From Where I Stand
Used to be, I turned on the television set on Saturday morning for the first college football game of the day and didn't turn it off till Monday night. No more. My television habits have taken a hit. I've lost a lot of interest. Football's fun. No doubt about it. I still like the game. Through the magic of the cathode ray, I'm transported to autumn in Ohio. I'm young again. The snap of frost in the Midwestern air, pom-poms, pretty girls, college heroes---all those come to mind when I watch a college game. There used to be a single game on Saturday. I couldn't wait. Now a football game on television is commonplace. The anticipation's gone. And I don't think it's important, not the way I did when I was young. I agree with the wag who said being a politician was like being a football coach. "You have to be smart enough to understand the game," he said, "and dumb enough to think it's important."
The pre-game show's the best of all. Grown men in groups of three or four sit behind a desk and try to justify their jobs. They search for meaning in a game that has no meaning past who will win and who will lose. They speak in homilies. "Tom Landry, the only coach the Cowboys ever had," lost out to Jimmy Johnson, but we still hear age-old wisdoms spouted as if the thought was new. The sportscasters find a powerful phrase and stick with it for years. They try to whet our appetites for the blood-lust game to follow.
It's the Lions and the Packers now, not the Lions and the Christians. But with some adjustments to the rules, the game's the same. Imagine today's technology in early Rome. Envision four men in togas around a table talking to the camera.
"This should be quite a match-up. The Lions are newly imported from the Nubian grasslands and have trained to a ferocious peak."
"So they have, Claudius," smiles another into the microphone, "but don't forget that the gladiators have been training as if their lives depended on it. I understand the new net and trident man in the Christian secondary, Limpus Wristus, has been traded from Padua, and brings years of experience to what has, up to now, been a weak spot for the Glads."
"Right, Cassius," says the third. "I watched several games in Padua last year and was impressed with his wrist flicking. He can dodge one way and throw the other with the best in the game. He should bring the Glads to a new level of competition."
"What about the reports he's injury prone and slow to heal?" asks the fourth, a retired short sword expert who gained freedom from the games by killing more than thirty opponents. "I seem to recall he missed most of one season and part of the next with just a baboon bite."
"Not just a baboon bite, Biggus Neckus, but several baboon bites, one of which took out nearly half of the left gluteus maximus muscle. Baboon bites are bad news.They may not look like much, but they can keep you on the sidelines."
"I know," says Biggus. "I've played the game. I've been bitten by baboons a dozen times. Never missed a game, though. You've got to suck it up.You've got to play through pain."
"Are you suggesting that Limpus Wristus can't play through pain, that perhaps he isn't ready to face the Lions in the big leagues here in Rome?"
"Not at all. I'm saying 'watch,' that's all. You can't play this game and be a sissy. I know that. But I think that Limpus Wristus sometimes dogs it. I think Limpus comes off the arena floor sooner than I would have. It seems to me that a lot of these younger players draw back from risking everything, as if their life were more important than the game. The game's not what it used to be, that's all that I am saying."
"Well, we've just about used up our time. We're seconds from the opening of the contest. I see the Emperor, Orangius Julius, coming into his box and waving to the crowd. In just a moment, he'll wave his handkerchief and the blood-bath will begin. But first, a word from our sponsor."
The four ex-athletes are replaced by Hideus Defectus, smiling and waving his arms in cadence to his words, talking a mile a minute about his guaranteed used chariots.
The first time my mind took that fanciful trip to ancient Rome was on a flight to Seattle. I sat across the aisle from Jim Otto and his wife. For those of you who don't remember, Jim Otto was the All-Pro center for the Oakland Raiders in their glory days. When we landed in Seattle, Mrs. Otto had to help her husband from his seat. His knees and hips and back were nearly gone from years of "playing through the pain."
Not much has changed. We still love to watch the old territorial imperative acted out on autumn afternoons. We build stadia---is that the plural of stadium?---with public money so private entrepreneurs can make a profit, just the way they did in Rome. The only difference is, we don't kill the players quite as quickly.