This is an opening argument for my Junior English class. My team had to debate that we should get rid of football. Mind you, I don't totally agree with this view, although I do acknowledge that it does have convincing points. We were fighting an uphill battle because our small town is all about football. We ended up losing the debate, but my teacher said that he could not find a single thing wrong with my opening. While it may lose some of its power because you were not there to hear how I delivered it, I believe it is still an amazing argument. So as you read it imagine yourself trying to convince a class to agree with you and that will give an idea of how I delivered it. I hope that you, my dear reader, will enjoy reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it.
My Anti-Football Opening Argument
A player steps up to the line. His brain running through everything he has to do to make this play successful. All of his training coming into play right now. The ball is snapped and his brain sends the messages to his muscles to do what his coach has told him to do for years. Then . . . BAM! He is hit by another player. His brain is sent reeling, but there is no sign to the coaches that he has just recieved a concussion. This player will never be the same again. After years of taking at least 900 of these blows per year he has brain damage only identifiable after death. This injury is what will lead him to commit suicide later in life. His family? Now suffering. They feel guilt over letting their son take part in such a violent sport, and they feel anger at the coaches and league for not protecting their son. Through this family's pain and suffering there are other families across the country experiencing the same pain, and other boys are putting their lives on the line for a game. A game.
Steve Sabol, the president and one of the founders of NFL Films, once said "Look at a football field. It looks like a big movie screen. This is theatre. Football combines the strategy of chess. It's part ballet. It's part battleground, part playground. We clarify, amplify and glorify the game with our footage, the narration and that music, and in the end create an inspirational piece of footage". Well, young men have died to create this "piece of footage". People find entertainment from watching this and therefore find entertainment in people severely harming themselves. Possibly to the point of death. Is this the price we have put on the lives of our young men?
This is similar to what the ancient romans did in their colosseum. They set young men up against ferocious animals to be killed for their entertainment. We do the same thing in our football stadiums. Which, may I point out, even resembe the ancient colosseums. In a way, though, what we do is even worse. Where the animal would kill the young man almost instantly, we draw out the agony so that they suffer with depression, demensia, and any number of other mental illnesses before they finally get the sweet release of death. We say that our society has advanced since these ancient times, but have we really?
Steve Sabol, the president and one of the founders of NFL Films, once said "Look at a football field. It looks like a big movie screen. This is theatre. Football combines the strategy of chess. It's part ballet. It's part battleground, part playground. We clarify, amplify and glorify the game with our footage, the narration and that music, and in the end create an inspirational piece of footage". Well, young men have died to create this "piece of footage". People find entertainment from watching this and therefore find entertainment in people severely harming themselves. Possibly to the point of death. Is this the price we have put on the lives of our young men?
This is similar to what the ancient romans did in their colosseum. They set young men up against ferocious animals to be killed for their entertainment. We do the same thing in our football stadiums. Which, may I point out, even resembe the ancient colosseums. In a way, though, what we do is even worse. Where the animal would kill the young man almost instantly, we draw out the agony so that they suffer with depression, demensia, and any number of other mental illnesses before they finally get the sweet release of death. We say that our society has advanced since these ancient times, but have we really?