Football and Mindless Militarism

I am continually perplexed by the enduring popularity of football and the fanaticism of a vocal minority of college students for football teams, stadiums, and lavish expenditures for a program that does not produce any benefits for students or society. Indeed in the case of Penn State, the cost of the football program was much more than anybody could have anticipated!

I admit football annoys me, because it devours so much of public funds. Always the football fans are taking away from other students and other citizens to finance their mindless addiction. Never do they pay for their dirty little habit themselves. Always they are expecting the government to pay their way. A new stadium, another team, more and more gifts to the team, more and more scholarships, and enormous salaries for stupid football coaches.

Football, like chess, is essentially a war game. I feel that football's popularity has to do with the fact that our people were always at war throughout history. War is in our blood. One can't escape the calling of the blood. The people who like football will serve society as cannon fodder just as their ancestors did. If only football fans would confine themselves to football, and not have the wars, then their addiction could be justifiable as a lesser expense, but no, they must have both the wars and the football.

I love chess just as much, or rather more than, others like football, and chess is just as militaristic, drawing upon the same skills that are so essential on the battlefield. In fact football is useless as a preparation for modern war, while chess is the single best method of training. In modern warfare, thinking and planning is more to the point than physical reflexes and physical ability. Perhaps the popularity of football helps to explain why the United States has not won a war since Korea, and why it now engages in wars that cannot be won by any means.

Based on the history of wars, I would estimate that the average general, if he turned his mind to the game of chess and studied it for his entire life, would achieve an ELO ranking of 1200. The exceptional generals, the really good ones, might rate about 1400.