Football and American Identity
THE HAWORTH PRESS
Contemporary Sports Issues
Frank Hoffmann, PhD, MLS
Martin Manning
Senior Editors
Minor League Baseball: Community Building Through Hometown Sports by Rebecca S. Kraus
Baseball and American Culture: Across the Diamond edited by Edward J. Rielly
Dictionary of Toys and Games in American Popular Culture by Frederick J. Augustyn Jr.
Basketball in America: From the Playgrounds to Jordans Game and Beyond edited by Bob Batchelor
Football and American Identity by Gerhard Falk
Football and American Identity
Gerhard Falk
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Cover design by Kerry E. Mack.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Falk, Gerhard.
Football and American identity / Gerhard Falk.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-7890-2526-4 (hard : alk. paper)ISBN 0-7890-2527-2 (soft : alk. paper)
1.FootballSocial aspectsUnited States. 2. Football playersUnited StatesSocial conditions. 3. Social valuesUnited States. 4. National characteristics, American. I. Title.
GV951.F25 2005
796.332'0973dc22
2004012740
CONTENTS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Gerhard Falk is Professor of Sociology at the State University College of New York at Buffalo. He has authored forty articles in journals as diverse as The Journal of the American Bar Association, The Journal of Educational Sociology, and Mankind Quarterly. He has also written twelve books, including Mans Ascent to Reason, Grandparents, StigmaHow We Treat Outsiders, Sex, Gender and Social Change, and The Life of the Academic Professional.
Almost 3,000 books are available that deal with football, both American and European. Many of these books address the lives of famous coaches and players. Others concern the history of the sport or are devoted to strategy or other aspects of playing the game. Some books denounce one or another aspect of the game. Some are for children; others have a regional appeal.
The purpose of the present study is to consider the social conditions and cultural implications of American football. This book deals with the football subculture as a reflection of some of the most important American values, including competition, conflict, diversity, power, economic success and fairness, respect for others, and patriotism.
It is my contention here that all of these values are found in football and that football serves largely to preserve these values. I find that football exemplifies all that is great in America and therefore have titled this book Football and American Identity. This does not mean that I hid some of the ugly aspects of the game. It does mean, however, that, in my judgment, football is the essence of the American spirit which has made the United States the leader of the world and given immigrants such as myself more opportunities than anyone could dream of or achieve anywhere but here. For that I shall always be grateful and therefore have dedicated this book to the United States. May it prosper forever.
I thank my son Clifford Falk for the many hours he spent dealing with my computer problems and for reading the manuscript several times. I also thank my wife Ursula for the same effort.
Every human society includes a system of values that distinguishes it from all other human societies. Therefore, we can understand a society best by studying these values, which are made concrete by the activities a society enjoys the most. These activities reflect the beliefs, attitudes, and concerns of those who promote them, as well as giving an outsider the opportunity to discover what is important to those who practice the preferred activities of their society. Values may therefore be defined as preferences for a line of action or statements from the standpoint of a culture as what ought to be. Yet another way of defining values is to say that values are socially shared ideas about what is right.
Among the numerous activities that serve to define American society, sports ranks high. The value Americans place on sports, and football in particular, can be seen in the salaries paid to players; the average football players salary in 2004 was $1,1640,000. The thirty-two teams of the National Football League (NFL) surpassed $1 billion in signing bonuses paid to players. Similar incomes and even more are available to the top athletes in other sports such as basketball, baseball, and hockey. Therefore, it is legitimate to claim that sports is a principal concern of the American people and that football ranks high among the sport activities that Americans choose to support.
I contend that the reason for the great support football has enjoyed in America for the past century is that football encompasses all the values that make American society unique. Of course, all human societies are unique and all have an ethos, which I define here as the personality of any society. This means that every society differs from all other societies in the same fashion as all individuals differ from all other individuals.
It is necessary to begin by listing the principal characteristics of the American value system. Such a list will demonstrate that the values which define the game of football are also the values which define American life; therefore, the football subculture overlaps the values held generally in American life.
Sociologist Robin M. Williams identified several core values important to the people of the United States. Among these are individualism, achievement or success, activity, work, material comfort, and efficiency. These seven values are all found in the football subculture, thus one could understand the American value system in an encapsulated form by following the U.S. football schedule.
I will begin with individualism and achievement. Although football is a team sport, individual football players and coaches have been idolized and elevated to mythological status in a manner previously reserved for persons of religious significance or military prowess. Two examples are Amos Alonzo Stagg and Harold Edward Red Grange.
