The Gladiators

When I was a kid in history class, or maybe it was social studies, I remember hearing my 5th grade teacher, Sr. Michaela, tell us about the gladiator fights in ancient Rome. She wove a story I could easily visualize. The games themselves would begin with much pageantry, the participants would be paraded around for all to see. Loud trumpets or horns would blow to signal the start of a battle. I could picture an amphitheater like the Roman Colosseum, where thousands of spectators would watch, noshing on food either brought from home or purchased from vendors, cheering as athletes were beaten, bloodied and broken, some eventually breathing their last. The crowds of spectators would shout “Have mercy!” or “Kill him!” depending on for whom they had decided to cheer. She told us that they lined the floor of the amphitheater with sand to sop up the blood that would spill.

I remember thinking to myself, I would never, no way, be so barbaric. Nor, for that matter, could anyone I knew partake in the watching of such brutality. What could those uncivilized people of that time period have been thinking? And to watch such callous, violent confrontations, all while eating?! Oh thank goodness that today we are sensible. We no longer lust for such brutal combat.

Athletes inspire admiration, as well they should. They are revered. They are commemorated. They are popular. They entertain us. Grown men proudly wear replica jerseys of their favorite player, to let everyone know for whom they are cheering, the person they adulate, the person they wish they could be, except maybe for a lack of natural talent, and a penchant these days for performance enhancing drugs; as if the jersey possessed a magical power.

Football is the American sport that probably best exemplifies toughness and manliness.

I come from a football-loving family. My grandfather loved the sport, my uncles love the sport, my husband loves the sport, my sons love the sport and now my grandson loves the sport. I learned to like it right along with them.

Can you see where I’m going with this?

“Will somebody please just hurt someone?!”

These are the words I often hear shouted out when we watch sporting events with my brother-in-law. Once, as I reached for a piece of pizza, I heard his familiar refrain and I remembered those thoughts I had as a 10 year old. And here was I, eating, as the crowd cheered and called for blood and broken bones. Well, maybe it’s a bit of an exaggeration, but I’m just sayin’...

Now, as I prepare to make my boneless Buffalo chicken wings, guacamole and chips, hand-tossed pizza, brownie bites and a couple of alcohol pairings, all in honor of Superbowl Sunday, I ask myself “Is football brutal?” “Will I not be cheering as athletes are beaten, bloodied and broken? Is not the entire country and much of the world doing the same?

Will a player be hurt? Will somebody finally please my brother-in-law by actually hurting someone? Will a cherished career end in disappointment, permanent injury or humiliation? and all for the nation to cheer? Will players continue to battle, as did the gladiators of yore, despite aggravated injuries?

The Pro Bowl was last weekend, but no one actually watches it, because as someone told me recently it’s like watching a game of touch football. Apparently football without some physical brutality, while it may free you of guilt, is also not very fun to watch.

And yet despite these thoughts, I’ve made some weird compromise with myself, that will allow me to  watch this Sunday’s game. And cheer if my team does well. And secretly kind of be okay with an opposing player, especially if he is very talented and thus critical to the outcome of the game, being taken to the locker room, so long as the injury isn’t too bad or permanent. Why? Because I am a jive-face, hypocritical, mealy-mouthed, pretense of a human being. That's why.