After 9/11, there was a brief and well-intentioned effort by the National Football League to tone down the language of the game. For those of you not really familiar with NFL terminology, words like "blitz," "shotgun," and "bomb," are commonplace terms in the game, and broadcasters often use militaristic phrasing about how "the game is war", etc. In the weeks following 9/11, announcers tried to take it down a notch.
Some lingo is unavoidable because it's simply descriptive: "shotgun" being a formation that's been used for years, "blitz" being a defensive strategy; it's simply not convenient to say "large numbers of people rushing at the Quarterback at the expense of playing pass coverage" instead of "blitz." However, play-by-play guys for a few weeks at least backed away from "it's a battle in the trenches" and other terminology if they could help it, and the general atmosphere was one in which sports momentarily stopped being compared to war.
But it's back. It's certainly back in very physical sports like football and hockey, but it was actually a US World Cup soccer player who jammed his own foot in his mouth recently. LA Times sportswriter J.A. Adande notes it here:
"On Saturday, the U.S. team plays Italy in Kaiserslautern [Germany]. When the Americans had a game against Poland there in March they took time to visit the troops based nearby, and [US Forward Eddie] Johnson was asked about it at a news conference Wednesday.
"It was a bit touching," Johnson said. "We actually got a chance to meet some of the soldiers that were wounded in Iraq. To go in there, when you come from a country that soccer's not that big, for some of the guys to walk in and those guys see us, it made us actually feel like heroes. I thought that was pretty cool. They were really happy to see you and were touched by us taking the time out to go in there and even say hello and see how they're doing."
It was bad enough that Johnson seemed more impressed by the treatment the troops gave him instead of the sacrifices they made. The soldiers are the heroes, not the soccer players. Then he went on.
"It's like us in the World Cup," Johnson said. "We're here for a war. We came here to battle, we came here to represent our country. We know that lot of those same guys are watching us and counting on us." (LA Times, 6/14/06)
Yep, they're there for a war. Real sensitive, right? Don't forget, Johnson made this comment to US forces in Germany, and Germany's hosting of the World Cup is a centerpiece of their ongoing post-war guilt-trip. (Complete with the kumbaya slogan "A Time to Make Friends.")
A reporter gave Johnson a shot to rescind his comments, but he (cough) stuck to his guns:
"Later, a stunned German reporter asked Johnson: "Are you actually comparing a sporting event to war?"
"Yeah," Johnson said. "You're playing against a different country. It's like do or die. We're going to go out there and do whatever we've got to do -- do things when the referee's not looking, do whatever you've got to do to get three points. Yeah, this is the biggest sporting event in the world. I'm not trying to go home early, I know Bobby [Convey]'s not trying to go home early. We're going to do whatever we've got to do to win the match."
Oh and yeah, "do things when the referee's not looking" is basically an endorsement of cheating.
For a more complete look at the hypermacho mentality that lumps a game together with deadly armed conflict, check out this piece here by Scott Stossel. (No relation to noted wingnut defender of price-gouging John Stossel.)
I'm a sports fan. I've been one since I was a little kid. The Michigan-Ohio State game makes or breaks my week. I grew up listening to Mike and the Mad Dog on WFAN, and I can explain to you why coaches should always go for it on fourth down and why free-agent relief pitchers are a terrible investment. Anyone who enjoys professional athletics ought not hyperbolize them to life-and-death proportions, but in fact acknowledge the opposite; that the beauty of sport is in its value as a diversion in a world in which the stakes are far too high far too often away from the field.
Eddie Johnson would do well to note the story of Pat Tillman before comparing 90 minutes of running around kicking a ball with war.