Football has started again, with a new chance for teams to win, for fans to cheer on their favorites, and for America to behold the spectacle of freedom, association, and excellence—a manly spectacle, perhaps the last such spectacle we can boast. Football is as technological and scientific as anything we do these days, but it’s still violent, dangerous, and therefore rewards superior abilities while punishing weakness. This has become very difficult even to say, but we know it to be true.
Indeed, the violence and the suffering of football reveal the struggle to which flesh is heir. In the activity of NFL players, who are already the chosen few among the many who play college football, to say nothing of Pee Wee, we see the national drama, personal and public, based on the awareness that in America much is promised, but almost nothing guaranteed. That difficulty is why we admire the successful. They overcome much and inspire us to keep struggling.
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