Keep It Simple, Super

WHY I HATE FOOTBALL

A Fan’s Rant

Jan. 28, 2001

Super Bowl Sunday

I hate football. Have for years, even when I sat through Super Bowls XV through XXXII in person, missing only XXVI in Minneapolis in between, for reasons I can’t recall (but that I assure you had nothing to do with Minneapolis).

I hate football, regardless of having attended some of the most memorable games of it ever played. Classic collegiate ones, Bear Bryant’s last as a coach, Joe Montana’s last as an amateur, serial feuds involving Michigan and Ohio State, Harvard and Yale, USC and UCLA. Not to mention high school, community college, European pro. I saw every kind of football but the Kennedys playing touch on the White House lawn.

I hate football, not specific contests but the sport itself. What it was and, worse, what it has become. For very little has been done with the passage of time to enhance the viewing experience, while much has transpired to make this once-fun game even less of a pleasure and exasperatingly flawed.

So why watch it today?

Well, speaking for myself, I probably won’t. I didn’t see a down of the last Super Bowl, not an instant, not a replay, not a foot, not a ball. Instead I went out to a movie, one called “Isn’t She Great?” that was about Jacqueline Susann, the late author. It wasn’t great. (Neither was she.) Yet I still preferred it to football, and the theater, much to my amazement, drew a crowd.

Apparently I am not alone in hating football.

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I hate football because of the rules. Of all the nutty rules in all the nutty sports, football’s are the nuttiest. Every time I just want to kick back and enjoy a simple game, somebody enforces a rule that is so senseless, so needlessly complicated that you pray never to have to explain it to a child, a friend from a foreign land or a Martian who has come to our world seeking intergalactic understanding.

I hate football when they tell you “the ground can’t cause a fumble,” which means that a naked eye (or a TV replay) must decide whether a player running with a ball dropped it between the time he was “tackled” and “hit the ground.” What utter nonsense.

If a guy’s got the ball when a play’s over, he didn’t fumble, OK? How hard is that?

I hate football when they tell you a player “broke the invisible plane” above the goal line, thereby scoring a touchdown. Yes, and maybe he came to the game in Wonder Woman’s invisible plane, drank Claude Rains’ secret formula and disappeared momentarily into a parallel dimension to the satisfaction of the NFL’s compendium on time and space.

If a guy’s in the end zone with the ball, he scored. If he’s not, he didn’t. OK? How hard is that?

I hate football when they measure a play with chain-link precision, pretending that every millimeter counts. A minute or two later, a punt will fly out of bounds while a referee gazes up at the sky, watching a ball sail 100 feet above his 50-year-old eyes. He’ll run to a spot, drop his cap and say: “Right about here.”

If a kicked ball doesn’t land in bounds, you kick it again. OK? How hard is that?

I hate football because every official on that field must justify his reason for being there. Their own performances are graded by their peers. Therefore, nary a one will work without meddling. That means many a play will be affected by even the mildest contact, the slightest flinch, “holding,” “his arm was going forward.” Plus the positively hilarious: “The pass was deemed uncatchable.”

I hate football because large, mean grown men are taught to smash other men as viciously as possible to separate them from the ball, while risking penalties for being “unsportsmanlike.” I hate that a man who is encouraged to “give it everything you’ve got” can be penalized, along with his team, for the unpardonable sin of “celebrating too much”--for example, doing a silly but harmless dance.

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I hate football because the more bizarre a “fan” looks or behaves, the better the chance that he will be shown on television, thereby encouraging future freaks and geeks to act accordingly.

I hate it that handmade signs in the stands bearing the initials of the TV network--not one of which has ever been clever--will be televised. Mandatory viewing. Today’s game is on CBS. City (of) Baltimore’s Super. Can’t Beat giantS. Watch for it. Guaranteed.

I hate it when a man that 90% of the globe’s population has never heard of is described as a “legend,” or when somebody whose contribution to civilization is to help adult men play with a ball is described as a “genius.” What is this genius doing coaching a game instead of cloning sheep?

Mainly, what I hate is that somewhere, under all those layers of drawbacks, exists a sport that is still simple and pure. You try to stop them, they try to stop you. Just try never to lose a Super Bowl by letting the ground cause a fumble before you can cross the invisible plane.

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Mike Downey’s column appears Sundays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Write to: Los Angeles Times, 202 W. 1st St., Los Angeles, CA 90012. E-mail: mike.downey@latimes.com