Ohio State Football as a Religion? Essay

In this interview, Stoney Pryor, who is a College Station High School coach, was able to define religion, explain how athletes use religion in their sport, and explain how coaches use religion while on and off the field. When it comes to religion, some people follow a certain religion, and other do not, so you must accommodate how to work with both views. Religion affects players in how the act during a game (i.e. a bad call on a player and the way he/she reacts) and how coaches act during a game (i.e. talking to the officials after a bad call.) Pryor also mentions how being a part of a public school, there are some things that involve religion that he is discouraged to do because it may offend someone. Religion can also help character development, meaning one would become an over all “better person” because of the way his/her religion affects the way the act in front of others.

To the majority of America, Auburn University Football is just a sport. To the thousands of Auburn Tigers fans worldwide, it is so much more than that. Tim Stanfield describes it as “…more than a game…it’s a passion” (Stanfield et al. 61). The culture surrounding Auburn Tigers football is a family and tight-knit community. As Pat Dye, past coach of the Auburn Tigers puts it, “We are close here, and that is part of what it means to be a Tiger” (Glier xii). There are generations of Tigers fans, “family” traditions, and the support and encouragement of a family behind every Tiger out there playing. To be a

Down Here written by Rick Bragg describes the characteristics of the Southern culture and discusses why football is a religion in the South. Our climate and culture make us a natural for loving and dominating college football. Legends who are successful, such as Bear Bryant, Steve Spurrier, and Nick Saban, spring up and live into perpetuity. They are revered just as much as Christians honor and love Billy Graham. Examples from this story will illustrate how Southerners deem football to be a religion because of their history and culture.

As stated earlier baseball can be considered to be just like other types of world religions, due to the fact that baseball just like other world religions’ creates a following for itself that people can be tied and bounded to. To further emphasize this point, in the scholarly journal article entitled The Church of Baseball, the Fetish of Coca-Cola, and the Potlatch of Rock ’n’ Roll: Theoretical Models for the study of Religion in American Popular Culture, by David Chidester, American director and producer of documentary films Ken Burns talks about how baseball as a religion has created a following for itself. Ken Burns talks about how baseball is a religion due to the fact that it operates in U.S. culture, much like a church does, and Ken Burns justifies his explanation by coming up with the term “The Church of Baseball” (744). Ken Burns uses this term in order to describe how baseball is in itself a religion due to the fact that baseball is an organized human activity that functions the very same way as other types of more familiar religious institutions (Chidester 744). Furthermore, Ken Burns and the article’s author David Chidester, go on to talk about how baseball as a religion has created a following for itself by stating that, “The “church of baseball” is much more than merely the rule book. It is a religious institution that maintains the

The article, “Why College Football Should Be Banned” is by Buzz Bissinger. The article is about exactly what the title is saying, why football should not be allowed in college anymore. Buzz Bissinger gives great detail on why he thinks college football should be banned and uses facts and statistics to back up his claims. Buzz Bissinger believes college football shouldn’t be allowed in schools through talking about how much money we put into football with colleges and also how it loses focus on academia and becomes all about sports.

Rivalries in American college sports can be traced back to what many consider to be the first ever-major rivalry between Harvard and Yale. This rivalry was in born “In 1843, when the two schools founded their own respective boat clubs. In the country’s first ever intercollegiate competition the two schools raced with Harvard coming out victorious. From this point on the two schools would continue to race for 150 years, establishing a rivalry not only between two colleges, but also college sports in general.” (Christenfeld, 2015) With the expansion of the NCAA, we can see an emergence of many intense rivalries between many schools across the United States. As many of these rivalries start to hit the mainstream a new study involving intercollegiate rivalries suggests, “Competition for scarce resources influences fan opinions. It was also found that geographic proximity and a shared history of comparable success determine rivalries and sometimes hostile feelings.” (Deck, and McGowan, 2015) This finding is very interesting, as it points toward not only on field play, but also external factors such as competition for recruits, attendance, and gate revenue as valid forms of resources that somewhat contribute to intense rivalries between two teams. When putting this criteria into practice it was found that, “In 2009, the most intense, inter-collegiate rivalries were: Brigham

The ritualization and

In this article the writer says that the historical backdrop of the National Football League develops crosswise over time, in numerous measurements, conveyed along by those strengths that have molded current American history. It was the result of powers changing twentieth-century America into a shopper society seeking after recreation. It

Rituals can be held to celebrate a special event in the lives of a family or communities, in bad times for guidance from the Loa, for healing of an illness or a disability, births, wedding, and deaths. The ceremony may be held at the end of the day, when the sun is setting. Men, women, and children walk to the beat of drums rolling off the mountains in the night air. At all ceremonies each spirit called must be offered three to seven songs, along with a particular drum rhythm that ordinarily accompanied them. The verses are repeated until the

“One rather simple way of getting interest into your paper is to take the side of the argument that most of the citizens will want to avoid.” (Roberts 381) I love that challenge. When a subject is given by a professor to their students, there are often many ways a student can take that subject and run. Just because a subject is about college football does not mean you should write about whether you agree with the sport or not. You can go many directions with that topic, how football can make students responsible, how college football can become a career, why college football is such a loved sport. I could go on and on. If you know or have an idea that other students in the class are writing in one direction why not give your instructor a curve

he darkness of evening slowly blankets the land. The harvest moon, gowned in silver attire floats in a sea of air, peeks from behind a misty veil. Below, a wisp of smoke dances upward toward the heavens. There is a feeling of ancient magic as the circle is cast in the clearing. The lone worshipper walks the circle, methodically lighting the colored candles she has placed in each of the cardinal directions: North is green and represents represents earth, the east candle is yellow and represents air, South is red and represents fire and west is blue and represents water. As each candle is she invokes the spirits of the Watchtowers. The circle is cast to create a hallowed ground, a place that exists and does not exist simultaneously. She

In this article Michael Serazio, an associate professor in the department of communications at Boston College informs that Sports culture has become the new religion, but he questions why people are so faithful. Serazio demonstrates that in our culture, humans have created a new meaning and devotion to sports. Stating that totems are an obvious and noticeable form that a society interpreters to be different and shows its personality or beliefs. By creating such logos with distinct characteristics, patterns, and colors to form a physical illustration of sports teams it gives their supporters a recognizable sense of “identity and unity”. Much like religion, our sports teams are diminishing in faith. Serazio questions exactly what icons will continually

A new market has developed over the past hundred years into one of the most lucrative businesses in the United States today, the business of sports. Out of all the sports, football in particular is extremely popular and is the most watched game in the country; so much so that the championship game being considered a national holiday. In this particular sport and the business of it, we find a home to militarism, nationalism and patriotism proudly displayed even in the National Football League’s logo. This week’s game between the Jacksonville Jaguars and the Indianapolis Colts showcased these three ideologies, though different than how I originally anticipated. Football makes a perfect host to these three ideologies due to the parallels between the values of the military and sports teams as well as the elasticity of sports and their ability to change over time.

From the first two national champions, Rutgers and Princeton, to last year’s debateable Auburn national championship winning team, college football has always had difficulties deciding national champions. The BCS National Championship game was thought to give a less prejudice opinion on which teams play in the championship game than humans did. However, it has stimulated more controversy in college sports than Cal-Stanford “The Play.” The problem with the BCS teams is, it chooses two teams that are based on profit, popularity, and record. The BCS is in need of replacement by a playoff system because with a playoff system college football teams have more of an opportunity to show themselves.

In the chapters that follow, I seek to contrast themes endemic to celebrity music fandom-as-religion literature with my data set and, in that juxtaposition, demonstrate ways in which scholars of fandom-as-religion may have mischaracterized fan emotion, sentiment, and action, as well as the fan-celebrity relationship. I follow Sandvoss in his distinction between fandom and religion: “In contrast to religion, fandom lacks an absolute, other-worldly framework through which social realities are constructed and legitimized. If fandom differs so radically in its premises from religion, it is difficult to juxtapose their consequences meaningfully” (2005, 63). One question this dissertation asks is if religion is a useful