NFL
By: Zachary Draves
Dave Zirin, Sports Editor at The Nation, has been telling a people’s history of sports for almost twenty years. His work takes a hard thorough look at the intersection of sports and politics that often gets overshadowed by the glitz and glamor. He has taken powerful institutions such as the Olympics, the World Cup, and team owners to task that would make the likes of Lester Rodney, Ralph Wiley, and Howard Cosell beam with glee. Now the NFL is the latest to feel his loving wrath with his new documentary Behind the Shield: The Power and Politics of the NFL produced by the Media Education Foundation.
(Courtesy: Vimeo)
He examines the historical and present day realities that dispel the myths perpetuated by the NFL under the guise of “stick to sports”. The myths being that sports in general should be apolitical and that the NFL is somehow a sacrosanct entity that is free from anything remotely political until Colin Kaepernick took a knee in protest of racial injustice in 2016. However, Zirin confirms in the film using archival footage, that the NFL has always been used as a tool for politics but in service of a certain kind of a politics that promote war, militarism, greed, toxic masculinity, and racism.
It is clear that Football has by default replaced baseball as our national pastime with its broad influence and reach that has touched every aspect of American culture. So much so that it completely trumps other sports in America, which in turn became a basis for the film.
“I read an article that said 85 of the top 100 television programs over the course of a year were NFL games,” said Zirin. “I wasn’t surprised that the NFL was so dominant, my surprise was not one other sports event were in the other 15.”
Given that basketball has become more global, baseball is becoming older and more Latino, and hockey is overwhelmingly popular in Canada and Scandinavia, American Football is seen as the last bastion of old fashioned Americana where traditional notions of cultural identity (race, gender, and politics) are to be expected and upheld. Thus anything that goes against that is seen as “political”. Also according to Zirin, it is metaphorical for unique historical woes.
“Sports are very often a reflection of life and culture in a particular community,” said Zirin. “Most communities can relate to the free flow of basketball because there are certain things that are universal. Creativity, improvisation, athleticism, so there is an easy transition there. Football is very much about the accruing of land, one piece a at time The way it goes horizontally back and forth is a mimic for how the United States was colonized.”
Speaking of politics, Zirin highlights certain prominent and some may argue degenerate political and social figures and institutions that were instrumental behind the political usage of football by certain means. Those include Theodore Roosevelt, Pete Roselle, Richard Nixon, The Department of Defense, and Donald Trump who have made the sport a centralized focus for political ends and to reinforce those old fashion American pathologies.
Roosevelt, a footballer himself, was essentially a founding father of the way in which a certain prototype of manhood is thought to be upheld, tough, rugged, invulnerable, and stoic. At a time when women’s suffrage helped grant women the right to vote and a first wave of feminism was unleashed, some men were arguing that society was becoming too “feminized” so Roosevelt used the bully pulpit of the White House, a phrase he originated, to promote football as a way to “recapture” traditional American masculinity. He also outright defended the sport when it was under scrutiny for its deadly consequences that resulted in players dying.
(Courtesy: Library of Congress)
At the height of the Vietnam War, during a period of tremendous upheaval and social rebellion against war and injustice, television was where Americans were glued towards for news and entertainment. Thus, then NFL commissioner Pete Roselle used the medium to implicitly convey what many would refer to today as “family, football, and faith”.
Richard Nixon along with his Vice President Spiro Agnew latched onto that turned the sport particularly at the college level into a battleground of patriotism and respectability. They wanted to turn college football players into a model of young upstanding American gentlemen who were clean cut and obeyed authority in stark contrast to the thousands of young people who were marching on their campuses and in the streets in opposition to an increasingly unpopular war. Nixon was also a longtime fan of the Washington Football team that bore the name of racial slur aimed at Native Americans and considering his track record on matters of civil rights, the correlation is strikingly on point.
(Courtesy: Associated Press)
After the terrorist attacks of 9/11, football took its ethos of promoting war, patriotism, and militarism to extraordinary heights. The routine fly overs from military aircrafts, a football field sized American flag being displayed during the playing of the anthem, the celebration of military members, and military recruitment were magnetized with such fever in response to the blow we were dealt with after the attacks. All of which looked good on the outside until one reads in between the lines. It later turned out through a congressional investigation led by the late Senator John McCain that the Department of Defense paid the NFL with taxpayer dollars in the promotion of military service even as there were large numbers of veterans that were dealing with hellish levels of unemployment, homelessness, and mental health scares.
Then there was the bastadrization of the legacy of former Arizona Cardinal Pat Tillman, who famously sacrificed a lucrative NFL salary to serve in the armed forces during the War in Afghanistan. In 2004, Tillman was killed as a result of friendly fire even though the initial report was that he died at the hands of an Afghan militia which was perpetuated by the military as a way to garner support for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. It later turned out that Tillman started to become a fierce critic of the wars and for many years that aspect of his life was not told.
(Courtesy: Roy Dabner/Associated Press)
In 2017, there was the agonizing spectacle that is Donald Trump. He took what Roosevelt and Nixon both did but replicated it with more bluntness and significantly less proper grammar. At the height of Kaepernick’s exile and a growing movement of players who were taking a knee, Trump after the white supremacist attack in Charlottesville, VA that August, went to Alabama and referred to NFL players as “SOBs” for taking a knee during the playing of the anthem and then went on to complain that the game was becoming “too soft” in referring to growing remedies to address the problem of concussions and repeated head trauma.
(Courtesy: Mike McCarn / AP file)
“He was tapping into his fears that the culture itself was coming apart and the way you can see that is that the NFL is coming apart” said Zirin.
Even after his defeat in the 2020 election and in the post-George Floyd era of a supposed reckoning around systemic racism, the NFL continues to be a mega billion dollar enterprise that says all the right things but then goes back to business as usual. They put out PSAs and give money to certain racial justice causes, but then Brian Flores’ lawsuit comes out detailing the reasons for a lack of black coaches. After the Ray Rice incident in 2014, the NFL seemed to have gotten the message about toxic masculinity and violence against women, but then the Cleveland Browns given Deshaun Watson the largest guaranteed contract in history even after he was credibly accused of sexual violence. Then of course there is the rampant corruption coming from Washington’s notorious owner Dan Snyder that is currently under investigation for numerous complaints of sexual misconduct and an unsafe work environment. Then of course there is the blatant defiance to change the team’s previous racist name.
All of which makes Behind the Shield a major breakthrough project that fits our current moment for football and non-football fans alike. Even though the NFL has been riddled with scandal, it continues to remain a Teflon presence in our lives which puts on a great product despite its ills. Thus it is not going anywhere and nor should it because there is something to be gained from it. That is that football has been used as a tool for more arguably nefarious purposes, but this film can be a springboard for more useful and long overdue change around race, gender, patriotism, capitalism, etc. and how we relate to sport.
Or as the great Dave Zirin would put it, how do you use this “hyperexaulted brought to you by Nike platform” for good use?
He can be followed @EdgeofSports and Behind the Shield can be watched for free until October 15 other it can be found at https://shop.mediaed.org/behind-the-shield-p800.aspx.
