Lincicome: There are many ways to have a ball, when you think about it
Beware of any argument that includes the phrase “when you think about it,” because it assumes that one of you is an idiot, not to slight the deep thinker who has noticed that football is not soccer.
I am assuming that much thought went into this realization, with a cartoon light bulb suddenly appearing above his head, or as in the tale of another classic thinker, an apple falling onto his head. Aha!
What we Americans call football is not football at all, and it is about time we called it what it is.
What is it, then? Let’s think about it.
Let’s start with the ball. We know what a ball is. It is a round object thrown, hit, kicked or bounced, sometimes slammed, putted or served. It can be found at the beach or made from snow.
A ball can even be eaten with a nice marinara sauce, except in Sweden which favors a dull gravy. A very versatile thing, is a ball.
To specify its identity more closely we add definers like kick, dodge, paddle, bowling medicine and racquet. We even use pickle, although no one knows why.
More traditional identifiers like base and basket, tennis and golf, hand and foot are pretty much self-explanatory, except for “foot.” That is up for debate. That is what we are asked to think about.
If I can quote the actual presidential musings — “When you look at what has happened to football in the United States, which is soccer in the United States, we seem never to call it football because we have a little bit of conflict with another thing that’s called football.”
Huh? Wait, there’s more.
“But when you think about it, shouldn’t it really be called … this is football, there’s no question about it. We have to come up with another name for the NFL. It really doesn’t make sense when you think about it.”
Apparently what it should be called does not leap immediately to a busy mind. It is generously left to the likes of us, who have less to do. I will have a couple suggestions anon.
As is true of many things, this is the fault of soccer, coming to this hemisphere again. A ceremonial draw was held in D.C. for cameras and podcasters, the cream of modern journalism.
When last we saw the World Cup here, it was competing with O.J. Simpson’s white Bronco, not the fault of soccer or football.
And while we are speaking of misnomers, the World Cup is not actually a cup at all but a stubby little club that more properly belongs in a game of Clue. It was Lionel Messi in the shed with the trophy.
As for renaming the NFL, the problem is not the foot but the ball.
The football is not really a ball. It is a prolate spheroid. This is not a name given easily to marketing. The NPSL? Think not.
A prolate spheroid is what takes funny bounces. It also spins and tumbles and sails. In a tight spiral it is thing of beauty.
Sure, the foot is used, for punting, for field goals, extra points, for kicking off. Even in the goofy chorus line kickoff assembly used today, it still beats soccer starts or first pitches.
The foot is used for running, of course, but no ball is needed to run. And more than half the plays are passes these days, for which the foot is needed only for balance.
So why not the National Passball League? The National Throw Association? The American Football League? (Oops, tried that.) National Gridiron League?
Other places have their own football without any confusion. Gaelic Football, the pride of Ireland, for one. Canadian Football, borrowed from the U.S., but with larger fields, more players and fewer downs.
Australian Rules Football has rules that only Australians understand and is commonly and affectionately known as “Footie,” a name not likely to catch on around here.
We will get through the coming World Cup without confusing it with the Super Bowl, or the World Series (our own misnamed event) and soccer will go back to being soccer and the Bears will still need a quarterback.
Some things we don’t have to think about.