The NFL and domestic violence

Will Leitch, a senior writer for something called Sports on Earth among other things, has written in this past Sunday's edition of USA Weekend, that American football is wrong for attempting to tone down the actions of its players, especially the on field but also the off field antics. He apparently does not like the new rules against excessive celebration and dunking the ball over the goalpost after a touchdown, for example, lamenting that the NFL is denying players their personality, whatever that means.

Well, we'll tell you what that means: it means showboating or grandstanding, things themselves which were once thought unsportsmanlike. The NFL is quite right in trying to eliminate such aspects of the game.

They are sports, after all. Mere games which, for a long time anyway, we were encouraged to participate in for exercise as well as to learn how to be good sports. This surely means that you do not rub your opponents face into the ground when you're just beaten him for a score. Some high fives and a few a few pats on the helmet should be all the celebration you need, allowing for greater celebrations at more climatic moments to be fair.

Mr. Leitch claims that fans often want individual players to rise above the game. This is a good point, yet not for the reasons he seems to believe. He uses, wrongly, we're wont to think, Michael Jordan as an example of such rising. But did Mr. Jordan 'rise' by belittling his opponents, or by carousing all hours of the day and night? Not that we know. We believe that better exemplars of becoming more than the game come through respecting the game and its fans, transcending their sport to a level which takes the game upwards with them. In local lore this would be such folk heroes as Al Kaline and Alan Trammell, and more broadly the soon to be retired Derek Jeter, whose grace and class both on and off the field has made their sublime legacies better for all three as well as for baseball itself.

We cannot help but think that it is no coincidence that the arrogant, thug mentality which has permeated American football for so many years has made so many players less than stellar citizens. Hardly a day goes by without news of some new domestic violence issue, or gunshot at a nightclub involving an NFL player. The League is trying to address those questions too. As it should. But at the end of the day, sports should be sportsmanlike. That means essentially that you let your actions speak for you. If those actions are profound enough, the player will receive his due. If he must advertise for them, he likely doesn't merit the accolades anyway.