The Football Question - Part Three

            So, where does this question leave me right now?  I think that football is a sport that straddles the line of violence/aggression as far as Christian schools are concerned.  Although I never played football, I understand that a coach can teach aggressive blocking and tackling without promoting the violence of a hit.  A coach can teach technique and strength, while discouraging unnecessary aggressiveness/violence.  A coach makes a huge difference in whether or not the sport crosses the line between acceptable and unacceptable violence/aggression.

            However, it also seems to me that it would take a very special coach not to succumb to the temptations of encouraging ever greater aggression on the field.  How does a coach avoid selecting for aggression in a player?  How do you teach and require such control on aggression?  If a player displays a lot of aggression, wouldn’t a coach be pleased?  Again, I’ve never played tackle football, and I’ve never coached, but it would seem to me to be a very difficult task to keep football to a limited aggression level.

            Could a Christian school engage in a football program with integrity?  Although it appears to me to be an extremely difficult task, I think it is possible.  But it would require selecting a special type of coach who can teach control over aggressiveness, and not promote violent hits.  Does such a coach exist?  I don’t know, but I do get worried when a coach tells the team and parents that he likes football because he likes to hit people, and the football field is the one place where you can hit people without getting thrown in jail.  It would take a very special person to coach technique and strength and strategy, without encouraging (over-)aggressiveness.  I hope such coaches exist.

            This also suggests the need to educate the student body, parents, and other fans in the nature of the (non-violent) game, so that they will understand, appreciate, and cheer for good plays appropriately.  (See my earlier post, “How To Be a Christian Fan,” which offers a non-sport-specific starting point.)  It also means that the players need to be well-coached and understand this controlled-aggression approach to the game.  If the coaches, players, and fans all understood, played, cheered, and were committed to this approach to football, the game that would be played by the Christian school’s team would stand out clearly from the football that is played everywhere else.  Christian school football should be distinctive, not because the game begins with a prayer, but in how it is played on the field.  A controlled-aggression approach would be a clearly distinctive game.