Football athletes: scary stuff

Posted by Pierre Igot in: Football
July 6th, 2003 • 12:27 am

Caught a report on TV the other day about… the weight of (American) football athletes. It was downright scary. Some of these guys weigh over 300 pounds, and are obviously obese, no matter how physically strong they are.

If you put that next to the typically overweight baseball players and definitely not slender hockey players (who are probably the fittest of the lot, but still not immune from serious weight issues — and then there is the violence issue), you’ve got to wonder how much of a role professional sports in North America can really be expected to play as a way to promote fitness and health.

The only North American sport that looks like real sport to me, i.e. appears to be based on the right combination of physical strength and agility/finesse, is basketball. But then you have to be 7 feet tall… And I wonder how popular basketball really is compared to the other three.

This type of report will definitely not encourage me to devote more attention to North American sports. There is something rather absurd, decadent, and ultimately repulsive about activities that seem to have become so far removed from what sport is supposed to be about. (Let’s not even mention wrestling…)

Me, I’m sticking with real football, i.e. soccer. Fortunately we are getting to see more and more of it here in Canada.


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