The Violent Liturgy of Alabama Football
by Peter J. LeithartAt Alabama, Saban has created a culture that ultimately reflects his Catholic convictions. Continue Reading »
At Alabama, Saban has created a culture that ultimately reflects his Catholic convictions. Continue Reading »
Games played under Friday night lights are the preseason for the greater joys of marriage, fatherhood, and vocation. Continue Reading »
NFL player Gino Marchetti, who died April 29, was an inspiration in many ways. Continue Reading »
Outside sports, where can you see fine-tuned teamwork in action, where hard work, skill, and grit are rewarded in real time? Continue Reading »
Why does our culture allot special importance to the political views of NFL players? It is a sign of modern society's absurdity. Continue Reading »
The First Things Podcast, Episode 19. Featuring: Philip Rieff’s The Triumph of the Therapeutic and the 2016 season in college football. Continue Reading »
Recently I got quite caught up in a football game on television. It was a close match right to the very end. And in a dramatic finish the college team I was rooting for pulled off the victory. Watching it was a good way of spending a few hours. I did not experience any self-transcendence, however. . . . . Continue Reading »
He scored forty times in an eight-year NFL career, best known, now, for the touchdown he didn’t score, as the sun set over Yankee Stadium on Dec. 28, 1958. His wife of fifty-nine years, Joan, said that Jim Mutscheller, who died on April 10, wanted to be known as a man “who had led a good life,” for he was “quiet, humble, and so conservative that he’d eat crabs with a suit and tie on.”And therein lies a tale—and a yardstick by which to measure pro sports then and now. Continue Reading »
The season ends in a few days, the first year of a playoff, and TV ratings will be astronomical. For real lovers of the game, though, the ones with an historical sense of things, it’s getting difficult to watch. How can you appreciate the contest when so much bad behavior by players happens? Continue Reading »