There’s a lot of talk about “spiking the football” going on lately. It occurs to me that a lot of people are not American Football fans and probably don’t really understand the metaphor. Obviously, I think most people understand that football players tend to celebrate when they score a touchdown. And, quite often, the celebration involves throwing the oddly-shaped football down at the turf so that it skitters away in a series of unpredictable bounces and skips. There has been a weird amount of controversy in football about the appropriateness of celebration. There is even a penalty for “excessive celebration,” and the definition of “excessive” seems to change each year. Spiking the ball has always been deemed acceptable, but there have been limits placed on dancing, and bans on removing the helmet and the use of props.
I remember watching a program once where a professor of African-American studies explained his theory on why American blacks find it so necessary to express themselves through celebration, and why the NFL (No-Fun League) was out of line for suppressing their joy. Believe it or not, I think people have even done their college thesis on the issue.
But there was one player who never spiked the football after he scored. He never danced. He never really celebrated much at all. He just handed the ball to the referee, gave a few pats of approval to his blockers, and modestly returned to the sideline. His name is Barry Sanders, and he was one of the best running backs in the history of the league (he scored 109 touchdowns). Barry Sanders thought that a player should act like he had been the end zone before. He should act like he expected to score. And a player shouldn’t show up the opposition. He was such a class act that he decided to retire at the age of 30, when he was still in good health, rather than break Walter Payton’s all-time rushing record. He had that much respect for Payton.
I bring this up because this is the full context of the debate over how much to celebrate the demise of Usama bin-Laden. Should the president take credit for it? Would releasing photos of bin-Laden’s exposed brain be excessive? What’s the line between being happy and being overly political?
Here’s the thing, though. Barry Sanders didn’t have to get reelected. He had to get elected to the Hall of Fame. And if he had had to lobby for the privilege, he would have gladly pointed out that he scored 109 touchdowns and was (at that time) second all-time in yardage gained from scrimmage. There is nothing wrong with pointing to your accomplishments in an effort to get what you rightly deserve.
People who don’t like excessive celebration in football never suggested that no one can point to their statistics to make the case that they were a good player.
So, yeah, it’s possible to campaign on the fact that he got bin-Laden without being guilty of “spiking the football.” And that leaves aside the debate over the No-Fun League’s suppression of joy.
I leave it aside because scoring a touchdown is really not the same as taking a human life…at all…which is why this analogy is pretty lame to begin with.
