CELEBRATING THE LIFE OF PELÉ, ON AND OFF THE FIELD

I must admit: When it comes to football, I’m a fan of the American kind. And since I grew up in Wisconsin, you needn’t wonder which team is my favorite. It’s the Green Bay Packers, of course. (I’m even an owner of the team, along with 537,459 others.)

So, I sit here this Sunday feeling cautiously optimistic (and grateful I’m not a Bears fan). The Packers’ record is 8-8 after a 4-8 start to the season; if they win today against the Detroit Lions, they’re assured a spot in the playoffs as an NFC wild-card team.

But last week I found myself thinking about the other kind of football — soccer, as we call it — a sport that claims more than 3 billion fans across the globe and defines the identity of many countries.

I had one footballer in mind: Edson Arantes do Nascimento, known to all as Pelé, who died on Dec. 29 at the age of 82. On Monday, a 24-hour wake was held at the stadium in Santos, Brazil, where Pelé first played as a teenager; officials estimated 230,000 people waited for hours to enter and pay their respects.

At a time when the term GOAT (greatest of all time) is almost overused, it perfectly fits Pelé, the only man to win the World Cup three times as a player. In his 21-year career, Pelé scored 1,283 goals in 1,367 professional matches.

Pelé is the GOAT not just in sport, but also in the game of life.

As a boy in Santos, Pelé played soccer barefoot on the streets, often using grapefruit or waddedup rags because his family could not afford a real ball. It endeared him to the very poor, as he was once one of them.

But the adoration reached farther: Pelé was beloved worldwide, by just about everyone who ever saw him play.

He even stopped a civil war. Pele’s Santos team embarked on a world tour in 1967, including several stops in Africa. When they landed in Nigeria for a game against the Nigerian national team, the country’s two warring factions agreed to a 48-hour ceasefire.

Everyone who attended the game had only one goal in mind: to watch Pelé play 90 minutes of football. While the stadium was filled with armed military from both sides, there was only celebration; the game ended in a draw, with Pelé scoring two goals. Common Goal, a nonprofit that works to unite the global football community, described it this way: “It was Pelé that, albeit temporarily, united people of different backgrounds and mind-sets, giving them a taste of peace and companionships in an otherwise dark and dreary period of history.”

Within days of Pelé’s departure from Nigeria, the fighting resumed.

For someone who could command a ceasefire — and enjoyed worldwide celebrity — I was struck by Pelé’s humility. As journalists Andrew Downie and Gabriel Araujo wrote, his fans would rush the field following games and tear off his shorts, socks and even underwear.

Yet Pelé rarely complained. He believed his talent was a divine gift that allowed him “to travel the world, bring cheer to cancer patients and survivors of wars and famine, and provide for a family that, growing up, often did not know the source of their next meal.” His reason for playing was to make people happy.

Pelé was coaxed out of retirement in 1975, when he joined the New York Cosmos to promote the game of soccer in the U.S. (As the story goes, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger wrote to the Brazilian government, asking it to release Pelé to play here.) At his final match, three years later, Pelé encouraged a crowd of more than 75,000 at Giants Stadium to chant, “Love! Love! Love!” And they did.

On the very day fans were paying tribute to Pelé, Damar Hamlin, a 24-year-old safety for the Buffalo Bills, collapsed to the turf in cardiac arrest after tackling a Cincinnati Bengals player. For many, it once again brought to light the violence of football, American style.

As Kurt Streeter noted in The New York Times, it’s unclear whether Hamlin’s medical emergency was related to the tackle. But, he wrote, “The specter of destruction on the field is part of what makes football such an American draw. That’s why the highlight shows are full of the most jarring, brutal hits.” We assure ourselves that it’s just part of the game; the players will be fine.

I’ll still watch the Packers game today and cheer when they score. But thinking about Hamlin — and others who risk their lives for our entertainment — I will enjoy it a little less. Even when the Packers win.

Dinkin is president of the National Conflict Resolution Center, a San Diego-based group working to create solutions to challenging issues, including intolerance and incivility. To learn about NCRC’S programming, visit ncrconline.com