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Forward Pass should be abolished

To the editor:

The high-school gridiron season nears an end. This season, historic for the Hancock Bulldogs, has been marked by the forward pass, something that has thoroughly corrupted the sport. “[P]assing is not football”, said Gil Dobie, but despite this, the pigskin takes flight over helmeted heads.

The lesson is that if you feel a despair that is absolute enough, it is therefore mandatory that this despair be rewarded. That is not life and this should not be American football. The lesson is that if you cheat, your cheating should be enshrined in a rule change.

Why are the rules changed? That battle and brutality be replaced with ease and miracle. I have nothing against ease, flash, even against the magical, and indeed, my heart is even on their side in some ways. But that is not the sport where men contest in scarred trenches for inches of turf. However one feels about it, the wonder of laziness has, and can have, no purchase here.

Those who feel disenchanted, out-of-love with a way of looking at things, can go watch basketball, or pinball in New Jersey. To use worn words, it is an issue of character, not just of the men who would make towering sacrifices rather than let go of a ball, but the character of a game, even if derided as violent. The forward pass is an ill-advised innovation, extraneous to and a perversion of the sport. This part of the new rules must be repealed.

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