Fueling up on intensity

By Joseph Kellard
web posted September 2, 2002

During the fall and winter months, Sundays become my Sabbath.
In other words, it's football season and I watch the professional
games religiously (especially my favorite team, the Miami
Dolphins).

I enjoy sports, in part, because at least on the playing field justice
is still upheld. The best teams and athletes, for example, are
never forced to give up their many points and victories for the
weaker teams "in need" of these achievements. In sports, the
best athletes still receive the highest praises for displaying, in
condensed, dramatized action, such virtues as outstanding
determination, effort, competence and productivity in pursuit of
their top value: winning a championship. Ultimately, sports fans
like me are inspired more by these athletes to apply their virtues
and values to our own lives -- particularly our own professions.

Football is my favorite sport because it demands the greatest
degree of combined mental and physical intensity.

Being a highly strategic sport with numerous, often intricately
designed offensive plays that resemble chess- or military-like
maneuvers, football demands more thought than even baseball,
the so-called "thinking man's game." On average, teams design
between 80 to 100 offensive plays that their players, especially
quarterbacks, must memorize and recall through an elaborate,
esoteric code of wording, such as "9-7-6, H-Post, Swing" and
"Trips Right, 40 Gut." (Standing far apart from this average is the
St. Louis Rams' offense, which designs about 250 plays.) And
each offensive and defensive player must focus intently on
executing their tasks with the utmost precision. Failing to do so
for a split-second on just one play can cost his team the game.

Football is also more psychologically taxing than other sports,
baseball, basketball and hockey included. Whereas a team's
disappointment over a loss in these sports can quickly be
overcome by their winning a game the next day, football teams
must wait an entire week before getting their next scheduled shot
at exorcising the psychological demons that come with losing.

Physically, football players come in many shapes and sizes, from
jockey-sized kickers, to tall, lean wide receivers, to muscle-
bound linebackers, to sumo wrestler-like linemen. And their
physical actions vary widely as well, from linemen who struggle
with brute strength to overpower one another to running backs
who dash with ballet-like grace as defensemen try to tackle them
with ferociously hard hits.

As if these physical demands weren't enough, football players
perform in extreme weather conditions, whether it's the 120-
degree on-field mercury readings at Sun Devil Stadium in
Arizona in September, the mini-monsoons at Pro Player Stadium
in Miami during hurricane season, or the snowy, frozen tundra of
Lambeau Field in Green Bay, Wisconsin, in December.

In short, football demands of its athletes both a heavy mental and
physical toll.

Adding to the game's intensity is its short, 16-game regular
season, as compared to baseball (162), basketball (82) and
hockey (82). The playoff rounds in these sports mostly consist of
best-four-out-of-seven-game series, which include their final
rounds, the World Series, NBA Championship and Stanley Cup.
In football, however, each playoff round consists of single do-or-
die games that determine which teams advance to the next round
and which teams go home for good that season.

The Super Bowl offers all of this intensity rolled up into one final
game wherein two groups of military strategists and modern-day
gladiators battle each other to decide which team is best. It is
football's intensity combined with the admirable qualities offered
in all sports that make the Super Bowl the most watched one-
day sporting event, viewed by about one billion people in over
180 countries.
 
So, while others are attending church on Sundays, I will be
deriving some of my moral and inspirational fuel from watching
motivated, efficient men working intensely, in both mind and
body, toward achieving their long-range goal of a Super Bowl
victory. Ultimately, for both me and the people who enjoy
reading my columns, my athlete-worship will translate into my
writing more thought-provoking, better-written articles and, one
day, books.

Go Dolphins!

Joseph Kellard is a journalist and editorialist living in New York.
He can be reached by e-mail at: Jkaxiom3@aol.com, or visit his
web site, The American Individualist, at http://www.theai.net/.

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