A Sociological Perspective On Football Essay

Will football one day be played with balls made from gold? At its current rate, anything could happen, but it would have to have a few brand logos stapled to it first.

The game of football is being attacked. We see it every day in the headlines and on the news. The medical concerns are obvious. The game has taken more than its share of criticism. Even President Barack Obama said that if he had boys he wouldn’t let them play football. LeBron James publicly said no football in his house. So the question is asked all the time, Why would anyone want to play football? And why would anyone let their kids play? Here’s my answer. I believe there’s practically no other place where a boy is held to a higher standard then football. Football is hard, it’s tough, it demands discipline, it teaches obedience, it builds character. Football is a metaphor for life.

Failing to make to the JV soccer team has been one of most impactful moments of my life, and it has changed the way I approach athletics and life outside of sports.

Football is a game of passion, a time when nothing else matters and the only thing that matters is going out there having fun and fighting for the guy next to you. Football has always been something that I loved and had a wild passion for. I’ve made friendships and memories to last a life time and I can always be grateful that football did that for me. Now of course I’ve had some bad memories during football as well, I remember walking out of the film room on the last day of spring ball and having Coach Antle grab me and say “Gage, I think I want to try you at a new position, I want to put you at defensive end. We need you more there and we think you can really excel there.” I remember being so furious, I had played linebacker ever since I could remember and now the last day of spring ball my senior year everything was about to change.

The National Football League (NFL) has diverged over time during its existence from 1920. The National Football League 's experience is still more exciting today than in past generations. The actors today are larger, more degraded, and stronger than professional actors. Although the same general rules still apply in today’s game, but new ones are brought up every year to protect players from injuries. Ever since the league started in 1920, the football equipment for participants has improved even better over the years. Likewise, today’s football culture is even more exciting for participants and fans to enjoy. For the players today, it is more comfortable to drive themselves and their teams from the

Football is America’s past and present-time, however, due to the findings of new research on chronic traumatic encephalopathy, the NFL must find ways to increase player safety. C.T.E. is a brain disorder caused by long-term, repetitive head trauma that is “now associated with such things as dementia, depression, memory loss, and lack of impulse control.” For decades the long-term affects of contact sports remained unknown and not until retired players began to express the problem has awareness for the issue increased. The NFL has made dramatic changes to the requirements for equipment — such as helmets — and to their rules to increase safety, however, are these changes decreasing the sport’s hidden affects on players mental health? Countless studies have been conducted over this issue and the affects of sub-concussive contact are illustrated in several of these research studies. Although the NFL changes rules and equipment requirements in an attempt to increase the safety of their players, it remains difficult to determine whether these changes will decrease the long-term affects of football as they appear in retired players and research on sub-concussive contact.

Since the introduction of organized team sports into American culture, numerous sports have stepped into the limelight for certain periods of time but none have stuck around as long as football has. Just as with everything else in life, football has had it’s fair share of drawbacks since its invention in the mid-19th century. Despite the drawbacks and criticism football has faced, its role and influence on American culture between the 1890’s and 1930’s far outweigh the negative aspects of its past.

In today’s world of big time professional sports there are the two major players and they are football represented by the National Football League (NFL) and baseball represented by Major League Baseball (MLB). Now there are other sports that the American public enjoys watching, however the argument generally boils down to which sport is the true favorite of the American people: baseball or football. In this paper I will attempt to examine both sports from several different angles to include attendance, television revenue, ticket costs, venues, salaries, entertainment value, and athlete perception. The goal of this exercise will be to determine, once and for all, which sport is the American

Living in the south you may frequently hear the saying “everything's bigger in Texas.” The food, teased hair, Whataburger sweet tea, but most importantly, football is one of the most intrinsic parts of the state. The dominating sport that makes America differ from the rest of the world is especially larger in Texas, but I had no idea how much I loved football until I went to an A&M game.

The history of football is interesting as well as exciting, from the first forms of the game ever played, to the multi million dollar organizations of today. The game continues to evolve and change with the times.

For as long as I can remember football has been a part of my life in some way, shape, or form. When I was first born my grandfather said that I was solid and built to play football. I used to throw the football with my mother when I was a toddler and she always told me that when I tried to tackle her I hit really hard. My first organized football experience was when I was five. I had just moved to Manassas, VA from Washington, D.C. in 1994. It was around fall and that was right at the beginning of football season in the area. I remember telling my mother that I wanted to play, so she looked for a local organization for children. She came across the Greater Manassas Football League (GMFL) and that is where I began to play the game I

A mixture of pink and white colors fills the September sky with the smell of hamburgers and hotdogs on the grill preparing for the large crowd for the big game at McGee Hughes Wright field. I stood on the sidelines, at the end of the first cheerleader row and right in front of the bass drum players in the stands; I can already feel the overwhelming sensation of energy from the last home football game as a senior.

The sun beats down from above, the air reeks of sweat, a sea of burnt orange envelops me, the event is deafening, I can barely hear myself think. 100,000 faithful, all jam-packed, waiting for kickoff. Welcome to Longhorn Football. The ground is ridden with beer bottles, even though it's only 11:00 AM, the burnt orange stadium is visible from space. The band begins to play, the anticipation builds, the Texas Cowboys fire Smokey the Cannon, consequently the Longhorns burst from the tunnel, with one objective. Win at all costs, and within that moment, like a massive volcano the crowd erupts. Thinking to myself, looking around me, I knew my idea of football was about to be flipped on its head.

There are many repercussions that are projected upon both men and women when they enter into a sport that typically isn’t thought of as gender appropriate. Some of those cultural and social stigmatisms may be abandonment by your peers, and friends questions regarding your sexuality, and even in some cases criticism as to how you are living your life. In some cases, it may lead to you not being accepted by either group, theone whose norems you are not following, of as well as the one with whom you are trying to get involved. This paper will address all of these issues and how these seemingly negative situations can, will, and are, leading to growth. It will also discuss how this is a situation where repercussions are

Fox CK, Barr-Anderson D, Neumark-Sztainer D, Wall M. Physical activity and sports team participation: associations with academic outcomes in middle school and high school students. J Sch Health. 2010; 80: 31-37.