The Super Bowl has come and gone. Reports tell us it was the third most widely witnessed event in American TV history, beaten only by two other Super Bowls. In this land of ours, the game has become as big a celebratory deal as just about anything from the Fourth of July to New Year’s Eve. It features a physically tough sport. It is enmeshed in commercialism. Is all this OK?
I think so, with a caveat to come.
In fact, I think the whole affair — patriotic prelude, the football game itself, crowd fervor, technological wizardry, an advertising onslaught, the halftime extravaganza and more — speaks to a remarkable American energy, even a certain joyfulness. The evening’s viewing may be mostly a dodge of life’s unpleasant stuff, but so is attending a classical music concert or getting lost in a good novel. To my mind, such reprieves can be blessedly healthy.
And the frivolity did have touches of unifying seriousness, the most moving of which was the wondrous singing of “America the Beautiful” by a chorus of 26 children from Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. That’s where 20 first-graders along with six adults were shot to death in December, a shock that left the nation hurting. “We are Sandy Hook and We Choose Love,” said a statement by school officials, and love was what you also saw in the faces shown by TV cameras in the New Orleans Superdome as the bright-eyed children performed.
In the game, Baltimore soared ahead, San Francisco roared back and the outcome was decided by a last-minute play that could easily have gone either way. Even short of similar suspense, football is a magnificent spectator sport of massive men colliding for the sake of getting the ball ahead a foot or two and then elegant, long-distance passes impossibly caught with sometimes stunning grace. It’s a game of psychological ups and downs that make a difference, of skill and character and, believe it or not, of intellect that must consider strategies, counter-strategies and ingenious tactics.