Forget playing, should we be WATCHING football?

This week I came across this outstanding article , What I saw as a NFL Ball Boy, by a former Chicago Bears ball boy Eric Kester, and to say the least it disturbed me. Not much disturbs, especially when it comes to sports and all of the nonsense that occurs these days, but this one truly bugged me. I highly encourage everyone to read it, but in summary the author details his time as a ball boy for the 2003 Chicago Bears. At the time he was a ball boy, he was 17 years old. As a 17 year old, as he describes, his most trusty tool was smelling salts. Smelling salts used to revive players after having their bell rung by forceful hits on the field. He goes on to detail how often times he was asked to blatantly give the smelling salts out of the view of probing television camera, or watchful photographer. He further recounts in the article how after games he would have to separate players' laundry, laundry that was sometimes stained with feces because a player had been hit so hard he lost control of his central nervous system.

Wow. I read this article in shock and horror and disgust. As I read it, I thought to my little boy who loves playing football. He's just now starting to watch the game more and more and ask questions and become interested, but he loves playing. As I read this article, I didn't question whether or not I should continue to allow him to play, I started to question whether I should allow him to continue to WATCH. Look, I'm not naive, I know football is a game that on every single play violence happens. Concussions and the long term harmful effects of them are widely discussed in the news and there is no denying that those concerns are legitimate. I also know that athletes get paid millions of dollars, and to a degree they acknowledge the risks of the profession they've chosen. Hopefully concussion and head trauma protocol continue to improve and although the dangers will never be eliminated, hopefully reduced. However, even acknowledging those facts I have to question whether or not I should continue to push watching and enjoying the game on my son, and likely very soon my daughter.

The easy answer is, yes. Yes, I should absolutely not let my children watch football, and sure as hell should never consider letting them play. Here's the problem. This past weekend my son played his last flag football game of the season, and the stakes were high. His team was the only undefeated team in the league, they had come together as a cohesive unit led by two great coaches, and they all wanted to finish the season without a loss. It meant something to them, they were in it together. It was a truly inspiring display of teamwork, cohesion, and togetherness that are all the best parts of sports. It was tight game, with both teams scoring only two touchdowns. The difference was the extra points. So, late in the game with the other team driving, they scored the tying touchdown, and were an extra point away from ruining an undefeated season. As they attempted their conversion run towards my son's side of the field...he made the stop. He pulled the flag and he jumped up and pumped his fist with pure joy. PURE JOY. There are things that make my son very happy, this was one of the few things in his young life that I could outwardly see made him proud. He understood what he accomplished and it meant something to him, meant something to his team. You can't replace that, you can't duplicate that. How do I deny him that feeling? I know that as he gets closer to playing tackle football my wife and I will need to have some serious discussions about whether or not he should play. I don't look forward to those days. In the interim every time he sits next to me during a football game I will be paying very close attention to how I react to big hits, and bone jarring plays. Instead I know I'll be pointing out those picture perfect heads up tackles around the waist that we so rarely see these days.

The Ray Rice Debacle

This morning the extremely disturbing video of Ray Rice leveling his wife (then fiance) with a left hook in an elevator took over the internet. This afternoon, like millions of people worldwide I took to social media took express my disgust with the incident, but also questioning whether today's video should have any larger impact on the situation because it showed the actual strike. Shortly after that post, the Baltimore Ravens and NFL answered my question, by releasing Rice from the team, and suspending him indefinitely in case another team chooses to sign him. Unpopular opinion alert, since my original Facebook post, I'm not sure I agree with everything I said today, and I certainly don't agree with Rice's release.

I still think Rice is a colossal scumbag, assaulting a female is a despicable act of cowardice, and should be punished severely. However, I don't agree with his release from the Baltimore Ravens, I ultimately believe that punishment is too severe. Instead, in my opinion here's what should have happened, and why.

Here's why I think the release is too harsh.

• There is no doubt that the video released today was disgusting and stomach turning. However I maintain my earlier stance that there was nothing on the video today that made what Rice was suspended for in August, worse. In the original video that was released months ago, no strike was shown, but what was shown was Rice dragging his unconscious wife out of an elevator. After that video was leaked, Rice admitted to assaulting his wife. So, again I maintain, what the hell did people think happened in that elevator to make her lose consciousness? She fainted? Rice yelled at her until she passed out? Everyone had to assume Rice struck his wife, and struck her violently enough to make her be knocked unconscious. Seeing the actual image of that happening doesn't make it worse in my opinion.
• Rice has never been in trouble before, either in the NFL, or with the law. Almost everyone associated with him personally and professionally has vouched for his character. His wife agreed to continue to marry him. He has been contrite, apologetic, and forthcoming about how sorry he is.  There is no repeated pattern of abuse before or since the incident. Ray Rice made the worst decision of his life, a decision that deserves an extreme punishment (more on that in the next section), but I don't believe the man deserved to lose his job, and livelihood.
• When I choose to personalize the situation, I think about how I would feel about the situation if it didn't involve a privileged, famous athlete. What if my best friend, cousin, or father found himself in the same situation? Would I want any of those individuals in the exact same circumstance to lose their job? I think even in those personal of circumstances I would still want a severe punishment to occur, but I'm certain I wouldn't want any of them to lose their career and financial means, unless the severity of the crime warranted incarceration. 

Here's what I wish happened, should have happened, and definitely won't happen

• There is no disputing that the NFL rushed to judgement in the case. I haven't heard a single person, expert or not, agree that the original two game suspension was enough. What a joke. Rice was suspended indefinitely today, and that's exactly what should have happened in July. I believe the NFL when they say they didn't know the video existed (there are reports that dispute that) but even based on the original video they should have done more investigation and left Rice suspended until they could come to the appropriate decision. I mean they screwed up the original penalty so badly that they have since gone and changed the entire domestic abuse policy, which is an admission they screwed up, as the commissioner Roger Goodell has admitted. I would go so far as to say that Goodell personally screwed this up so bad that any and all further penalty decisions should come from a different representative of the NFL.
• I just personally believe that the release from the Ravens is too harsh of a penalty. Essentially in vacuum the Ravens have effectively, for now, ended Rice's football career. As I stated above, he's a first time offender, with personal endorsements to his character from several members of his football team, including the head coach John Harbaugh. Wouldn't the better message have been for the Ravens to come out and say, "We are going to punish Ray Rice severely for this awful transgression. However while serving his minimum year long suspension without pay we are going to help him through this difficult time by offering him whatever support we can. Ray will have to serve 2500 hours of community service in battered womens shelters, and pay a $500,000 contribution to the victims of domestic abuse. If he misses even one session, he's done forever with us. If he's even accused of another incident of abuse, he'll be cut off from the Raven support system permanently. Ray will only be allowed to return to the team once we are confident that he his properly educated and has learned from his awful mistake."

I hope people understand I'm in no way diminishing what Rice did. It's disgusting and I do want him punished severely. However, I also believe there is a better way to do that, especially after the colossal mistakes that were made in doling out the original punishment. I'm certain the one area that most people will disagree with me on, is how today's video impacts those decisions. I just can't get past my opinion that what was released today should have no impact on Rice's suspension. When I saw the original video of him dragging his unconscious wife out of that elevator I assumed he must have brutally beat her, striking her repeatedly and savagely. I'm not saying that by only hitting her once means that is any less severe of action, but it's certainly not worse than what I had imagined had happened. More than anything though, regardless of football, I hope Rice and his wife can move beyond this and have a long and loving relationship, because that is what is really most important.