Fedora’s demagoguery misses point
Even CHARLOTTE, N.C. — by the elevated standards of football media-day gasbaggery and self-importance, Larry Fedora managed to carve a new path Wednesday, delivering his own pigskin-scented version of the “greed is good” speech from “Wall Street,” tying the potential decline of football to the decline of … America?
He’ll get a merit badge for that one at the next football coaches’ convention. Better yet: a medal, since he went on to explicitly tie America’s military success to its status as the only football-playing nation.
And he also questioned the documented linkage between football and concussions and the debilitating brain disease chronic traumatic encephalopathy, which will get him an invitation to Gary Bettman’s summer house of denial.
“I fear that the game will get pushed so far to one extreme that youwon’t recognize the game 10 years from now,” Fedora said. “And I do believe, if it gets to that point, that our country goes down, too.”
What itwas, wasamatter of national security. Apparently.
Where to start?
This is all ludicrous, of course, the earnest hyperbole a little less dangerous than the willful denial. But in an era where previously indisputable facts have become curiously malleable, it’s worth taking the time for a little prima-facie refutation.
If football is under “attack,” it’s only because people have come to question whether its positives are worth its negatives, the main one being players left suffering a lifetime of debilitating health issues and a culture within the game that minimizes those risks. Meanwhile, the NFL and college football still tower over the sports landscape, especially on television. Participation may be down at the youth levels, and that should urge people like Fedora to find ways tomake the game safer without losing its essential character, but Fedora hasn’t been asked to take a pay cut yet.
Even if football were in decline, which it is not, the idea that there’s any linkage betweenthegameof football and America at large is one only a football coach could champion. Football as we know it may be a uniquely American game, but it and every other sport do not dictate our culture. They reflect it.
Ifwe’re going to start listing the unique strengths of the American military, money, technology, tradition, an impeccably trained officer corps and an all-volunteer force would top the list long before the ability to successfully run the inside zone or cover a kickoff. Fedora shouldn’t need a general to tell him this, as he claimed; he coached at the Air Force Academy. Besides, any sport can prepare soldiers for battle. The Duke of Wellington famous ly claimed the Battle ofWaterloowaswon on the playing fields of Eton. Those chaps weren’t wearing helmets.
As for the linkagebetween football, concussions and CTE, it is undeniable at this point. It’s just a question of degree. There are studies showing that playing football even before the age of 12 can lead to lifelong health issues.
“I blame a groundswell of data that is tweaked one way or the other because I can take the data and make it look oneway and you can take the data and make it look another way andwhoever’s presenting it is the one that gets the say-so,” Fedora said.
No. No matter how you cook those numbers, they all still turn out the same. If Fedorawants to learn more, Kevin Guskiewicz’s clinic is doing cutting-edge work right there on UN C’ s campus.
Football hasmany virtues. Fedora is not wrong about that. It teaches teamwork, responsibility, self-improvement, leadership and competition. ( Just ask the Duke ofWellington.) There’s nothing wrong with trumpeting those positives and defending those aspects of thegame at a time. But the idea that trying to make the game safer — make it enduring, because knowing what we now know, it is unsustainable— puts it under “attack” onlydistracts fromthe issues at hand.
“I believe the game is under attack right now. I really do,” Fedora said. “If we’re not carefulwe’re going to lose what the game is all about.”
There’s a path forward that respects player safety without compromising the uniquenature of football, for those enlightened enough to look for it instead of ranting about the alternatives.
America has bigger issues than football right now. Fedora might have had one Red Bull too many.