The Pageantry of Football
The Pageantry of Football is often left out or unknown to our communities across America. Millions of fans flood into stadiums to witness one of America's most popular games, however there's more to the game than just the game, l would like to point out an important aspect of the game of football that keeps the tradition strong in the sports world. Football became our greatest sporting spectacle in three distinct senses: as the game on the field, with its swirling chaos of bodies and often incomprehensible, yet “spectacular,” action; as a pageant of band, cheerleaders, card sections, mascots, and cheering multitudes- the surrounding “spectacle” as necessary to the football experience as the coaches and players;
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One of the best tradition’s is Homecoming Weekend it’s embedded into high school culture from East to West, North to South. In every mega metropolis to rural town’s American’s will pack stadiums for one all important game. Homecoming will bring communities together, in what I call the Pageantry of Football. Pageants have been part of our cultures for years, and Football has its pageantry with a long traditional football game. Producing parades and barn fires on Thursday before the game, the nominations for the King and Queen elected by the entire student body of the home team, and huge prep rallies. Almost anyone can remember going to one of the before mentioned activities during their high school years. As a former high school football player; I can remember the homecoming football game. This is the one game you must win! You know that you are representing your community all week, people from the community give you a pat on the back, and some former players will reminisce of their days of old, to inspire you to play well and win this one big game. Former Kings and Queens will travel across the country in some cases to participate in the festival of Homecoming Weekend. Parents will spend countless amounts of money to prepare their students for the homecoming dance followed by the big game, to cumulate the week’s activities. …show more content…
Fast forward 33 years and the Pageantry of Football began in college football in the Bowl game era. College football bowl games have evolved from a small gathering around one city to over 30 locations throughout the country and even the Caribbean adding Jamaica. Each location adds their culture and pageantry to the mix such an example is “The Tournament of Roses welcomed 3,000 spectators to its first parade filled with orange-blossom-bedecked, horse-drawn carriages. More than a century later, the parade floats are a marvel of state of the art technology, all tucked away beneath flowers and other all-natural materials. Every New Year, visitors experience the beauty of the floral floats along with spirited marching bands and high-stepping equestrian units along the 51⁄2 mile route down Colorado Boulevard.” Traditionally college football has showcased large bands that parade around the field to provide halftime entertainment. Some colleges have military precision in their alignments and formations, others have dance teams and cheerleaders to the halftime showcase. Collegiate students spend countless hours of practicing and perfecting this halftime show. Some universities where the football programs are not very good the bands and cheering squads have become the mainstay of the football event, and will offer full scholarships to its band members.
Over the past years, many will say that football has become America’s new pastime, taking over our weekends for almost half of the year. Fans travel from all over the country to see their favorite college or professional teams play, and once the football season is over, the countdown clock for the first game of fall begins. There are many positive aspects to the sport, and the fans and players love it, but in John McMurtry’s “Kill ‘em, Crush ‘em, Eat ‘em Raw”, the reader is introduced to a side of football that some have not seen, and many choose to ignore. McMurtry believes that the game of football has become one of people just wanting to hurt other people and too many injuries are occurring to justify the fun
The Odessa football players couldn't be objective about criticisms of football. Their total self-esteem depended on how they did on Friday night. This was the glorified culmination of their football career: wearing the black MoJo uniform in the stadium under the big lights. Football was more than just a game to them; it was a religion. It "made them seem like boys going off to fight a war for the benefit of someone else, unwitting sacrifices to a strange and powerful god" (Bissinger, p.11). Because football was so meaningful in their lives, to criticize it was to criticize everything they'd worked so hard for and lived for.
The author covers the most prevalent groups and events relating to football. Some of them are pep rallies, marching band, cheerleaders / pep squads, spectators / ex-players, and the brains / farm kids / nobodies. The pep rally is a school-wide event,
The reader should read this article to learn how football is “undermining our education system and hurting our competitiveness in technology, science, and engineering.” The author
Now don’t be confused on the word football, since I am not talking about “soccer” at all. Football which is otherwise known as the NFL or the National Football League, is an American based sport that involves thirty-two teams from cities all over the country that compete against each other through strategy and strength in order to reach one goal; to win the Super Bowl.
American Football is a huge spectator sport where offensive and defensive players will use teamwork and perseverance to try and score more points than their opponent. Football is highly respected in America, where boys will try and pursue the dream of playing in the NFL (National Football Association) someday; but if you look at an average neighborhood, you will find that kids and adults of all ages love to go out and throw around the pigskin. (Lerner and Lerner 275). One thing Americans will take pride in is the college and NFL football teams they root for. People sit down with a beer and talk hours upon hours of football and two individuals can get in a heated discussion in the local sports store of whose sports team is better. Surprisingly enough, one will find the most passionate football players at the high school level. Most boys will start their football career as a young child in football programs such as Pop Warner to get a foothold and to get those involved in teamwork and friendships. These programs are usually the start to someone falling in love with the sport and making it a career choice eight years later. Football is one of America’s favorite sports. When fall season comes around, people across America are placing bets, finding out where that new sports bar is, and buying wide screen T.V’s to watch NFL on Sundays. After their team plays, they will go out and reminisce what happened that Sunday. While thousands of fans are still pumped from the NFL games they watched; small towns across America are getting ready to shut down their shops and restaurants to have the chance to make it to the local high schools football game. Ray Glier, a reporter for the New York Times, writes about football in the small town of Appala...
In America, football is no longer a sport but is engraved into our culture. According to SoftSchools.com, a website containing informative information on multiple subjects, The National Football League was established in 1920, quickly becoming the most watched sports league in the U.S. (“Football”). The league is composed of thirty-two teams, competing each year with the intent to play in the Super Bowl for a chance to win the Vince Lombardi Trophy (“Football”). The Super Bowl is the most watched television program in the U.S., averaging 113 million viewers each year (“Football”). With so many people watching this sport the annual revenue of the NFL is approximately nine billion dollars (“Football”). In contrast, baseball is considered to be the American sport, however, the annual revenue is only 7.2 billion dollars (“Football”). Football has now passed many sports in popularity in the United States being the favorite of thirty-five percent of all Americans (“Football”). The sport is appealing to many because the physical aspect to the game is exhilarating and keeps the fans entertained. However, the physical nature of the sport may cause the popularity but also can make the game dangerous.
Even though football players are aware of the dangers the game can bring upon them, they take part despite it. The passion, the joy it creates; for professionals it’s also the devoted fans and compensation they receive is what keeps the players motivated. Today players are much bigger, faster, smarter, bigger, better. The game is more physical. The sport has never been so competitive. The popularity has reached new peaks, as much that the NFL has thoughts of moving a team to London, England. Additionally, Super Bowl XLVII (47) was one of the most watched television events of all time; an astonishing 108.4 million viewers (The Associated Press). Fans worship their teams and love to see big hits. Football is a contact sport; injuries are no doubtingly part of it. Concussions are one of the many detriments caused by the ruthlessness, but one of the few with perpetual effects: consequence of the brutality.
Football is not a game but a religion, a metaphysical island of fundamental truth in a highly verbalized, disguised society, a throwback of 30,000 generations of anthropological time. (“Football Quotes, Great”, par. 12)
In Friday Night Lights we see the theory of functionalism not only in the team, but the town and its dream of solidarity through winning the state championship. In a small town, such as Odessa, Texas, high school football helps to keep the town together by keeping it alive. On Friday nights, when the flood lights turn on inside the Permian stadium the strength of Odessa seems dependent on what will occur in that football stadium. Businesses shut down; families and community come together within the constraints of this stadium to cheer their team onto victory. Thus during football season, litt...
In the world of sport, soccer and football with respect to demographic has had numerous controversies. Although both sport are known famously around the globe, for many years fans from both sides are known for asking, is American football same as soccer? What’s the time limit on both sports? What’s the game objective? Do they use the same ball? However they both have similarities and differences which I will be talking about in this essay.
Sports affect major institutions of society, including the mass media, politics, religion, education, and family. The Super Bowl gathers thousands of viewer’s attention, including those who do not usually watch the regular season games. Football is by all means an American sport. Since the day a baby is born in America, whether it be a boy or a girl, one of the first words they learn to say is ball, and after a few months they add the word foot in front of the word ball, and by the time you know it your baby boy is playing football, and your little girl is cheering “Go Steeler’s go!” and without intention their cultural identity starts.
The image above was taken by Stuart Franklin Bongarts. This image yields multiple strong arguments, that some people could analyze it without even having preliminary knowledge on it’s subject, the beautiful game, football. Football or, soccer to others is the biggest sport in the world, it is viewed by people across the globe and is or used to be all about the game. In modern football, it seems the only people that still care for the game are football fans. Nowadays, players and coaches do all sorts of stuff from fake injuries to match fixing. However, it seems fair that players and coaches would go through such drastic measures to win games as they get payed very good money. It has become a question of morality and corruption, and fans such
Oriard, Michael. Reading Football: How the Popular Press Created an American Spectacle. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, 1993. Print. This book described how the press made the game evolve and become more popular which basically was the reason that the game is so popular today and also the reason it became an american tradition
Football is one of the three most popular sports in the United States. The modern game of football most likely originated from England (hornetfootball.org). Walter Camp, a football coach for Yale, is known as “the Father of American Football” because he made several changes to the game of football (historyoffootball.net). The first professional football league was established in 1920, and it was made popular because of the invention of the television. Football is a mixture of science and religion which can be proved in the science of football, the religious interpretation of football, and the players’ use of their religion.