Chapter 8. Achtung, Baby

by Bob Andelman

"I enjoyed the military. It was precise. It was teamwork. Maybe I like football for the same reason. Football is fairly macho; it brings out the macho in guys that other sports don't bring out. It was something we watched in Viet Nam when I was there. If we could get near a TV and football was on, we'd watch it."

Frank Bryant
Former Army helicopter pilot
Long Beach, California

The blitz.

The bomb.

Down in the trenches.

Aerial assault.

Field generals.

Quick strike.

If you haven't noticed how football is steeped in military terminology and strategy, you haven't been paying attention.

"Sports ought to be the substitute for war," Dr. William J. Beausay says. "When you listen to sportscasters and coaches, the war metaphors that they use to describe the game just go on and on. You could write a dictionary of the war metaphors that are used to describe athletic contests. That is not an accident. I think that the same genetic drive in the human being is being acted out and in this case it is sports instead of the battlefield."

Nobody promotes an NFL game by saying it's gonna be a party. They say, "It's gonna be a war!"

More proof:

Team names are almost all war-like: Vikings, Patriots, Chiefs, Seahawks, Buccaneers, Raiders, Chargers, Cowboys. Even the animals teams choose to represent are aggressive by nature: Rams, Falcons, Eagles, Bengals, Broncos, Lions, Bears.

The cities they represent? Ancient clans and tribes on missions to take and defend territory. They stand up for their community honor. They put forth a bruising, total effort.

Military games have a lot of appeal. They involve strategy and calculation: the manipulation of varied components to accomplish a common goal, outsmarting, outwitting, outplaying and outfighting an opponent. Your army exists to battle and win, to achieve its goal it fights both offensively and defensively. Football is a military game with military correlates. It appeals on that basis.

The game's war cry? "Take no prisoners." "No one here gets out alive."

After a Big 7 Conference game in Kansas City, Oklahoma coach Bud Wilkinson was seen reading a book about General Rommel and the fighting in North Africa during World War II. Questioned by sportswriter Volney Meece about his choice in reading material, Wilkinson said, "With the tanks and everything they were planning to outflank the enemy, to fool them about which direction they were going to go. Desert warfare is exactly like planning a football game."

Football represents the epitome of 19th century engineer Frederick Taylor's belief that the most efficient organization would be one where the workers don't make many decisions. To win in football you have to use the very same concepts: Division of labor, very rigid rules and regulations, highly scientific training procedures and, more than anything else, you have to rationalize. You have to eliminate anything that is ad hoc. It has to be 11 human beings working as a machine. The entire organization must be geared toward producing these highly efficient machines. Just like industry.

But Dr. Allen L. Sack, a Taylor proponent, wonders if football may be out of synch with late 20th century life.

"Taylor believed that the best organization would be more and more management with management making all the decisions, where the workers shut up and were compensated fairly with monetary rewards. They were not meant to think," Sack says. "But the newest movements in management thought emphasize employee involvement. Total quality management puts the emphasis on the workers who are closest to the action being involved and discussing how to improve and become more efficient. The Japanese mauled us because we were late in realizing this. IBM has had problems because of this -- centralization, lack of involvement of the work force. It seems the whole world is now discovering that maybe it's more efficient and effective to treat workers or athletes as valuable human resources whose ideas and opinions about running things should be taken into consideration.

"Maybe football is only a preparation for military life, for winning wars or going into the front lines," Sack says. "Maybe it's no longer the best preparation for a life in a modern corporation where you have to be able to listen and to take the lower echelon's opinion into consideration."

The current coaching philosophy of football and some other sports came out of World War II and the Korean War. Many coaches are products of those wars. They believe the best approach to winning in football is the same as winning in the military and that proves true in most cases.

Are military skills and the way we look at the world psychologically the best tools for performance and success in a modern approach to industrial society? As another generation passes without being sent to a full-scale, multinational war, Sack suggests football will become more important as a military-style outlet.

"It's necessary that we have that kind of exposure because it's a reality that there are times when people do fight to the death," he says. "In those times you probably don't need democratic institutions. It's not like you take a vote (to go to war). There are places where the most effective organizational tools are probably Tayloristic principles and the football approach. But I think there are fewer and fewer areas of regular life where that really fits."

* * *

Teamwork is another way football parallels the military. Without teamwork, the 49ers and Cowboys are lost. Without its multinational allies, Operation Desert Storm would have been a disaster for the U.S. armed forces.

Teamwork is the essence of football.

Young men learn the value of teamwork through football. How to work together. On a great football team you can see that and appreciate it.

"Baseball is an individual game," says Pat Harmon, historian of the College Football Hall of Fame at Kings Island amusement park near Cincinnati. "The batter is there and what he does, he does himself. Football is a team game. You have to have the performance of all the people on the team to make a team successful."

We use the example of "pulling together as a team," "conquering our problems as a team" and "only together can we win." If everyone does their specific task then goals will be accomplished. That fits with bureaucracies, too. Football is a rigidly timed game and we are a time-oriented society.

We each have a certain role and to the extent that all of us can do our roles well and we mesh and complement one another, we will be successful in life as in football. "That part hits home for me," Dr. Rick Weinberg says, "and in fact in my work with groups very often I use the metaphor of a professional sports team as a way to build a sense of teamwork."

Teamwork is instilled in children from the earliest days of their education. It's a concept that we very much want to teach our kids. The whole idea of teamwork at that level of development is very useful to get kids involved in sports and watching sports and participating in sports as a way of on-line learning about the value of teamwork. Once you have that as a kid it stays with you as a meaningful adult value.

But the concept of the team runs smack into the treasured American spirit of individualism and individual achievement, doesn't it?

"It is a contradiction, I think," Sack says. "On the one hand, as Americans, we like to think that these are individuals who are succeeding on their own individual efforts. We love heroes. We are a hero-oriented society. We value individualists, so we delude ourselves into thinking that a football team is 11 individuals."

Nothing could be further from the truth. There is no game in the United States where the individual is more subservient to the group.

"When I think of football, I think of a pinball machine," Sack says. "The little receivers are running back and forth and the ball is going up and down and being hit; football players are like the little arms that are flicking and there is a coach in back of all that who is pushing the buttons. There is all kinds of action, lights flashing and there's ringers and buzzers. The players themselves are like little parts within the pinball machine. Every one of their movements is perfectly planned and timed. They are being dominated and synchronized and told exactly what to do at certain moments.

"What is it that we like about watching that?" Sack asks. "We like to watch the quarterback, the hero, because it gives us empathy in terms of individualism. Do we identify with the tackles and the guards in the same way? Probably not. I think we are probably most amazed by the tremendous coordination of all this working together."

Copyright 1993 Bob Andelman. Click here for copyright permissions!

Appendix: Can't Tell the Players Without a Scorecard

by Bob Andelman

Here's a roster of men and women interviewed during research for Why Men Love Football: A Report From the Couch:

Dr. Robert L. Arnstein, retired chief psychiatrist of Yale University Health Services, lives in Hamden, Connecticut

Dr. William J. Beausay, a psychologist in Columbus, Ohio, is founder of the Academy of Sport Psychology International and a consultant to athletes in pro sports such as baseball, football, basketball, hockey and motor racing

Dr. Daniel Begel, a psychiatrist in Milwaukee, is a founder of the International Society for Sport Psychiatry

Eric L. Berger, a personal injury defense attorney for insurance companies in Sunrise, Florida

Ed Berry, a former Marine and retired gardener for the City of San Diego, lives in El Cajon, California

Kenton Blagbrough, a textbook buyer at Boston University

Barry Bradley, senior editor of the Maddux Report, a business magazine in St. Petersburg, Florida

Roger W. Brummett, a vice president of marketing for a human resources management firm in Carmel, Indiana, is founder and president of the Baltimore Colts' Thundering Herd Fan Club

Frank Bryant, a former Army helicopter pilot, is a property developer in Long Beach, California

Dr. Robert B. Cialdini, a professor of psychology at Arizona State University in Tempe

John Cimasko, a route salesman for Pepsi-Cola in Carmel, Indiana, and charter member of the Baltimore Colts' Thundering Herd Fan Club

Dr. Jay Coakley, a professor of sociology and director of the Center for the Study of Sport and Leisure at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, is the author of Sports in Society: Issues and Controversies (Moseby-Yearbook)

Dr. Gregory B. Collins, a psychiatrist, is section head of the Alcohol and Drug Recovery Center of the Cleveland Clinic Foundation in Ohio and is a consultant to NFL teams

Jerry DeForest Jr., owns The Tailgate Sports Bar in Staten Island, New York

Joe DiRaffaele, owns Labor World, a chain of temporary help services based in Coconut Creek, Florida

Joe Diroff, a retired Navy man and former mathematics teacher, lives in Detroit

Barry Dreayer, a salesman/consultant for computer software and voice mail systems, taught a course for sports novices called "TeachMeSports" in Atlanta

Dr. D. Stanley Eitzen, a professor of sociology at Colorado State University at Fort Collins is a past-president of the North American Society for the Sociology of Sport and co-author (with Dr. George H. Sage) of Sociology of North American Sport (William C. Brown)

Bill Evans, a marketing manager with Compuserve in Columbus, Ohio

Keith Farber, a courier in Buena Park, California

Richard M. "Rick" Georges, an attorney in St. Petersburg, Florida

Dr. Daniel M. Glick, a psychiatrist in Scottsdale, Arizona

Pat Harmon, an historian for the College Football Hall of Fame in Kings Island, Ohio

Peter Hendricks, an attorney in New Brunswick, N.J.

Dr. Edward R. Hirt, professor of psychology at Indiana University in Bloomington

Harold Hyman, a property manager in Tamarac, Florida

Dr. Seppo E. Iso-Ahola, a sport psychologist at the University of Maryland at College Park, is the co-author (with Brad Hatfield) of Psychology of Sports: A Social Psychological Approach (Wm. C. Brown)

Dan Jiggetts, a former offensive tackle with the Chicago Bears, is a sportscaster with WSCR Radio and WBBM-TV in Chicago (partner of Mike North at WSCR)

David Johnson, a truck driver, lives in Chula Vista, California

Bruce Kessler, a warehouseman in North Brunswick, New Jersey, taught the author of Why Men Love Football how to play football

Jim Luttrell, a copy chief with the Courier-Journal in Louisville, Kentucky

Palmiro "Paul" Mazzoleni, a retired service station owner and founder of Martha's Coffee Club in Green Bay, Wisconsin

Larry Mayer, managing editor of the Chicago Bear Report, lives in Palatine, Illinois

Volney Meece, a retired sportswriter of 41 years experience, is executive director of the Football Writers Association of America in Edmond, Oklahoma

Jim Melvin, a health and fitness writer and copy editor at the St. Petersburg Times in Florida

Dr. Michael A. Messner, a sociologist at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, is the author Power at Play: Sports and the Problem of Masculinity (Beacon Press) and co-editor (with Dr. Don Sabo) of Sport, Men and the Gender Order: Critical Feminist Perspectives (Human Kinetics Publishers)

Mike North, a sports radio personality at WSCR-Radio in Chicago (partner of Dan Jiggetts)

Dr. Bruce C. Ogilvie, a clinical psychologist and professor emeritus at San Jose State University, is a director of the Institute of Athletic Motivation

Jerry Pigeon, a banker in Green Bay, Wisconsin

William E. "Bill" Price, an associate professor of mathematics at Niagara University in New York

Jim Runels, a retired Nabisco Brands sales management executive, lives in Yorba Linda, California

Dr. Don Sabo, a sociologist at D'Youville University in Amherst, N.Y., is author of Jock: Sports and Male Identity (Prentice Hall), co-editor (with Dr. Michael Messner) of Sport, Men and the Gender Order: Critical Feminist Perspectives (Human Kinetics Publishers) and one-time football captain at the State University of New York at Buffalo

Dr. Allen L. Sack, a professor of sociology and coordinator of the sports management program at the University of New Haven, Connecticut, played defensive end for the University of Notre Dame's 1966 championship football team

Dr. George H. Sage, a retired professor of kinesiology and sociology at the University of Northern Colorado in Greeley, is the author of Power and Ideology in American Sport (Human Kinetics) and co-author (with Dr. D. Stanley Eitzen) of Sociology of North American Sport (Wm. C. Brown)

Dave Schwarzmueller, a banker in West Seneca, New York

Larry Selvin, a financial accountant in West Roxbury, Mass.

Dr. John M. Silva, a professor of sport psychology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, is a co-editor of Psychological Foundations of Sport (Human Kinetics)

Andrew L. Spear, a music sales representative in San Francisco (and Jeff's brother)

Jeff Spear, a comedy writer for The Tonight Show with Jay Leno in Los Angeles (and Andrew's brother)

Joe Surdi, a barber in St. Petersburg, Florida

Michele Szynal, a communications manager for the North Atlantic Group of The Gillette Company in Boston

Dr. Stanley H. Teitelbaum, a clinical psychologist in New York City

Dr. Thomas A. Tutko, a clinical psychologist at San Jose State University and a director of the Institute of Athletic Motivation.

Dr. Mark Unterberg, a psychiatrist and executive medical director of Green Oaks Medical City in Dallas, is a consultant to NFL and NBA teams

Aaron Vaughn, a copy editor at the Valley Daily News in Kent, Washington

Mark H. von Dwingelo, a hospitality industry management consultant in Atlanta

Dr. Rick Weinberg, a clinical psychologist at the University of South Florida's Florida Mental Health Institute in Tampa

Neil Wiesenfeld, owner of a promotional advertising company in Atlanta

Ralph Weisbeck, a retired executive of a tool manufacturing company, lives in Williamsville, New York

H. R. "Dick" Williams, a retired cleaning services contractor and founder of the Houston Oilers fan organization, The Derrick Club, in Sugar Land, Texas

Ann Winkler, advertising manager for Apple Computer

William J. Winslow, president of the Institute of Athletic Motivation in Redwood City, California

Copyright 1993 Bob Andelman. Click here for copyright permissions!