What force is so strong that it has the power to bring even the strongest man to his knees? What force plagues the workforce at all hours of the day? What force prevents continuous work at all times of the day, making us bow to the night as if to say “We are not strong enough”? That force is exhaustion, the most terrible and rarely conquerable force on earth.
As I stood staring at such a life-like sculpture in the confines of a briskly chilly art museum corridor, I could only imagine the amount of exhausted nights the sculptor had to endure to create his extremely exhausted masterpiece. The sculptor Duane Hanson and his piece “The Football Player” most-certainly shared the same facial expression at one point in their existence, as to describe their excessively tired states’. One might infer that Hanson’s piece was created in part to express the feeling of exhaustion that was created from his constant work.
The full size replica of an early 80’s Miami Dolphins football player is eerily realistic, right down to the hairs on the player’s arms. The player’s attire is all true to the era, from the circa-1980’s NFL jersey and pants, 80’s style shoulder pads and helmet to the orange and white Nike cleats from the same era. The player is depicted crouched on top of his helmet in terrible exhaustion.
The piece was meant to commemorate an American society where football is not just a job or a pastime, but a way of life, an obsession. It also exemplifies the constant body preparation and consciousness that athletes have to endure, as well as the exhaustion created from this constantly prepared state.
“The Football Player” shows how physically draining this obsession can be. NFL quarterback Matt Leinart eerily describes the drain ...
... middle of paper ...
...s and in turn create unfavorable conditions.
So this “Universally Felt” force of exhaustion is not all-powerful anymore. It does not have to be the subject of our nightmares or the reason for our failures. The way we as humans prepare for our various “battles” in everyday life—in all aspects—can positively or negatively affect our success in it against our archenemy exhaustion. “The harder you work, the harder it is to surrender.” (Vince)
Works Cited
O’brien, Michael Vince: A Personal Biography of Vince Lombardi
Harper Paperbacks; (September 20, 1989)
“Fatigue (Physical)” Wikipedia.org
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatigue_%28physical%29#Types
Gladwell, Malcolm Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking
Little, Brown and Company; (January, 2005)
Hawley, JA & Reilly, T 'Fatigue revisited' Journal of Sport Science (1997)
www.Artstor.org
Football is not a game but a religion, a metaphysical island of fundamental truth in a highly verbalized, disguised society, a throwback of 30,000 generations of anthropological time. (“Football Quotes, Great”, par. 12)
The Odessa football players couldn't be objective about criticisms of football. Their total self-esteem depended on how they did on Friday night. This was the glorified culmination of their football career: wearing the black MoJo uniform in the stadium under the big lights. Football was more than just a game to them; it was a religion. It "made them seem like boys going off to fight a war for the benefit of someone else, unwitting sacrifices to a strange and powerful god" (Bissinger, p.11). Because football was so meaningful in their lives, to criticize it was to criticize everything they'd worked so hard for and lived for.
Daniel J. Flynn’s argument of why Football Does a Body Good is extremely convincing. The evidence that he presents throughout the essay debunks the counterargument of how dangerous football can be. The essays is full of statistics and examples of how football can positively benefit you. The facts that are presented are effectively used to refute all the negative claims against the dangers of football. He successfully argues toward the benefit of football by presenting appeals to reason, and showcasing his credibility throughout the essay, but he unfortunately does not keep an unbiased tone for the duration of the essay.
...e their life as well as the children. The children receive a ton of pressure from their families to perform at a high level so they will feel satisfied as parents that their football player performed well. Thus the families’ obsession of high school football in particular the parents’ obsession proves to be a continuous and damaging cycle for the high school football players.
American Football is a huge spectator sport where offensive and defensive players will use teamwork and perseverance to try and score more points than their opponent. Football is highly respected in America, where boys will try and pursue the dream of playing in the NFL (National Football Association) someday; but if you look at an average neighborhood, you will find that kids and adults of all ages love to go out and throw around the pigskin. (Lerner and Lerner 275). One thing Americans will take pride in is the college and NFL football teams they root for. People sit down with a beer and talk hours upon hours of football and two individuals can get in a heated discussion in the local sports store of whose sports team is better. Surprisingly enough, one will find the most passionate football players at the high school level. Most boys will start their football career as a young child in football programs such as Pop Warner to get a foothold and to get those involved in teamwork and friendships. These programs are usually the start to someone falling in love with the sport and making it a career choice eight years later. Football is one of America’s favorite sports. When fall season comes around, people across America are placing bets, finding out where that new sports bar is, and buying wide screen T.V’s to watch NFL on Sundays. After their team plays, they will go out and reminisce what happened that Sunday. While thousands of fans are still pumped from the NFL games they watched; small towns across America are getting ready to shut down their shops and restaurants to have the chance to make it to the local high schools football game. Ray Glier, a reporter for the New York Times, writes about football in the small town of Appala...
The athlete and really the sport overall I chose to focus on throughout the course of this paper is the football player and the mindset in which he operates, while in what seems to become his natural environment and other factors which may alter that mindset in a positive or negative way. Having experience as a football player from my youth until present day helps to really analyze the mindset and thinking of this specific athlete and express through experiences my thoughts and feelings concerning my research found. Paul Bear Bryant a very well-known and respected coach for many years in the college football world once said, “When you make a mistake, there are only three things you should ever do about it: admit it, learn from it, and don’t repeat it.” This quote is an excellent example of football psychology and the type of thinking a football player must have, which is also helpful to have off the field. Mistakes are going to happen, learn from them and get better. Football is all about training the mind, which alters the behavior on the field.
Douglas E. Foley offers an interesting analysis of American football culture in high schools, in his article titled “The Great American Football Ritual: Reproducing Race, Class and Gender Inequality”. The author covers the ways that the football culture splits people apart and segregates them into groups based on what they contribute to the football scene. The football scene seems to bring negativity to the lives of every group it touches, yet it is still a staple in American culture to this day.
In the book entitled Out of Their League, David Meggyesy describes his life as a football player from high school through his days with the St. Louis Cardinals of the National Football League (NFL). Born in 1941, Meggyesy was raised in a low-income household in Solon, Ohio. Like many athletes from impoverished backgrounds, he was able to use the game of football to better himself though both a full scholarship to Syracuse University and financial stability with the Cardinals. During his career, however, Meggyesy became increasingly disillusioned with the game of football and how its athletes were subject to tremendous physical and psychological turmoil from those in power—namely the coaches and the NFL team owners. He began to see the game of football from a conflict theorist point of view. This is the belief that sport is an opiate used to benefit those in power through the exploitation of athletes which enables those such as coaches and team owners to maintain their power and privilege in society. (Coakley, 1998) Meggyesy's growing disenchantment with football and adoption of a conflict theorist point of view led him to retire from the Cardinals in 1969.
Football is a game of adversity and emotion. People who have not played a sport or follow one closely don’t understand the emotion behind game. They think that football is just a game, but for those who are involved with the team don’t think so. All those horrendous hours of countless preparation are for something players and coaches love. About a few years ago, a football player at the collegiate level was told that he wouldn’t be able to play another down of football again due to his banged up h...
The roaring of the crowd on November 17 at Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte, NC finally fell silent late in the fourth quarter after star linebacker Luke Kuechly was slow to get off the field after a huge hit to the head. American’s live to be entertained, and the football field is one of the main sources of enjoyment for many. Immediately after Kuechly’s hit, it was quiet in the stadium for the first time that day. The fans watched in fear, waiting to see if their star player could finish the game and bring out the win. However, they all became disappointed as Kuechly shed tears while being carted off the field, not because they were worried about the player and his head but because they feared about losing the game. Americans want excitement,
Likewise, Steve backs up this argument by explaining the physical, emotional, and psychological effect that football player ' experiences to why it 's immoral to watch football. To make his point even more clearly, Steve provided some example of the effects that football has on players: injuries from the body blows, twisted ankles, concussions, blood poisoning, memory loss, and death. Besides, Steve’s not only show the effects of football, but he’s also shown how cruel football can become on television with repeated showing moments of a player twisted ankle in slow-motion and a close up quarterback 's painful face when been
“‘Athletics last for such a short period of time. It ends for people. But while it lasts, it creates this make-believe world where normal rules don’t apply. We build this false atmosphere. When it’s over and the harsh reality sets in, that’s the real joke we play on people’” (Bissinger xiv). “Friday Night Lights” shows the darker side of high school football. Players are taught to play games to win, and thats all that matters. Football players are put under a tremendous amount of pressure, almost enough to be considered unfair. Even though football is a “team sport”, pressure on individual players is unnecessary. Some players have the burden of the team, the city, their family, and their future, resting on their shoulders. These players are put under pressure that is physically and emotionally damaging, not to mention future ruining.
In modern days societies, stress is commonly known as our bodies being overwhelmed. Because majority of the people living in this world go to bed every single night with deadlines in their mind, bills to pay, appointments to attend, files they need to create, presentations, meetings, interviews, commute and so many likes, it is very easy to compel our bodies to become heavily exposed with stress. It’s reasonable to think stress as bein...
From the early ages in history to the present day, sports have always been an important part of society. It teaches discipline, how to be a team player, how to interact with others and is a good source of physical activity. In specific, football utilizes all of these aspects of sports and it’s a great source of teaching self-restraint and perseverance. Some may say that football is a violent sport or it’s not beneficial in any way, but in reality it gives a person the basic tools needed not only for playing the game, but also how you interact with people in society.
The classic image of stress: a student thumping his pencil on his notebook, as if he is trying to beat the math problems waiting to be finished in front of him; a weary mother rubbing her temples and furrowing her brow, mentally listing the tasks she must finish; a business man on the edge of breaking down, all of the day’s occurrences running through his mind. When one experiences stress, the only thing he or she want to do is finish work, go to bed, and release all stress. Stress affects almost all of us at some point in our lives. When we think about stress, we tend to immediately assume that all stress is negative and is harmful to our health. However, as hard as it may be to believe, stress can actually be good for us. According to yoga instructor Jennifer Parmelee, we actually “need stress, to a certain degree.” (Weaver)