Why Football Matters

Drawing from his own experiences, American author and professor Mark Edmundson argues in his memoir, Why Football Matters: My Education in the Game (2014), that youth football teaches valuable lessons in perseverance and community. His arguments are situated within a broader debate about football's role in American society, one that had begun to gain traction at the time of the book's writing owing in large part to the tragic suicides of former NFL players such as Junior Seau. Earlier that year, for example, President Barack Obama told a reporter that he would not let a son of his play pro football. Since that time, the debate has only intensified alongside greater research and awareness of the long-lasting physical and psychological trauma resulting from football-related head injuries.

Framing his book as a memoir, Edmundson recalls his childhood in the working-class town of Malden, Massachusetts in the 1960s. Like many young boys, his first exposure to football came from watching professional football games on television with his father. His father's favorite team–and by extension, Edmundson's—was the New York Giants, led at that time by future Hall of Fame quarterback Y.A. Tittle. Edmundson recalls fondly the ritual of sharing a chocolate bar with his father each time they watched the Giants play on the family's rabbit-eared television set. "Through football," Edmundson writes, "my father explained the world to me."

Next, the narrative flashes forward to Edmundson's junior year of high school, during which he tried out for the Medford Mustangs football squad—the cross-town rival of Malden. Malden and Medford are reported to have the second-oldest continuous high school football rivalry in the United States, dating back to 1889. He won a spot as a linebacker, a particularly fierce defensive position that frequently requires the player to "blitz" the quarterback and knock him to the ground before he releases the ball. While Edmundson says he began the season as a "soft and weak and credulous" boy with nary a chance at playing during a game, he molded himself—with the help of his coach, teammates, and self-determination—into a man with the kind of toughness needed to succeed in the sport of football.



One of the biggest motivators, Edmundson writes, was the coach and his fellow players’ belief that he would never make it through training. With poor vision and a poor starting physique, the two-a-day practices in the August heat were grueling. He was never much of a runner, let alone someone who could run quickly with the added weight of pads and a helmet. Persevering, he eventually obtained the sense of community—and status—he craved.

With this community and status, however, came the problems of groupthink. "Football players are supposed to be warriors, and if they participate in a military mindset without thinking too much about it, it's not surprising." Edmundson recalls one practice during which a skywriter flew overhead writing a peace sign in the air. This came at the height of the Vietnam War. His teammates responded by shouting curse words and lifting their middle finger in the direction of the peace sign. In another scene, a mob mentality compels the teammates to break the windows of the town's beloved ice cream shop, a staple in the community. Worse still is when Edmundson, mimicking a racist assistant coach, mocks a black player on an opposing team using "black speak"—this, despite the fact that Edmundson's father is pictured as an avowed anti-racist.

Even at that young age, the extent of the brutality found in the game of football was not lost on Edmundson. He rationalizes the violence of football by invoking a metaphor from Ancient Greece. In Homer's The Iliad, Hector and Achilles wage battle against one another, culminating in a bloody confrontation. In Edmundson's mind, he sought to be like Hector, who despite his killer instinct on the battlefield, led a gentle and chivalrous life off the battlefield. Achilles, on the other hand, was unable to separate his battlefield persona from his domestic, resulting in a character that was brutish and wrathful in all aspects of his life. Edmundson admits, however, that his metaphorical attempts to be like Hector are complicated by the fact that Achilles ends up winning the one-on-one brawl against Hector. "But of course there's a problem with Hector's sort of courage: Hector loses."



For Edmundson, however, football had a net positive impact on his life and character. "Football became the prototype for every endeavor in later life that required lonely, difficult work. Football was going to educate me into becoming myself." He calls on the lessons taught to him through football in moments both small and large, such as when he has to cope with the death of his sister. In the last chapter, he watches admiringly as his son plays football.

Why Football Matters is a worthwhile addition to the debate over what role football does and should play in American society, particularly among youths, even if the book frequently undercuts its own argument.