It's that time again on America's college campuses. Footballs again fill the air, as do cheers and prayers that God will grant victory, conference titles, and a national crown. Players, coaches, and fans alike invest in the exciting and violent sport called college football a genuine religious fervor. God is called upon each week to side with every team in the country. So how come half the teams lose?
I think that college teams must have piety coaches just like they have, say, special-teams coaches. Players certainly seem to know their devotional basics. A college football player will typically kneel for a moment of silent prayer, or point skyward to God (as if to say, "He did it!"), in the end zone after scoring a touchdown. (The player would rather be dancing around, but in college ball that will get you a 15-yard penalty.) Three years ago the University of Florida's Danny Wuerffel, while quarterbacking his way to the Heisman Trophy, lifted his hands pressed together in thankful prayer after every touchdown pass. I've since noticed some other quarterbacks make similar post-TD gestures (though of course not as often, as few throw for as many TDs as Wuerffel did). College football teams even huddle on the sideline to pray before every game. My favorite Bill Peterson story (the former Florida State Seminole coach was famous for malapropisms, such as "You guys line up alphabetically by height"): He began leading a pre-game team prayer with "Now I lay me down to sleep."
At Notre Dame there is the famous Touchdown Jesus, a large mural of Christ with uplifted arms as if signaling "Touchdown!" Former Notre Dame coach Gerry Faust would make his players say "Hail Mary" on the sideline--yet would chew them out for saying "Hell." (Faust was great at making semantic distinctions, but couldn't coach worth a lick.) And when the Florida Gators, led by that praying wonder Wuerffel, won the 1996 national championship, head coach Steve Spurrier said, "God has smiled on the Gators."
I'm not going to rehash the old question of why God should care who wins ball games. If every team thinks God is on its side, or if coaches, players, and fans at least try to recruit God for their side for the next big game, that's okay. God may even wish He or She could call some of the plays. But we must always be on guard lest the religious zeal that goes into the college game should get out of hand. It is, after all, just a game.
That was apparently forgotten last year in a memorable gridiron struggle in Beaumont, Texas. The two football teams were not even involved. During halftime of the game between Prairie View A&M and Southern University, it was the opposing schools' marching bands who got into a brawl. Band members attacked each other using trombones, drumsticks, and clarinets, causing minor (key?) injuries. Beaumont being a neutral site, neither band had a home-field advantage in the fight, and no winner was declared. Both bands had to face the music, though, by way of two-game suspensions.
As for the football game itself, Southern won 37-7, extending the Prairie View A&M Panthers' NCAA-record losing streak to eighty games.
The behavior of the bands was deplorable, and should serve as a cautionary tale to college football fanatics everywhere. That said, I was tempted to tell Prairie View head coach Greg Johnson that he should recruit some of those brawling band members for his God-forsaken football team. I'm sure, though, that the coach would have stuffed my head in a tuba if I had offered such advice. As Johnson said after his Panthers notched up--or rather down--their brawl-marred loss number eighty, "We don't have to answer to anyone but ourselves and God."
The Panthers and God apparently worked things out, as Prairie View on the following Saturday finally won its first game since 1989, beating Langston 14-12. The next Monday night, Jay Leno, after cracking a joke, had one thing to say about the victorious Prairie View Panthers: "God bless 'em."
Copyright 1999 by Ronald L. Ecker
For other articles, see Ecker's Little Archive.
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