Dead Ball Foul

 A tough day out on the football field. 

Well, it's not really a field so much as a stretch of asphalt that isn't the soccer field where boys (almost exclusively) gather to throw the pigskin around. Historically, this is an activity that at our school has a half-life. In my time here at Horace Mann, we have shut down the football game more times than I count, and it's always for the same reason.

After weeks of making expectations clear and guidelines put in place, the surge of macho comes bubbling up to the surface and someone ends up getting hurt. Not from anything specifically game related, but because the inevitable trash talk heats to a certain degree and ten year old egos get pinched. Tempers flare, and the ball gets thrown at someone instead of to someone and then it's over. Instead of pigskin, fists are thrown and the donnybrook ensues. 

What bothers me the most about these altercations is that they almost always take place between the "alpha males" whose competitive juices exceed their tiny frames. The rest of the kids, the ones who are there for fun, stand by with a mixture of admiration and fear on their faces. Isn't this the way it's supposed to be? The fastest, toughest and loudest decide the game for everyone? After weeks of reminders and being carefully watched, the first time they are left to their own devices, football degenerates into pro wrestling. With language that would not pass the censors on basic cable TV. 

What do we do? Take the ball and shut down the game. We don't have to the staff to watch one small group of kids while the rest of the playground takes care of themselves. The testosterone generated by these ten kids overwhelms everything else on the yard. 

Worst of all? It stops being fun for everyone. 

And yet, they cling to it. Begging for the game to be reinstated with promises of renewed attention to the limits of elementary school behavior. Not the antics they see on television. Or out in the streets. Football is by its nature a ground acquisition game, a modified gladiator sport that is almost always played on grass. With pads. And a referee. 

So we're going to try to find some volunteers who are willing to don the striped shirt. Decorum will be reintroduced. And we'll start the clock again.