Football Is Not Important

How did America become the land of the oblivious and the home of the ignorant?

30 years from now, will anyone care who won the college championship? Will it matter in 50 years how many yards were run or who caught what? Will the number of interceptions be important? Will the number of tackles count for anything? Will the number of downs have changed a single thing? Will the number of field goals matter one bit?

Or will the number of boys who were abused be the only number any of us remember?

How can an educator, a coach, a mentor, choose to ignore the abuse of a child and expect any us to forgive and or forget?

It seems that too many are willing to look the other way. Abuse of our children, our environment, our banking system, our schools, our health care system, our laws; does one thing lead to another? Can anyone really sit there and think that any sport is more important than the innocence of a single child?

That is the decision that Joe Paterno and others made. Including perhaps Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett. Who knew what and when? At what point do we have to stop this insane pandering to athletics and instead consider our intellect supreme?

Can we, at any point, find our way back to civilized discourse and courteous society? Why is it there are teenagers playing at grand theft auto and parents who think it is okay that murder is play, abuse is allowable and hate is a mainstream emotion, just because it is a “game”? Do they really not see the connection between these “games” and how people are acting? From sports to video to reality, brutality has become an acceptable form of entertainment.

Rarely do I watch commercials, but when I do, I am stunned by the blatant misrepresentations, well, I am until I turn on the network or cable news, or happen upon one of the ubiquitous “reality” shows, which have about as much in common with reality as the “tea” “party” does with any actual political party.

And although I can never understand, it starts to become more clear, how any person, or group, or institution, could blindly accept the brutal abuse of children. Be it at Penn State, or on the internet, the media looks the other way, pretends it is not happening. And that tells mainstream America it is okay to ignore it.

Everything is just fine, just keep shopping. There is nothing you can do. Except there is, and we can. Just as soon as we realize that football is not important.