Football violence on a Quaker campus: A modest proposal

Most people are delighted that American football has returned to George Fox University. I haven’t heard many observations on the irony—or the appropriateness—of this violent sport erupting in a Quaker setting.

Speaking of irony, it’s strange that I should be writing this. I’m the coach’s daughter. Or, more accurately stated, was the coach’s daughter. I grew up in a small town in Southern California where football was the center of community life. The Ramona Bulldogs reigned, and my dad was the coach. Friday nights the bleachers completely filled up with young and old, and the excitement crackled like fireworks.

The sport dominated high school life. Of the 96 boys in Ramona High School in 1959, 54 of them were on the varsity or junior varsity team. Every girl longed to be a cheerleader. To give everyone a chance to participate, we had the first string cheerleaders, song leaders (who wore shorter skirts), pom pom girls, the baton squad, and the flag twirlers. I twirled a flag. In between games, we went to classes and studied.

We were good. In 1958, the Ramona Bulldogs won the Southern California Intervarsity Football championship for Class A (very small) high schools. I remember the roar of the crowds as that final touchdown guaranteed the trophy. I remember the team carrying my dad off the field on their shoulders. For a shy, skinny girl in middle school, that was Big Stuff.  In 1959, Dad was named Coach of the Year for Southern California. I still have the newspaper articles in my scrap book.

I was raised on American football.

My years in Bolivia, however, converted me to the sport the rest of the world calls football and we call soccer. Latin Americans yell at their games, too, and go a bit crazy when they win. But soccer somehow seems safer, less brutal than our football.

It’s not just a matter of seeming safer. What we’ve been learning about American football in recent years should frighten us enough to have second thoughts about sponsoring this sport on any high school or university campus. A recent Time Magazine feature on the dangers of football is subtitled, “The Tragic Risks of an American Obsession,” and details some grim statistics about concussions and the greater likelihood of dementia at earlier ages. This, added to the Quaker peace testimony, makes me wonder why more questions aren’t being raised about GFU’s new program.

I have a proposal. Since it seems unlikely that the decision to include football in the life of the university will be reversed, let’s at least even out the risks. My proposal is that we turn the new bleachers into a smoking area and that the university supply free cigarettes to one and all. Students especially should be encouraged to smoke as they cheer on the team. What this would do is spread around the dangers. While the players are bumping heads and giving each other concussions, the spectators will be puffing away and equally endangering their health and future.

If we university Quakers are a little lax in the arena of non-violence, at least we can give a testimony for equality.

It just seems fair.

Military band on a Quaker university

Early this week Hal and I attended a concert on the campus of George Fox University. The US Air Force Band of the Golden West was touring Oregon, and GFU hosted them in their huge Bauman Auditorium. The concert was free to the public, but required tickets in order to handle the crowds. We had obtained ours a week in advance, and rightly so. The place was packed out.

Hal had just preformed last week in this same auditorium, part of the community band concert, and the audience, while not massive, enthusiastically supported its efforts. But we were both looking forward to what we knew would be an evening of excellence with the Air Force Band. The incongruities of the situation did not occur to me at first.

It was, of course, a superb performance. I especially enjoyed the band’s rendition of Aaron Copeland’s “Appalachian Spring,” and an incredible jazz clarinet solo.

But a sense of restlessness slowly arose as I sat there, hearing the glorious sounds that included, naturally, military marches, seeing the multitude of uniforms, and taking in the sense of pride in the introductions and comments. It was like one of those what’s-wrong-with-this-picture exercises in children’s magazines. Something seemed out of balance.

Toward the end of the evening, the band played “America the Beautiful.” This song always brings tears to my eyes. And that happened this time, too. But the pictures that flashed by on the huge screen were scenes of beautiful America taken from the cockpits of Air Force jets, with the jet dominating the screen. My tears dried up and I wondered if I should even be singing.

The concert concluded with the “Armed Forces Medley,” and as the theme song of each branch was played, veterans and different people connected with that particular branch stood. Around the auditorium, groups of men and women proudly rose up as the rest applauded. Emotions ran high, and the final crash of drums and cymbals was met with the whole audience on its feet, clapping and yelling, roaring its approval.

We were both pensive on our walk home. I remembered how that during the Vietnam War, Hal went through the difficult court procedures to finally be declared an official Conscientious Objector (CO) to war. He then served two years, under the draft board, doing agricultural projects in a Mayan village in Guatemala. It was during a dangerous time of civil unrest in that Central American country, but, of course, nothing like what was happening in Asia. Other classmates went directly to Vietnam as COs during the war, serving in different humanitarian projects. In fact, I was sure one of them was sitting in the audience that night.

During that last rousing song, as people all around us stood up and sat down, Hal, of course, stayed seated.

I know that GFU serves a constituency that is larger than the Quaker community. I know that this concert was offered as a service to the entire community. But I wonder if, as a Quaker university, it couldn’t have offered a chance for the COs in the audience to stand up and be recognized. Would the Air Force have allowed it? Possibly not. Would the audience have clapped? Possibly not.

All this leaves me wondering if a renewal of the passion for peacemaking is in order. What expressions could it could take?

The restlessness in my spirit continues.

Stereotypes of peace

Sometimes stereotypes irritate me; other times they make me smile. I smiled last week as I read Alexander McCall Smith’s description of peacemakers, through the lips of the slightly audacious Precious Ramotswe of Botswana’s “No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency.” The following conversation takes place between Mma Ramotswe and an old friend from her home-village in the African bush:

“We need more women in public life,” said Dr. Maketsi. “They are very practical people, women. Unlike us men.” 

Mma Ramotswe was quick to agree. “If more women were in power, they wouldn’t let wars break out,” she said. “Women can’t be bothered with all this fighting. We see war for what it is—a matter of broken bodies and crying mothers.”

Dr. Maketsi thought for a moment. He was thinking of Mrs. Ghandi, who had a war, and Mrs. Golda Meir, who also had a war, and then there was…. 

“Most of the time,” he conceded. “Women are gentle most of the time, but they can be tough when they need to be.”

Dr. Maketsi’s realism balances Mma Ramotswe’s stereotypical view of women as more naturally inclined to peacemaking than men. Since stereotypes are usually constructed on a grain of truth, the sense that women are the mothers and, usually, the nurturers of children lends some support to the image of the peaceful, gentle woman. But an open-eyed look at life affirms a more realistic assessment. It’s tough for human beings to live peacefully. Not natural at all. For any of us.

Let’s look at another large group of people around whom stereotypes seem to flourish—Christians. Do people outside the church stereotype us as being peacemakers by nature? Actually, no. A lot of sad history, plus the usual dollop of human nature we all inherit have produced other, more negative stereotypes. Even we Quakers sometimes seem to live in ways that negate our testimony for peace. Our history has its share of divisions and controversies, including disputes over peace.

Jesus spoke the words, “Blessed are the peacemakers,” for the whole church. Peter wrote to the early Christians, “Finally, all of you (not just Quakers and Mennonites), live in harmony with one another; be sympathetic, love as brothers, be compassionate and humble. Do not repay evil with evil or insult with insult, but with blessing….seek peace and pursue it” (1 Peter 3:8-9, 11, NIV).

I love Paul’s admonitions to the Philippian Christians: “Delight yourselves in God, yes, find your joy in him at all times. Have a reputation for gentleness, and never forget the nearness of your Lord (Phil. 4:4-5, Phillips).

There’s an ocean of difference between a stereotype and a reputation.

A reasonable approach to war

If some worthy person in a far off country

is willing to die for his/her country and/or faith,

then the least I can do

is be willing to kill him/her

(for the sake of my country and/or faith).

Quaker ninjas

Last week I watched my 10-year-old grandson play something called “Spin Jet-Su.” Seven evil-looking Lego action figures, armed with swords or spears, were mounted on small rounded cups and set spinning on a surface about two feet square. The purpose was to let them spin around, crash into each other, and see who knocks whom down. And, of course, to declare the victor, standing alone in a field of bodies. Reilly accompanied the whole repeated sequence with leaps and shouts of, “Go!” “Get ‘um!” “Kill ‘um!”

At one point he looked back at me, apparently noted a look of concern, and said, “Don’t worry, Grandma. These are Quaker ninjas. They kill each other for world peace.”

Needless to say, that was a big relief.

Then he notched the game up a level by adding his own Nerf gun skills to the pageant. He set the figures all spinning, then tried to knock them off one by one before they got to each other.

I asked him, “Are you also fighting for world peace?”

He answered quickly, simply and directly, “Yup.”

Our daughter and her husband don’t teach their children violent games. They try to promote peace (especially in the minefield between siblings). Reilly earned the Nerf gun himself by pulling weeds this spring, and he is not allowed to aim at people. I guess Quaker ninjas don’t count.

I certainly can’t judge. At one point last week as I fled to the bathroom for momentary relief from brother-sister hassles, I found myself mentally rehearsing what I really wanted to say to those little rascals, and it was not a peaceful homily. I ended up praying, “Lord, have mercy on us all. Have mercy on me, a sinner.”

In raising children to become followers of the Prince of Peace, I sometimes feel caught between two forces. On the one hand, our culture of violence and consumerism finds perfect expression in the toys, games and movies it markets for kids. And on the other hand, human nature plays a strong role. Kids raised in homes that don’t allow toy guns soon discover the utility of a fist and two fingers aimed at little sister’s forehead: “Pow! Pow! You’re dead!” Who needs a plastic rifle?

The devil may play a part in all this, too.

Peacemaking begins at home and takes all that the Spirit of God can supply. It’s the day-in-day-out consistency that has more to do with the fruit of the Spirit, with love, joy, and our own sense of peace as we care for our children and patiently coax out those attitudes and behaviors that lead to life. “Peacemakers who sow in peace raise a harvest of righteousness” (James 3:18). But it takes a lot of time.

And it takes a lot of praying, “Lord, have mercy.”