STAND corresponded with author Steve Almond about his book Against Football: One Fan’s Reluctant Manifesto.
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In the book, Almond describes how he came to question a game he loved and now can no longer watch.
STAND: In Against Football, you discuss several concerns about the sport, including concussions, greed, and promotion of violence. What specifically motivated you to write a manifesto against football at this time?
Like a lot of fans, I’d felt a growing unease about the moral corruptions of the sport. But the thing that finally convinced me to write the book was my mom suffering a sudden, acute dementia. I’d never seen first-hand how shattering it is when someone you love suffers cognitive decline. It’s just brutally sad. And it made the whole thing with ex-players real–not something abstract. Once I started researching football–its economic practices, its impact on education and its values–it just got darker and darker.
STAND: Has anything about the response to the book surprised you?
I thought we’d reached a point in our cultural evolution, and the sport’s evolution, where book critics and cultural critics would really want to engage with the arguments in the book. Not to agree with them, necessarily. But to really consider what football means, how it’s symptomatic of American culture in so many ways. And that just really didn’t happen much, except for a few smart internet magazines. That was pretty disappointing. Because I knew the points I was making were disruptive. But I felt like Americans–or some Americans–were ready to have a deeper conversation about the sport’s meaning.
STAND: Can the same arguments against football be made against other professional sports?
Absolutely, but not to the same degree. Football is far more violent than any other big team sport. It’s just that the violence is sanitized. We don’t see blood or broken bones. And any player who gets seriously injured gets disappeared. Football is also about five times more popular than any other sport. It’s not just the most popular sport in America. It’s the most popular thing in America.
STAND: What does football’s popularity say about our views of men and masculinity?
It says that, for whatever progress we’ve made in terms of gender and orientation, the most popular thing in America is still an exalted cult of hyper-masculinity, where men are defined as brave and aggressive and straight and women are defined as sexual objects.
STAND: What is your current relationship with college and pro football? Do you still follow football, attend games, or watch them on TV? Have your views changed at all following the publication of the book?
To the extent possible, I’ve quit watching football. I can’t totally ignore the game because I’m asked to talk about it on the radio or TV, so I have to know what’s going on with various scandals. But in terms of consuming the games, I’m off the sauce. So I’m basically like a dry drunk at this point. I LOVED watching the game and I miss it a lot.
STAND: If, as you write, football “fosters within us a tolerance for violence, greed, racism, and homophobia” what is a fan to do to reduce this impact in our own lives, our families, and in our communities?
Honestly, the only thing that makes sense is to reduce the amount of money and attention you give to the game. I don’t expect people to go cold turkey like I did. But learning more about the game as a moral undertaking might help folks realize what they’re sponsoring. And force them to think about that.
Previously published on STAND Magazine
By: Dwayne D. Hayes – Managing Editor
Photo: GettyImages