Comments on: The Brute and the Scholar

By: Lisa Hickey

Lisa Hickey — Sat, 07 Aug 2010 01:22:48 +0000

Ahh, others comment on the football side of Ben, I’ll comment on the poetic. To this day, I can’t decide if it’s harder to be a fullback or a poet.

For those of you who think poetry is for other people, try this, (from a poem in Ben Evan’s first print edition of Fogged Clarity.)

“I lost irony and looked for it a half hour at a time / in the coffee shops and living rooms of Seinfield / My punishment was teaching poetry. I cried / the clothes off strippers who slid down poles like firefighters”

- excerpted from the poem “Providence” by Bruce Smith

Kudos, Ben for all.

By: paul kidwell

paul kidwell — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 15:48:47 +0000

A man also needs to give into what I feel is an inherent violent nature. Not necessarily in action, but by thought. And be comfortable with it. I feel it is normal to have a violent or aggressive side to my personality and I think men need to stop apologizing for having this makeup. I have rarely acted on this emotion (I played competitive sports all my life, including a four year stint as a head-hunting free safety on our varsity football team), but realize that wanting to rip someone’s face off because they cut you off in traffic or the neighbor who is playing loud music at 2:00 a.m. is not a bad thing. Don’t be a weenie guys. We are scholars, athletes, thugs, and lovers all rolled up into one marvelous bag of testosterone. Let’s enjoy it. I certainly do.

By: Frank McIntosh

Frank McIntosh — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 20:31:39 +0000

The image of Mr. Evans bursting in the clear triggers a panic attack in me, as I recall playing HS football as a severely undersized linebacker. It was never a happy moment when a fullback broke clear. A tailback or a receiver could be counted on to dodge providing a nice sweet shot on the angle, whereas fullbacks would just sight you up and then walk on your face. I might get them down, but it was likely because their foot became entangled in my face mask.

That said, I loved playing football, still boring associates with tales of the joys of having fullbacks walk on my face and when fall finally provides that first cool snap, I still wish (35 years later) that I could go out and knock heads. It’s a silly, violent game, but it produces some great friendships and as Mr. Evans notes, provides “a beautiful catharsis” at a time in life when you need one. I am one of the more pacific people I know (despite an internal tension that sometimes causes a voice to whisper in my ear, “you really shouldn’t take this crap from this weenie”) and I write some of that up to having gotten a lot of aggression out of my system in my youth.

Very nice article.

By: sifupeter

sifupeter — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 19:59:48 +0000

Thanks very much for sharing this. It is very similar to my (short) experience with H.S. football. Just before my senior season, I took a long trip to Nicaragua, still struggling with the post-dictator regime hangover. Violence was a major part of the culture. Everyone I spoke to knew someone close that had either been killed by Somoza’s regime or more recently, by the Contras. I came back to my varsity season and could not reconcile those accounts of real violence with what my linebacker coaches would tell me; “go take that guy’s head off”.

I’m sorry it took you so long to “know that art, thought, and athletics do not have to be mutually exclusive”. Art, physical skill, and intelligent thought should be the hallmarks of any young person’s path towards growth. Your words will help that happen for more of us, sooner than we were able to. Football might lag a bit in general in this regard, but I do find that many sports organizations nowadays are taking an active look at psychology and motivating factors. Ethics, intelligence, and relationships based on trust and mutual respect often combine to give teams and individuals an advantage, and are also upheld as goals in themselves. Hopefully this becomes the norm, as early in young athletes’ careers as possible.