March 27, 2018--Still A Long Way, Baby

Until yesterday I didn't pay much attention to NFL cheerleaders. Not the ones that Debbie did, but the actual ones such as Bailey Davis who was recently fired by the New Orleans Saints.

As reported by the New York Times, here's the story--

 
She was fired for allegedly not following team rules, which, among many other prohibitions, forbids its cheerleaders from having public social media pages. In Davis' case, she failed to make her Instagram page private and on it posted a picture of herself in a slinky one-piece swimsuit.

As silly as this may seem, considering what NFL cheerleaders are expected to do and look like on the filed ( a lot of T&A), it is beyond silly that the NFL and most of its teams have two very different sets of rules for the deportment of its players (many of whom are sexual and spousal abusers) and its cheerleaders (who, at their worst, since it is forbidden by team rules, have dated a player or two).

The Saints have to avoid contact with players, though players are not disciplined for equivalent behavior with cheerleaders. They are required to block players from following them on Facebook and the like though, again, players are not required to do the same.

Incredibly, cheerleaders are not allowed to dine in the same restaurants or speak to players if they find themselves in the same watering hole. If a cheerleader shows up and a player is present, she is required to turn around and leave. Most outrageous, if a cheerleader is already seated at a table and a player appears, she is required to stop eating, immediately get up, and leave!

The team says, these and other similar rules are designed to "protect cheerleaders from players preying on them."

Knowing their players all too well, protecting cheerleaders from them is not that bad an idea. But the Saints' rules put the onus on its cheerleaders to protect themselves from testosterone-suffused players.

To view this another way, while 350-pound players make millions a year for slamming into each other and administering concussions, cheerleaders basically make minimum wage (in New Orleans, $10.55 an hour) for jiggling around even in freezing weather half naked in team-designed outfits. 

Again, think about the Dallas Cowgirls, not Bailey Davis on Instagram. 

February 2, 2015--Halftime Show

Rona growled, "I just read they used 108 footballs in the Super Bowl. A separate one for each play."

"I wonder if they were all legally inflated."

"I think the NFL cared more how much they could sell them for as balls that used during the game."

"Everyone of them is a so-called 'game ball.'"

"Do you think they collected all the uniforms and sneakers and--"

"Jockstraps," I added. "And are selling all of that junk on eBay?"

"The same article said that balls from last year's Super Bowl XLVIII are selling on the secondary market for about $180 each so the bottom line of all this nonsense is not that huge considering the billions in other forms of revenue the Super Bowl generates."

"It's just a game but has become the single most-viewed event in America, sort of a national holiday."

"The cheapest tickets on StubHub were going for $7,000 each. And others sold for upwards of $40,000."

"Insane."

"I'll tell you what's really insane," Rona said, "More than 115 million viewers tuned in, though for sure it was a great game."

"Even crazier, 117 million watched Katy Perry during the halftime show. That's an even bigger mega-event."

"No surprise. She has more Twitter followers than anyone else in the world. Sixty-four million."

"Unbelievable. Who's second and third?"

"Justin Bieber has 60 million followers and the person in third place you won't believe."

"Taylor Swift?" I guessed.

"She's fourth. Guess again."

"Madonna?"

"Wrong again. She's sixth. In third place, with 54 million Twitter followers, is Barack Obama."

"I don't know if I should be depressed about this--especially the Justine Bieber numbers--or impressed that so many people know who the President of the United States is."

"Maybe," Rona quipped, "they think he's a rapper."

"Speaking of Barack Obama, do you know how many watched his recent State of the Union Address? All the networks, even Fox, carried it."

"About 52 million. I think I know where you're going with this."

"Maybe yes, maybe no."

"If more that twice as many watched Katy Perry than the SOTU, why not next year begin the halftime show with Lady Gaga or Rihanna and--"

"That would assure another 'wardrobe malfunction.'"

Ignoring me, Rona said, "And after the music and costume changes, have Obama deliver the State of the Union and--"

"And three-quarters of the 115 million viewers would take a bathroom break."

"Not if they showed a few Budweiser commercials with the Clydesdale horses and that cute lost puppy."

October 22, 2014--Roar Lion, Roar

In case you've been living off the grid and haven't noticed, it's football season.

The NFL is about halfway through its schedule and as far as I know no one has been arrested for spousal abuse for at least a month.

Florida State is Number 1 again and its Heisman-Trophy-winning quarterback, Jameis Winston, hasn't been caught selling autographs, arrested for DUI, or accused of sexual harassment. Also for the last few weeks.

And the footballers at Sayerville High School in New Jersey are maybe back in class and not at the moment abusing and sexually harassing their freshmen teammates.

Then, closer, to home, my college's football team, the Columbia Lions (not the disgraced Nittany ones) continue to lose almost every game they play. In fact, on Saturday they set an Ivy League record for the most loses in a row against a single team when they were beaten for the 18th consecutive time in 18 years by Penn by a score of 31 to 7.

Well, at least they scored.

Also, over the past two years they have lost 16 games in a row, which is dwarfed by what they perversely achieved back in the 1980s when they lost 44 straight. That is not a typo, they actually lost 44 games in a  row. About five years' worth of games.

This is even worse than when I was enrolled during the late 50s. As I recall (and I am by now not that good at recalling), while I huddled in the rickety wooden stands against the wind blowing off the Hudson River, the Lions won one or two games. Not per season, but during my entire four undergraduate years.

Why am I not ashamed of the Lion's dismal record? Why, in fact, am I feeling a little good about this pathetic history?

For one thing the team used to be a football force. One year, 1934, they beat otherwise all-powerful Army and went on to the Rose Bowl (you can look it up) and shut out Stanford, 7-0.

So we know about winning, though almost everyone who was a student at that time is dead or in deep decline.

Our quarterback back then was a Jewish kid from Brooklyn (just like me--the Jewish part), Sid Luckman, who, after graduating, joined the Chicago Bears and there had a Hall of Fame career.

And of course, of a very different sort, Jack Kerouac went to Columba on a football scholarship; but after one year, 1940, dropped out and, well, went on the road. Not with the team but with his pal Neil Cassady.

We used to chant, when getting our annual trouncing by Rutgers, about how though they might be better jocks we had Lionel Trilling. Not the coach but the literature savant. This made us feel superior in realms on a higher plane than football.

And so maybe last Saturday, while getting whipped for the 18th year in a row by Penn, the otherwise forlorn Columbia students who made the trek to Philadelphia reminded the opposition that, since 2000, we have had six Nobel Prize winners on our faculty while Penn, on the other hand, has had . . . well, twelve.

Clearly you can't win 'em all.

September 22, 2014--Willy, Ben, Me: Ray Price

Willy said, "If they didn't have the pictures there would be no issue."

"Of what?" Ben asked. "What are you talking about?"

"About that football player who punched his girlfriend."

"She was his fiancée and is now his wife," I said.

"What difference does that make?" Willy said.

"What's your point?" Ben asked, sounding annoyed, but smiling, "My coffee's getting cold."

"It's a simple one. How do they put it about pictures being worth a thousand words? Well, in this case, they're worth lots more than that. If it weren't for the film he might not even have been suspended. Or maybe at most for just those two games. As he originally was."

"It is a terrible thing he did, Ray Price."

"You'll get no argument from me. But what really has me upset are all those cameras."

"All those cameras?" Ben was puzzled.

"You like the idea that you go into the supermarket--Hannifords--and they have cameras all over the store?"

"That's to cut down on thefts," I said.

"And at the gas station too," he pressed on, ignoring me. "And where you live probably on every street corner." He was referring to the fact that we live part of the year in New York City.

"To tell you the truth," I said, "I've given up on having any privacy whatsoever. Store cameras, street cameras, and, as with Ray Price, elevator cameras. They even put them in ours in New York. And, of course, it's even worse with the ability to read your emails and listen in on your phone conversations. And I'm not only talking about the government. All those hackers too."

I winked at both Willy and Ben who are quite conservative and frequently rail about getting the government off our backs and out of our lives. Many times I half agree with them.

"Those street cameras down in Boston helped the police track down the marathon bombers before they could go to New York and do more harm. How do you feel about that?" Willy asked.

"I guess I feel OK about that," I said. "But it surprises me to hear you saying this, considering you're both pretty conservative and I would think wouldn't want to have your privacy invaded like that."

"But it's only pictures," Ben said."I wouldn't be OK with this if the pictures also had sound so they could listen in on my conversations."

"That also surprises me," I said. "You're all right with the pictures but only if there's no sound? I don't get the distinction."

"Freedom of speech. First Amendment," he said, thinking that was enough to say to make his point and convince me that the videos without sound are not a problem.

"What about the right to privacy? Though," I quickly added since they know the Constitution, "that's not specifically stated in the Bill of Rights."

"Maybe, but about the pictures," Willy said, "and about that football player, my point, beyond the privacy business--which I also have concerns about--is how having pictures of something can make us do things very different than if something happens out of sight and is not on film."

"Say more," I said.

"Well, take those two Americans who recently were beheaded. The fact that the ISIS people videotaped it and put it on the Internet caused us--Obama really--to change his policy. Whatever one thinks about him or those ISIS people," he spat, "we know Obama didn't want to get directly involved there. And I agree with him about that. But because of the pictures he had no choice."

"You're comparing what happened to those two reporters being beheaded to Ray Price?" I said, "Come on Willy, get serious."

"I'm not comparing what they did but the fact is that there wouldn't be the same reaction, the big brouhaha, if what they did wasn't captured on film. With no pictures Price would have gotten his slap on the wrist and the terrorists' story would have been in the news for just a few days, of course after speeches condemning them and so forth. But there wouldn't be this crisis with Congress and the public clamoring for us to go after them. Including into Syria and, who knows, with American boys on the ground before too long."

"We've seen that before," Ben said, taking a deep breath. "And we know where that got us."

With that depressing thought we lapsed into silence and turned back to paying attention to our coffee.

September 15, 2014--You Gotta Be a Football Hero . . .

There is so much hypocrisy when it comes to big time sports.

College kids in Division 1 schools play football and basketball in sold out stadiums which in many ways are TV studios since the big bucks come from the broadcast networks and cable outlets such as ESPN. But these athletes who are responsible for making millions for their schools are not allowed to have agents, accept free sneakers from Nike, much less get paid for their efforts.

Hypocrisy is rampant as well in professional sports, which unabashedly are all about money. The teams themselves are worth a fortune. The LA Clippers recently sold for $2.0 billion and the hapless Buffalo Bills are on the market and could yield a cool billion. Elite players can command up to $20 million a year for throwing passes, slam dunking, or hitting home runs. TV contracts to show NCAA football or basketball games earns teams tens of millions a year.

But in all sports, though making money is the bottom line, not unrelated to the drive for profits, athletes are expected to be role models, especially to children, and lead exemplary lives. Even though we turn them into literally larger-than-life superheroes, in their private lives we require these demigods to live normally. Even acts that to ordinary people might be considered misdemeanors can get them in serious trouble--suspended for a game or two or banned from playing and collecting their salaries for a year or even a lifetime.

While managing the Cincinnati Reds, the legendary Pete Rose was banned for life by the baseball commissioner for betting on games, though never against his own team. Again hypocritically, everyone knows that half the reason sports are as popular as they are is because of gambling, most of it illegal. Last year, for example, on the Super Bowl, on that one game, an estimated $119 million was wagered.

We are currently seeing more hypocrisy in action.

This time regarding the Baltimore Ravens' (former) running back Ray Price. "Former" is in parentheses because the Ravens terminated his contract when a video was broadcast of Price assaulting his then fiancée. The league itself became involved when the commissioner, Roger Goodell, (who earns $44 million a year) at first suspended him for two games but subsequently, under pressure from women's groups among others, made that suspension "indefinite."

What Rice did--and this isn't alleged--is reprehensible; but, to take a contrarian position, did what he did, as unacceptable as it is, justify ending his ability to earn a living as a football player? Especially since his now wife has forgiven him, asserting that what he did was, not to her, a relationship deal-breaker, and that he has apologized and wants to enter an anger management treatment program.

Yes, what the Ravens did, what the League did, was within their rights. The NFL Personal Conduct Policy statement, which is a part of every player's contract, stipulates that disciplinary action may be taken if a player commits "criminal offenses including, but not limited to, those involving: the use or threat of violence; domestic violence and other forms of partner abuse; theft and other property crimes; sex offenses . . ."

Disciplinary action is permitted, the statement continues, for "conduct that undermines or puts at risk the integrity and reputation of the NFL, NFL clubs, or NFL players."

It's all about "reputation," which owners and league officials feel is linked directly to their bottom line--more than $10 billion in 2013--and since women now make an estimated 45 percent of the NFL fan base . . .

Rice's case feels as if it might be a rush to judgement or at least punishment that doesn't fit the crime. Is this one horrible act enough for the Ravens to have the power to terminate his contract? Shouldn't the NFL's disciplinary process require a conviction in a court of law before taking away one's livelihood? Are there other workplace equivalents? If an IBMer committed spousal abuse would that in itself justify barring him from the high-tech industry as the suspension will surely lead to Rice being banned for life from future NFL employment?

It is also ironic that football itself is substantially about violence, presumably controlled violence (though ask the dozens of former players who are now suffering from traumatic brain injuries how controlled it was). Football is largely about 300-pound men in versions of body armor slamming into each other with enough force to knock opponents flat. Even unconscious. It is our form of gladiatorial combat.

Just a few years ago, in 2009, the New Orleans Saints were found to have instituted a practice where players earned cash bonuses for inflicting injuries on the opposition, with the most money awarded for injuring quarterbacks enough so that they would have to be carried off the field on stretchers.

Not incidentally, though some of these hits were flagrant, not once during the 2009-10 season did game officials penalize any of them. And when the NFL learned of Bountygate, the discipline meted out to the Saints were mere slaps on the wrist compared to those imposed on Ray Price.