the post calvin

For more explanation of this month’s theme, “millennials in thirty things,” check out this post.

Consider the ball itself. Once a ghastly-to-inflate pig bladder, today’s football is a marvel of modern science, a prolate spheroid of high-grade cowhide engineered for optimal aerodynamicity. Since 1955, each NFL game ball has been manufactured in Ada, Ohio according to league-specific size and weight demands. Wilson™, the official manufacturer, owns its own leather formula and grains minuscule “Ws” into its leather panels.

The story of the football makes for a neat microcosm of the story of the sport itself. As the pigskin has progressed from blown-up bladder to hyper-precise elliptical, the game of football has transformed from a cadre of college kids letting off steam to a full-fledged spectacle featuring advanced tactics, sanctioned violence, and million-dollar money interests.

These are the issues that demand a measure of soul-searching from today’s football fan. Hosts of retired players have spoken out against their leagues on account of injuries that haunt them decades later. Today’s faster game generates harder hits and bigger profits than ever before while its players—particularly in the college game—are left to deal with the consequences of the hits without the help of the profits.

Enter ethics. Step, for a moment, into the conscience of a football fan. It’s as ravaged as the gridiron after triple-overtime, as bumpy as the pebble-grained leather of each Wilson™ game ball. How can a player attract hundreds of thousands of fans, generate millions on uniform and video game revenues, and watch as his coaching staff and athletic department reap the profits while he is left penniless with a prescription list long enough to move the chains? How can the sport’s biggest professional league—by far the most popular among American professional sport leagues—respond to domestic violence with a two-game suspension?

These are the questions that, at the very least, must weigh on the mind of today’s football fan. The sport has constructed itself into a multi-billion dollar industry, but a quick perusal of the major headlines in the sport reveals the shaky scaffolding of the its underdeveloped moral structure.

But what’s so millennial about football? Perhaps very little. Like NFL quarterbacks Drew Brees and Kurt Warner, many in our generation have written it off and forbidden it to their children. But the debate surrounding the sport seems very millennial to me. It’s characterized by a suspicion of institutions and a kind of helpless outrage.

We’re willing to interrogate the sport. We talk about concussion regulation, even stipends for division one athletes. We call for Roger Goodell’s firing. We recognize just how far the game has progressed from an inflated pig blatter. We get angry about it. But we’re not angry enough to stop watching. We’ll still yell at our quarterbacks on Sunday afternoons the same way we yell at the tin-eared Tuesday morning decisions of the game’s commissioner. Why? Because it doesn’t matter how loud we are. The falcon cannot hear the falconer.

Like it or not, we know we’re complicit in building the behemoth that thought that either A) a two-game suspension is a just punishment for domestic violence or B) they could get away with it. Like it or not, our ticket sales funnel dollars into the pockets of coaches and athletic directors.

Last week marked the 200th anniversary of the British attack on Fort McHenry, when Francis Scott Key penned the text to “The Star-Spangled Banner.” This weekend, a number of college and professional teams paid tribute to the national anthem with various musical and sartorial decisions.

At Michigan Stadium, the home of my own favorite football squad, a bald eagle circled around the stadium during the national anthem. The bird spiraled above the 102,000 on hand for the game. For a brief moment during its descent, the eagle escaped the cameraman following it and disappeared. It was a rare departure from the script in a pregame that’s otherwise meticulously premeditated. The camera rattled for a second before focusing on the falconer standing at midfield. Seconds later, the bird swiftly fell onto his index finger. Then the ball was kicked and the game began.