Q. I'm concerned that 17-year-olds will imitate this.
A. For some reason, Schmitt's berserker act became controversial in Seattle. It was immediately controversial on the radio ("Call in! Stupid or inspired?) and we see it's controversial in the papers.
You think it would be controversial in Pittsburgh or Green Bay?
When Chicago was doing the Super Bowl Shuffle, Jim McMahon used to crash helmets with ... his offensive linemen. He developed serious neck problemos. The city of Chicago's reaction was: you better be ready to play, Jimbo. :- )
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Q. But what about when some high-school player fractures his neck doing this?
A. Society has already rejected this argument. Hollywood makes whatever movies it wants and influence-the-kids objections never get anywhere.
You've got to admit, we have a tendency to pick-and-choose here. We like something, hey, it's silly to think kids don't know the difference between fiction and reality. We dislike something, hey, now kids are going to imitate whatever you put in front of them.
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Q. Can the coaches control it?
A. No adult in the world has more influence over a juvenile-delinquent teenager than high school football coaches have over 17-year-olds. :- )
It is true that HS coaches need to make it clear that truly irrational behavior will be punished and not rewarded. "I don't wanna see any of that stuff" is more than enough to take care of it. Ever been inside a HS football locker room?
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Q. Should guys like Owen Schmitt be toned down? What's the D-O-V crunch, both from a sporting and from a spiritual standpoint?
A. The spiritual crunch is: a society with only mommies would have problems. A society with only daddies would have problems. We need a blend, as they say at Royal Brougham. :- )
Daddies have one reaction to war and football, mommies another. Let the stylized-masculine point-of-view state its case, and let the feminized point-of-view state its case.
Sometimes an objective judge will come down on Mom's side ("come in out of the rain before you catch cold"). Sometimes it will come down on Dad's ("you better get those fence posts done before it's dark or you'll chop your foot off").
I argue Mom's side on a lot of things. For example, I argue against bad language, even in military and sporting contexts. I think a Steve Largent or Reggie White can get just as intense without taking that angle on his state-of-mind.
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Q. In this specific case?
A. C.S. Lewis once said that after he'd been in World War I, he had a real distaste for the spectators who, themselves in ease and comfort, preached ethics to the soldiers in the mud. Let the ethics come from officers who had been in that mud at some time previous.
Tackle football is painful. You don't get psyched up, you're going to get hurt. The Owen Schmitts of the world, IMHO, have a right to be judged by other football players.
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Q. What was that judgment, anyway?
A. Other football players thought it was awesome.
The NFL is legalized, weaponless war. Outlaw it, or accept it for what it is.
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Q. Dr's diagnosis?
A. The guy smashed his head and he accepted the consequences (he sat there for the stitches). Owen Schmitt gets intense. The man is in a war, and he goes to war.
PROPS,
Dr D