If your child does not own Patriots gear
More obligatory Spirit and Loyalty and Enthusiasm:
No, I did not send my four-year old to school in Patriots gear for “Super Bowl Spirit Day” on Friday.
Earlier in the week, I’d gotten an email from the preschool that my kids — Leila, almost 5, and Mateo, almost 3 — have attended for the last couple of years. Wedged between a reminder to “bring your patience” to pick-up (bothersome snow in the parking lot) and a request for donations for cancer research was a New England Patriots logo with the following message:
“In honor of the Patriots’ Super Bowl appearance, send your child to school in his or her Patriots gear! If your child does not own Patriots gear, send him or her to school wearing red, white, and blue. Go Patriots!”
Why do people do that? Why assume that love of football is universal? Why make people feel weird if they don’t love football? Why on earth do it to four-year-olds?
The author, Kate Mitchell, replied with a note pointing out the now well-known risks of football, and that the brain is quite a useful organ. The director replied politely but said they wouldn’t be changing their plans.
I decided to follow up with a bit more information: several links to articles about the issue including a piece in that very day’s New York Times.
I added:
“I acknowledge your decision not to reconsider promoting the sport on Friday — and I respect that individuals make their own choices about whether to watch, play, or support football. However, when an institution chooses to support or endorse another institution, it sends a message (intended or not) about the values of the institution doing the supporting.
And:
Obviously, my concerns are not so much about whether or not the kids dress up in Patriots gear on Friday. I am more worried about whether we encourage fandom for the sport/league from a young age, whether kids should be playing tackle football, and how we as a society should be demanding that the NFL value the lives and well-being of young men (and families) in our society. I appreciate you hearing me out on the big picture.
She decided to write to the teachers as well.
“Our reasons for boycotting football have to do with the NFL’s rejection of science and the evidence that proves the link between tackle football and traumatic brain injuries, as well as our support for Colin Kaepernick and his efforts to call attention to police brutality. While those might seem like two separate issues, we see them as one: a decision not to value the lives of young men, especially young men of color.
Leila will not be dressed in Patriots gear tomorrow. We will have a conversation with her tonight about our family’s values and how they square with football. We will also talk with her about the importance of being respectful of different points of view on this topic.”
She explained her thinking to Leila, who picked out her own (non-football themed) clothes for the next day, including a tiara.
As we entered her school, we stepped into a sea of Patriots gear. I felt my gut churn a bit. I felt like an outsider.
Leila loves her school. We have found it to be an inclusive environment that lives up to its mission of creating a safe and nurturing environment for our children to learn and grow. I left my daughter, feeling confident that she felt right at home and that the teachers would make sure that she did not feel excluded.
But I also left feeling incredibly confused. Of all the things that educators could be encouraging our children to care about and be interested in, is a sport that has been scientifically proven to cause routine traumatic brain injuries really one of those things? And does it really merit an entire “spirit day” in its honor at a school for toddlers and preschoolers?
I get that for many, the Super Bowl is just pure fun. I get that we could all use common ground to rally around in times like these.
I am just not willing to cheer a multi-billion dollar business that values profit over safety. And I am especially resistant to the idea of an educational institution enlisting my small kids in such fandom.
Also how pure can the fun really be when the sport itself is built around deliberate violence? We frown on the Romans for going to see gladiatorial contests but we have lethal sports ourselves. It’s pathetic.
H/t Sackbut
Having grown up in Oklahoma, I did not think I could find anyplace more devoted to football, more rah rah, more obnoxious. Then I moved to Nebraska.
In Oklahoma, people just sort of shrugged about my not caring about football. Okay, they thought it was a bit weird, but, well, there are strange people who don’t like football. No one told me I had to like a particular team (and I loathe the Sooners…)
In Nebraska, not only do people require you to like football, they require you to like the Huskers. I have been informed, not always politely, that as a state employee, it is part of my duty to not only like but love the Huskers. One employee came here from Michigan, just out of college. She didn’t like football, but everyone tormented her, and put ugly notes on her door, and pushed the Huskers in her face, so one day she just started supporting Michigan. Then, they got mad and claimed she had been going around flaunting her support for Michigan! How dare she…
Someone once told me, once you move into Nebraska, you must become a Husker fan. I asked them, so, when your children moved out of Nebraska, they became fans of whatever team was local there? Oh, no, you must be a Husker fan for life.
I hate football. I even more hate being told I must love football. I hate even more than that being told I must love a particular team. And if anyone, anywhere, had ever told me I needed to put my young son in any particular team’s clothes, I would have told them just where they could put it…
When in college working a fast food side job I once wore a rival college’s t-shirt. A customer became enraged over this, repeatedly sputtering through clenched teeth that he couldn’t believe I was wearing that shirt. He was just kind of frozen, unable to place his order, seething with anger. I actually thought he might leap over the counter and attack me.
Keep in mind these were both state universities in the same state, and they had what I thought was a friendly rivalry. I had no idea anybody took it that seriously. I later found quite a few people did; strangely, it was more often the locals that lived near the school but hadn’t actually attended it. Students and alumni would trash talk the other school but seemed to understand this was just for fun.
Anyway, the manager got the guy calmed down enough to order, although he did glance in my direction and shake his head in disgust as he walked away with his food.
Getting back to the main point, I’m of two minds on it. I think pep rallies and rivalries with other local schools can be fun. People mock “school spirit”, but in my experience volunteering with kids I think it does help a bit if they have pride in their school and think it’s a good school.
On the other hand, why is this centered around football? I cut people some slack, because they’re still processing how dangerous football is. But even putting that aside, why a game? But then why is the country as a whole obsessed with the Super Bowl? Apparently we’re just hardwired to (on average) like stuff like that, and the mathletes are never going to be able to compete.
And I’m not sure what the point of pushing “local sports franchise spirit” is, especially for preschoolers. Preschoolers generally aren’t even aware this stuff is going on, and that’s a good thing.
That’s been my experience, too. The most ardent fans of OU Sooners were people who had never gone to OU, or even to college at all. The most virulent and toxic Huskers fans have not attended the school.
And the inability to get people interested in the research work or academic work people are working on is perverse. When OU got a new president in the 90s, everyone was screaming bloody murder because he was putting time, attention, and money into building up the academics, creating an educational environment to be proud of, and to stimulate the growth and education of all the students, not just a handful of students who happened to play football. You would think he had murdered someone and buried their body in the football field the way people were vilifying him. (I will say, the professors I talked to were thrilled with his focus, and hoped the football team wouldn’t get great again, because the educational mission became so much stronger while the team was losing).
In addition, the royal treatment the players get – the football players, I mean. I never had anyone suggest that the members of the girls volleyball team (a team that won far more games than the football team) should get any special privileges. Football players were so disruptive in one of the classes taught by a friend of mine that he finally told them he would give them all As if they would stay away and never come back to class, so he could teach the rest of the students something. I don’t know that I would have taken that approach, but I am afraid it is the only approach that will work in most cases, since football players are basically little demigods (well, maybe not so little – the little ones don’t tend to play football) on campuses even with a second rate team.