Football - a sissy sport?

A reprint of my Oct. 15 SlapShot column published in the Woodford Sun.

When I was a kid, I played a lot of touch football. There were about 10 boys ranging in age from eight to 12 around the neighborhood, and we spent many a fall and winter weekend in the street in front of my house heaving the pigskin around in hotly contested games.

Most of you have probably played touch football at some point. We generally played the two-hand touch variety. Touching the ball carrier with both hands constituted a tackle. Smacking and hitting counted too, as long as both hands contacted the ball carrier simultaneously. It was much safer than playing actual tackle football on the asphalt – although we admittedly tried that once. That game didn’t last very long, and I still have a vague recollection of getting in trouble for ripping my jeans.

I never claimed we were smart kids.

As we got older, those early touch football contests evolved into actual full-scale tackle games. We’d play in empty fields, or when they left the gate open at Tates Creek High School’s stadium. Looking back, the touch games were a lot safer. I don’t ever remember anybody getting hurt. We averaged at least one injury in every full tackle contest.

But those full contact, no-pad, rolling-in-the-mud competitions seemed more like the real thing. Football is about hitting. It’s about physical strength. It’s a game of power and force.

Or at least it was.

The new emphasis on late hits on quarterbacks and receivers in the NFL and college game is turning football into sissified version that looks more and more like the touch variety we played in the streets as 10-year-olds.

It’s even filtering down to the high school level. The Yellow Jackets were flagged for a roughing penalty early in the first quarter of their game against Montgomery County on a play that was nothing more than a good football hit.

“Are you kidding me? That’s just football,” one frustrated fan standing nearby exclaimed.

And when the quarterback has the last name Manning or Brady on his back, the calls become even more ridiculous. It was so bad in the recent match-up between the New England Patriots and the Baltimore Ravens that NBC analyst Rodney Harrison quipped, “Tom Brady, if you’re listening. Take off the skirt and put on some slacks. Toughen up. ”

Harrison later qualified his statement, saying he was joking. But he clearly articulated the frustration a lot of football fans feel with the overprotective, maternalistic approach officials are taking toward quarterbacks and receivers. While Harrison made it clear that he wasn’t questioning Brady’s toughness, he wouldn’t back of his assertion that the call against Ravens linebacker Terrell Suggs, who appeared to dive at Brady’s knees, was a bad call. “That wasn’t intentional. I felt that was a bad call which led to a score,” Harrison said. “I’ll stand by that.”

And I’ll stand by Harrison. The officiating is in danger of turning football into a nambly-pambly sissy sport.

I understand the need to protect the quarterback. I also understand the league’s desire to prevent its star players from going out with injuries. Those stars generate revenues and interest in the game. I get that.

But league officials do their game no favor when they change the sport into something different. Yes, fans want to see the stars of the game perform. But they want to see them playing the game they love - football. That means hits. That means physicality. That means a little streak of meanness.

So let’s take the skirts off the quarterbacks and receivers. Enforce the rules against blatant roughing, but let the players play. Let ’em hit.

Touch football was a lot of fun to play when I was a kid, but it wasn’t much to watch.

Quick Shots

The Woodford County High School volleyball team season came to an end Monday, Oct. 12, in disappointing fashion with a 2-0 loss to Scott County in the first round of the 39th District Tournament. The Jackets looked young and intimidated by the postseason atmosphere. But the loss takes nothing away from their amazing year. After winning only five games in 2008, the Yellow Jackets went 9-7. They won four district games and earned a second seed in the tourney. The postseason loss was simply part of the learning process for what is still a young team. Most of the starters return next season, and I predict fans haven’t heard the last from this bunch. The loss was tough. The loss was ugly. But the girls should continue to hold their heads high. I’m proud of all they accomplished.

Irony took on a Big Blue tinge last week. After screaming for weeks that UK needed to explore other quarterback options, Cat fans got their wish when Mike Hartline suffered a knee injury early in the third quarter against South Carolina. But when the Wildcat signal caller went down, with what is now being called a torn MCL, Hartline was having arguably the best game of his career. He went nine-of-13 for 139 yards and a touchdown. More importantly, Kentucky led the Gamecocks 17-14 when Hartline was injured. The game didn’t end well without the starting QB. Despite a nice late drive orchestrated by Randall Cobb operating out of the “wildcat” formation, backup quarterback Will Fidler was ineffective and UK dropped its 10th straight to South Carolina.

Through the first three races of the NASCAR Sprint Cup “playoff,” frontrunner Mark Martin has watched the number 48 loom ever larger in his rearview mirror. Not anymore. Now Martin must chase the Lowe’s Chevy. Jimmy Johnson grabbed the points lead on Oct. 11 with a win in the Pepsi 500 in Fontana, Calif. It almost seemed inevitable. Johnson is pursuing an unprecedented fourth straight championship. He currently leads his 50-year-old teammate by 12 points.

If you told me last year that I would devote any column space to the Cincinnati Bengals, I would have laughed at you. But here we are in week five of the NFL season and the boys in stripes sit atop the AFC North after beating Baltimore 17-14. It was another last minute win by Cincinnati. Quarterback Carson Palmer threw a 20-yard TD pass to Andre Caldwell with 22 seconds left to earn the win. It was the third straight three-point Bengal victory.

Quote of the Week

“Sad to say, but I think so. You never should be happy when a guy’s hurt. I still feel like he was the best option at quarterback. I felt that he had a great game up until the point that he got hurt.”
- UK defensive tackle Cory Peters when asked if he though some Wildcat fans were happy Kentucky quarterback Mike Hartline got injured.

Puck to the head

The week’s pucks fly at the heads of University of Louisville basketball players Jerry Smith and Terrence Jennings for earning a trip to jail. According to a Courier-Journal story, police arrested the pair on misdemeanor charges after a fight at an alumni homecoming party in Jeffersonville, Ind. They were charged with resisting arrest. Jennings found his arrest quite shocking. According to a university official, police Tasered him.