on football. There is something uplifting about it, like good music echoing within.

America needs football more than ever because we have our share of national problems. The game transcends troubles and wars, stress and danger. It gives us all a good time when certain elements of our society seem intent only on negativity. Football completes us. Our nation is better because of it.

So let’s not run to football as a refuge for our incompletions. Instead let it be a validation of who we are and what we strive to be. Maybe it can’t fill every void in our national soul, but it is a good place to be with others intent on being part of something good and decent. Football is a dependable friend that loves a good crowd with hot dogs. It is a blessed thing for a country sprained and limping and looking ahead.

Larry W. Anderson is a retired educator.