What Larry Fedora Was REALLY Talking About
He’s been called everything short of a fool by the sports media. Should he?
The long knives have been out for football for several years.
Which leads to North Carolina head football coach Larry Fedora’s recent defense of his sport last week to reporters at an Atlantic Coast Conference media gathering.
You’ve heard the comments. But his point that football doesn’t cause CTE has been backed by numerous scientists and doctors in recent days.
Does soccer cause CTE? Because the concussion risk in soccer is just as great as in football.
What has been attacked recently is his statements regarding the cultural significance of football.
“I fear that the game will get pushed so far to one extreme that you won’t recognize the game 10 years from now,” Fedora said. “And I do believe, if it gets to that point, our country goes down too.”
Fedora also said a three-star general told him football make America a better country.
We’re the only football-playing nation in the world,” Fedora said the general told him. “He said most of all of our troops have grown up, have played the game at some point in their life at some level, and the lessons that they learned from that game is what makes us who we are.”
Sports media have had a field day with Fedora’s comments, and not because there is a Canadian Football League. One sports talk host mentioned that since every solider did not play football, football therefore could not have made the military better.
The question Fedora raises, however, is what impact football has on American culture. It is a militaristic game. Does this make for more support for our military?
Here’s another thought. All sports should be “every man’s” games. This is their appeal, correct?
Traditionally, sports were where the wealthy and poor could actively mingle in the same crowd. All the populous comes together under the banner of a name; TENNESSEE Volunteers; NORTH CAROLINA Tar Heels.
The players themselves are to be selected for their abilities, not by favoritism.
But does modern sport challenge that idea? The contemporary National Basketball Association is simply not friendly to conservatives. Modern day baseball is changing the game from a historical to mathematical appeal and is undergoing a culture change in its fandom.
If football were to become more the sport of kneeling for the anthem and less of the breeding ground for Eisenhower, would that make football more of a construct for political ideas other sports such as pro basketball have become?
Writer Aaron Gordon wrote in Deadspin that Fedora’s statements were “instantly be recognizable as the comments of a certain type of middle-aged white man who is lashing out at a world that suddenly and certainly doubts his superiority.”
Gordon would likely say the same about my questions, even though, heck, I’m hardly anyone who has ever been given superiority.
Gordon, incidentally, states on his bio that he “never wants to write about sports again.”
Which is fine, but then why Deadspin as his medium and Fedora as his topic?
The answer is obvious. The change Fedora fears is the one Gordon champions.
And where does the conservative sports fan go then?
Marky Billson hosts Tri-Cities Sports NOW 12–2 p.m. ET weekdays on 1420 NBC Sports Radio Tri-Cities. Watch his show live and archived here and here.
