| | What struck me about Malcolm's argument was that it was largely based on 'we don't know so we should ban it' ... after over 100 years of head banging fun.
But we're supposed to value his opinion on the subject because he 'watched' some football once or twice and didn't get it, and so, nobody else in the world should get it, because after all the world is all about what Malcolm likes and doesn't like.
I started reading his premise in 'Blink' and took his advice; my instant gut response to his book was 'this is crap, and this guy is a complete twit' and so I immediately stopped wasting my time.
So he and the other whiner are going to keep pouting until the world is covered in 18 inches of Nerf and it is safe for them to flail around with limp wrist abandon.
Nobody is telling them not to prance through life wearing all the brocade and feathers and sequins they want; they aren't being asked to play football, to attend football games, to watch it on tv, to eat wings, to drink beer, to attend any college other than BU or NYU, or even, if they attend Michigan, to bleed blue on fall weekends.
But nobody is anointing them Emperor of All That Others May Do In Freedom, either... except for their fellow timid tribe members in that NYU audience.
Not D1 college, but I'm picturing poor Malcolm and Buzz the outcasts in High School imagining that they were not welcome to show up at practice in August and play the game. The fact is, I've never heard of a football program in Jr High or HS that actually 'cut' players. Folks cut themselves. They either hung around and stuck it out, or they quit, but I never heard of anyone being 'cut' from the football team, unlike most other sports in HS. (Track is another example.) Anyone who wanted to hang around and do what was asked of them was free to do so. They might not start, they might not play much, but they would be part of the team, they would be respected for sticking it out with everyone else no matter if they played or not, and 99.9% of the memories and often year long experience are other than playing the games in the fall, most former players will tell you that. Perhaps that is what enrages Malcolm and Buzz about the game; they were the only ones keeping themselves from the experience, and now they rage at the idea of anyone enjoying what they feared and loathed from afar for whatever reason.
The 'Free-Dumb' argument did not resonate with the pinheada at NYU, who are all about effete elitists finally being in charge and getting healthy after all those years of getting endless wedgies... in their minds. As if, the purpose of our nation was to organize itself in such a manner as to finally allow these timid few with memories of fearful hurt feelings from their youth to finally get healthy. Malcolm and Buzz need to get over the fears and failings of their youth and just grow the f**k up.
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Capitalism is our economic system. The thing we value the most is freedom. We're American and if you believe in freedom, you can't have the free without the dumb. You can't have it. They go hand in hand. Freedom allows you to do dumb things, things we find reprehensible. ... And so football has to be tolerated no different than Ronald McDonald. Ronald McDonald has done far more damage to America than any football coach, any of these overpaid coaches that [Buzz Bissinger is] talking about. ... Football brings the poor and the rich, the black and the white, the Jews and the gentiles -- it brings everybody together, particularly at the college level. Your high school experience, for the most part, is segregated. Your little league experience is segregated. ... I watch our major broadcast media and I watch the clueless, people that don't have the diversity of experience that I have through college football and through life and I watch them consistently tear this country apart. I watched them do it with George Zimmerman, OJ Simpson, Rodney King. Whatever the big media story. Barack Obama. Consistently tear this country apart.
