On The Pleasure of Hitting

Tackling the NFL

Last night was the Super Bowl. Watched by millions and millions of Americans, the championship game of the NFL is something of a holiday in the States: friends and family settled down with good food, spending time together, and watching football. It’s almost heartwarming.

In the spirit of openness though, I have to admit that I just don’t like football, and was easily distracted after I realized that predictions were true and the better defense would take the game.

As the Seahawks routed the Broncos to a miserly loss, I could think of nothing else but William Hazlitt, the 18th/19th century essayist. More specifically his essay entitled “The Fight”. Many of you, by this sentence, are surely perplexed.

What could Hazlitt, read by dozens and dozens of people, have to do with football? Nothing, naturally, but his description of an 1820s boxing match feels oddly reminiscent:

He starts in a far away town. Far enough away in 1820s England to travel by mail cart. On the road he meets other travelers at an Inn; those with stories of fights past, those taking bets, and those drinking until they could not get their mugs to their lips. After a night of not sleeping—the Inn was so crowded that many could not get beds—he and the others walk a couple of miles to the match.

The crowd is thick except for a “spot of virgin-green closed in and unprofaned by vulgar tread,” a makeshift ring. It is there that the Gas Man and Bill Neate are set to fight. During the moments before the battle is set to ensue, there is measuring up of sides, more bets cast, and trash-talk between the opponents.

Once the fight ensues, it becomes clear that Neate, the larger man by at least two stone (28lbs.) will be the winner, but the Gas Man is no easy opponent to fell: it took twelve rounds to get him to stay down though “his face was like a human skull, a death’s head, spouting blood.” Hazlitt continues: “the eyes were filled with blood, the nose streated with blood, the mouth gaped blood.” Another rout it seemed.

This is the description that brought my wandering mind to this essay of his. I recall first reading this and researching what a boxing match might have been like before it became the sport we know it as today. And much to my unsurprise, there were no gloves, no ropes; just bare fists pounding away at each other. According to the wikipedia page, it was barely three-quarters of a century before that they had instituted rules—Broughton’s Rules—to protect men from death in the ring. (To put this in perspective, in the time frame of sports it is approximately the same as Jackie Robinson to now).

Fast forward 200 years, and you will find in boxing, despite the modern advancements of a roped ring and ultra-padded gloves, boxers still die each year. Let alone the punishment their brain takes from the constant hits.

We are far from the age of Muhammad Ali, the most well known boxer of the modern era. Many would consider these pugilists to be brutes; sure, even, that some would consider them thugs—to borrow the word of the moment.

And yet, as the star of boxing has fallen, NFL’s popularity is only gaining momentum. It is the most popular, by far, and nearly doubles MLB’s earnings. Last nights game was the most viewed television program ever, with 111.5 million viewers, or roughly a third of the population.

As the popularity of the NFL grows, studies have shown that Football players suffer many of the same health problems as boxers. The constant hits can cause mild to severe brain damage from progressive concussions. And while the NFL issued study on mild brain trauma has argued that football players are less prone to these injuries than boxers, others, such as the authors of League of Denial: The NFL, Concussions, and the Battle For Truth, have argued that many of the studies conclusions are wrong or misguided.

With a concrete conclusion still a ways away, a group of former NFL players sued the league and were offered a $765 million settlement, which looked like it would be taken until a federal court judge blocked it, fearing that it might not be enough. Add onto that slew of former players awaiting settlement those that did not make it: players like Junior Seau, who shot himself in the chest— in all likelihood, to allow study of his brain, which was ultimately found to be suffering from chronic traumatic encephalopathy.

It is just before the finish of the match that Hazlitt goes on to describe what a boxing match of the 1820s might look like to an outsider:

But to see two men smashed to the ground, smeared with gore, stunned, senseless, the breath beaten out of their bodies; and then, before you recover from the shock, to see them rise up with new strength and courage, stand steady to inflict or receive mortal offense, and rush upon each other ‘like two clouds over the Caspian’ — this is the most astonishing thing of all: — this is the high and heroic state of man!

I had already planned on writing something about football and obvious harm it does to its players, but I was struck in remembrance of these words. As the papers and websites today filled with photographs of Bronco’s fans in the throes of melancholy, you have to remember that these players are heroes to a great many.

They stand like warriors ready for battle, and like warriors must accept the consequences of their choices. With the building amount of information linking Football to CTE, dementia, and other diseases, their choices are made to seem all the braver.

And with people like President Obama claiming in a New Yorker interview that he would not let a son play football, what generation of parents could subject their children to that kind of life? The money and the fame will surely be in sports until fans stop watching, and that doesn’t seem to be in the near-future. And until the fans stop watching, so will the brutality.

Now that this trend has started, where will it end? Will parents insist that their child play first base in baseball—the least physically brutal of sports—for fear their child might need Tommy John surgery if they become pitchers? MLB has already taken a stance against collisions at the plate, but what about diving catches? Will Basketball players block the lane? Hockey players check? Soccer players headbutt?

Yes, of course they will, but that is their devil’s bargain: fame for the diminishment of their bodies. And for that bargain we make them heroes, and they get paid well. We give them parades when they beat the other guys better.

The onus is on us to decide if that is something worth cheering for.