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In October, First Book teamed up with Operation Warm and the Chicago Housing Authority to bring new books and new coats to kids living in Chicago’s public housing. The event promised to bring together organizations like First Book and individuals who aim to improve the lives of children and give them the tools they need to create a bright future.

Enter Charlie Brown, retired NFL player and former president of Chicago’s NFL Alumni chapter. Already a great ally of First Book, Charlie hopes to build on the success of October’s event and find new and exciting ways to work with First Book in the future. We were able to have a conversation with Charlie about the Chicago event, his plans, and even one of his favorite books.

How did you get involved with First Book and Operation Warm?

Charlie: Well I met First Book about a year ago. When we originally met I was president of the NFL alumni Chicago and I was just looking around for people who were doing stuff for kids. I’m an old Boys and Girls Club-er and I run programs with and for kids, besides being an old NFL-er. But I have run programs for kids and I have always held this need to give back and to share because for all intents and purposes I feel like I owe.

Someone mentioned First Book to me so I called them up and I said “who are you guys, what do you do?” Just hearing how they did what they did, that’s how the relationship started.

That was part of my general inquiry and so one thing lead to another and they talked about how they had done this event in Chicago and they were going to do this event again this year. Ten or twenty thousand books going to kids who are also going to get new coats. New books and a new warm coat – not a used coat! A new warm coat that you can put your name in – like this coat belongs to Jamie, you know? That’s a big deal!

Gavin: To have that ownership, absolutely.

C:  Yeah, the ownership and also it gives you a sense of, “the world cares about me so I can care back.” To see it in action and just to be involved with it was phenomenal.

I know that you were key in recruiting volunteers for that event in October, so tell me a little bit about that process and how it went.

C: Well, if you’re the president of an organization one thing you need to know is: what are the hot buttons for the members of my group? Guy A may volunteer for one thing and guy B for another. For example, I have a group of guys, we do a 5k in the spring and we do a relay so not one of us old guys has to do the whole thing. We have a great time, it lasts about five hours. But they are a group of guys who I know will come out and do that, so you start to know what kinds of things guys will do.

One of my guys, for example, Major Hazelton – he’s a former Bear but he’s an educator too – so it is not a hard pull to get him to come and do something if it involves kids and education, that’s his angle. And you kind of start to know this and you know where to put guys and sometimes you get a great match and sometimes you get not a great match based on time and emotion and that kind of stuff.

What role do you see the NFL alumni association — or some of the smaller chapters — playing with organizations like First Book or Operation Warm?

C: Well number one, I see us telling the story. I see us being either more or less visible based on the organization’s needs. For example, I did an introduction with the Bears and in part what the introduction says is: it’s no longer an organization to an organization, it’s somebody’s name to somebody’s name. It is a secondary step not a primary step to do that. I see us doing that kind of stuff. Public or private endorsements, our guys are willing to do those kinds of things. I think sometimes we have to look for and create opportunities.
I think I am a connector because I am willing to ask the question and say, “well, why not?” If we can do that and help tell the story, it makes it an even bigger story, particularly if that other organization’s byline is “caring for kids and caring for ourselves.” That’s what the NFL Alumni says and does.

Well, if keeping kids warm ain’t caring for kids, what is? Warm goes right up there with hot dogs and hamburgers. So that’s kind of where I am with all of this, it’s trying to figure out how to help make these connections.

Let me go back to the event in October, what were some of your favorite sights and sounds?

C: Well it was fun to see kids look at books and watch the expressions on their faces when they choose a book and say, “I’m interested in this, and I don’t know what this is but I am interested in it – I like the cover.” And for the kids to get five books and put them in their bags – there was this sense of satisfaction that you saw when it went from a “maybe to mine.”

That was awesome, because on a good day I am about a five-year-old – the ability to interact with kids and talk to them about what they were thinking and saying and doing and that kind of stuff is always fun for me. On a good day I think I’m about a five-year-old.

G: Oh, absolutely. You’ve got to keep your inner child!

C: Right, and that kind of stuff was fun. My most fun activities were interacting with kids and just seeing kids understand that this was their day and this day was for them. That all they had to do to qualify that day was to be a kid and be there. That was enough.

Why do you feel that education is so important for young people?

C: Education opens you to the world. Think of it this way: if you’ve never seen the Eifel Tower, but you read about it or you saw pictures of it, you could get a secondary sensation of what that was all about. You would know that that thing is real if you saw it and you understood how the lights came on at night and you could share the experience with someone who’s been there.

On the one hand it is a secondary sharing, but it can also increase aspirations, “you know, I would like to go see the Eifel Tower,” because I read about it. Reading about it is certainly better than not. Reading allows you to have a new adventure every day if you’re willing to sit down and pick up a book and read it.

So Charlie, what are some of your favorite books?

C: It is interesting to be a guy so in love with books. My favorite book that I go back to for a whole bunch of guidance and for different reasons is a very small book. It’s a book on life written by former college football coach Bear Bryant and the title of the book is Don’t Play for the Tie. This book is about 130 pages and I use it all the time. For example, I do some public speaking and when I am looking for stuff to share, whatever it is, I will go to this book and what I do is — and this is the strange part — I just open the book at random and 99% of the time I find exactly what I need. And in fact the book was a gift, as crazy as that sounds.

What are your hopes and dreams for the children who you’re able to impact? Either through First Book, Operation Warm, or any of the other organizations you’re involved with?

C: We have to make sure kids understand that it is safe to dream and that the difference between a goal and dream is a plan. That’s always my hope — that kids understand that their plan doesn’t have to be elaborate, it just has to be clear. And that you have to not be afraid to reach outside of yourself because there is somebody out there who is willing to help if you understand how to present yourself. Those are my dreams, and for them to understand that yeah, I kind of am my brother’s keeper.

If you serve kids in need, please visit the First Book Marketplace to register and browse our collection of diverse, award-winning books and educational resources. If you want to be like Charlie and help First Book make a difference, start a First Book campaign and raise funds to help bring equal access to education for your community, your school or any kid, anywhere.

The post NFL Alumni Charlie Brown Helps First Book, Operation Warm Make Impact in Chicago appeared first on First Book Blog.

Last week, Chicagoland geeks were congregating at McCormick Place, enjoying the plethora of pop culture paraphernalia.

This week, Chicagoland geeks are congregating at Grant Park, to experience the NFL Draft.  It’s Chicago’s first draft in 51 years, and the NFL has a “fan experience” set up in the park, complete with a beer garden.

(Side note… I think the worst team in the NFL should host the NFL draft the next year, as a consolation prize to the fans who don’t get to enjoy the post-season.)

So, you ask, aside from the shared geekery, why am I writing about this?

Because graphic designer Justin Kozisek has taken the NFL’s 32 teams’ helmets, and crafted Marvel Comics-themed helmets and mascots for each!  My favorite:

He’s got a store, where it appears you can buy t-shirts and posters of your favorite teams/characters.

It’s doubtful we’ll ever see these used in an actual game, given the hubbub over the Spider-Man 2 baseball promotion. One would hope that Diamond Direct or Nike would create faux jerseys for those fans which geek over sports and comics. (Full disclosure: I own a Drunken Monkeys bowling shirt.)

Meanwhile, if fictitious football teams bore you, there’s always indoor football…

In a recent article for Huffington Post, numberFire.com CEO Nik Bonaddio stated: “RG3: It’s Over”. Bonaddio is asserting that it is unlikely that Washington Redskins quarterback Robert Griffin III (RG3) will ever be able to return to the form that enabled him to win the 2012 Rookie of the Year Award and made him one of the best quarterbacks in the NFL that year. More specifically, Bonaddio claims, “The numbers are quite clear: no quarterback who suffered that bad of a precipitous fall in performance ever recovered.”

While Bonaddio may end up being proven correct, there are several problems with his analysis. More specifically, the numbers are not clear at all. Bonaddio starts with using his company’s Net Expected Points (NEP) metric that examines how many points a player’s team should score given his performance. He then states that only six QBs have ever had a drop in their NEP similar to RG3’s drop after his 2012 season. They are: Steve Beuerlein in 1999, Elvis Grbac in 2000, Jay Fiedler in 2001, Tommy Maddox in 2002, Derek Anderson in 2007, and David Garrard in 2007.

As far can be discerned from the information in the article, these are the only quarterbacks used by Bonaddio in his analysis. Having a sample size of six is a very small number to use in such an analysis. Furthermore, even this small sample has major problems when making a comparison to RG3. They are:

• The average age for when each of the quarterbacks in the sample had their best years is 29.8 years old while RG3 was only 22 years old during his rookie year. Only Anderson, at age 24, was close to the age of RG3 in 2012 during his best season.
• Each of the quarterbacks had played in the NFL for at least one year before having their best season. Only Anderson had played in one season before his best year. The rest of the quarterbacks had played in multiple years before having their best years.
• None of the quarterbacks had a significant injury that could account for the subsequent decline in their performance.
• Each of the other quarterbacks had little mobility. RG3’s success, as stated by Bonaddio, is predicated on his ability to run the football.
• None of these quarterbacks was a Heisman Trophy winner or had the same level of success as RG3 did in college.

At the end of the article, Bonaddio claims “Regardless of what the cause was [of the decline], the effect is obvious and it’s rather tragic.” The cause of RG3’s decline is extremely important, especially compared with these other six quarterbacks. For example, it is impossible to rule out that these six quarterbacks were never good, or at least as good as RG3. They had one good season in the midst of having many relatively mediocre or poor seasons.

In addition, an NFL quarterback’s prime is age 29 with his prime range being 26-30 according to Football Perspective. Again, the average age of the six quarterbacks is 29.8. Given his college and 2012 performances, RG3 could just be a more talented quarterback than any of these other players. Since he has not reached the prime age range in his career, RG3 could also continue to improve as he gets older and gains more experience.

There is also a clear reason for RG3’s decline: his injury history. Bonaddio does point out that RG3 did suffer significant injuries both during the 2012 and 2014 seasons that caused his NEP to decline. However, he does not fully account for the fact that RG3’s poor performances in 2013 and 2014 could be due to injuries and recovery from injuries rather than a decline in his skillset. It is definitely possible that RG3 may never recover his running ability from 2012 or that he is more injury prone than other NFL quarterbacks. However, it is impossible to know what RG3’s best performances can be until that can be proved to be the case or he has actually had played in more games where he has fully recovered from these injuries.

Bonaddio’s analysis does show the potential problem with working with advanced analytics in sports. The NEP could be a valuable metric that provides great insights about the true performance of quarterbacks. However, making assertions beyond the stated use of the metric that rely on small sample sizes with clear confounding variables can lead to problematic conclusions. It may or may not be over for RG3, but it is impossible to tell using the evidence presented in Bonaddio’s article.

Featured image credit: Robert Griffin III on a read-option run during the Redskins 24-16 loss to the Eagles in the 2013 season. Photo by Mr.schultz. CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons.

The post Is it really over for RG3? It’s too soon to tell. appeared first on OUPblog.

        

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Ched Evans was convicted at Caernarfon Crown Court in April 2012 of raping a 19 year old woman, and sentenced to five years in prison. He was released from prison in October 2014. Shortly after his release Evans protested his innocence and suggested that his worst offence had been cheating on his fiancée. He also looked to restart his career as a professional soccer player in the third tier of the English league with his former club Sheffield United. What has ensued is a huge debate about whether the club should offer Evans a new contract. One side argues that Evans has served his time and should be allowed to continue his career, whereas the other claims that his role as a professional sportsman marks him out as a role model for his local community and the youngsters that support his team. A rape conviction they say is not compatible with the standards that society demands from its sports stars.

The debate in England over Evans is nothing new. In the US the National Football League (NFL) has had a personal conduct policy in place since 1997. This allows the NFL to take action against any player convicted of a domestic abuse offence including suspensions and fines. Similarly in Australian Rules Football (AFL) the governing body introduced its Respect and Responsibility programme in 2005 to educate players about violence against women. The problem in all these cases, indeed a difficulty for most branches of the sporting world, is that the big box office draws are highly paid male athletes operating out of dressing rooms that are hyper masculine and underpinned by an atmosphere of sexual aggression. As the star players are vital to the industry and ensure that box office receipts and television income remain high, the governing authorities of many male team sports have been slow to act decisively in cases where players have been charged or convicted of rape or domestic abuse. Since the start of the new millennium 48 NFL players have been found guilty of domestic abuse. In 88% of the cases the NFL either banned the player for a single game or else took no action. Similarly the AFL has been slow to take action against players. In the last two years players at the St Kilda Saints and North Melbourne clubs were charged with rape, and in both cases the clubs and the AFL stated that the players would remain available for selection and on full salaries prior to their trials.

It is clear that the male sporting world has not taken the issue of violence against women seriously. Clubs and managers that demand a strong dressing room, where loyalty to the team is paramount and aggression is part of the game has create a masculine environment where women cannot be respected. In a sporting world where those players are then highly paid, cosseted by their management and agents, women have little function beyond their sexual availability.

The debate in the US around the case of NFL player Ray Rice, who was caught on camera punching his partner unconscious, and that of Ched Evans in England, have piled pressure on clubs and governing bodies to take the issues of sexual and domestic violence by players seriously. In the Ched Evans case the Sheffield born gold medal winning athlete, Jessica Ennis-Hill, stated that if Evans was offered a contract by the club she would ask that her name be removed from the stand that was named after her when she won her Olympic title in 2012. Ennis-Hill stated that ‘those in positions of influence should respect the role’s they play in young people’s lives and set a good example’. And herein lies the whole contradiction around the issue of male sports stars and their attitudes towards sexual and domestic violence.

Modern sport had its roots in Victorian Britain, and would spread around the world in various forms. No matter what type of sport emerged in any given setting across the globe the Victorian obsession that sport had an ethical ethos of fair play and gentlemanly conduct was hard wired into the meaning that society gave sport. As a result contemporary sport is supposed to be played in the right way in accordance with the rules, and athletes are supposed to conduct themselves in a certain way. To be an elite athlete is to be a role model and society expects athletes to display positive attributes on and off the field of play. But why should society expect that athletes, often from the lower end of the socio-economic spectrum and with poor educational attainment, to behave like some form of idealised Victorian gentleman? However, as the sports star is expected to be the model citizen, because the ethics of sport are so deeply embedded in the collective consciousness, their conduct does matter. It matters to many followers of sport, is of interest to the media, and is increasingly becoming important to sponsors as they assess the value of any team or athlete in terms that stretch beyond their success on the field of play.

This is why sports teams and governing bodies will have to start taking firm action against those found guilty of sexual and domestic violence. Guilty players will have to be banned from the game and lose their chance of earning their fortune. Not only will this send a clear message to players that violence against women in unacceptable, it will also shape the thinking of the generation of young boys who see their sporting heroes as role models. If, in the future, they see players who respect women, then male attitudes will improve across society. Those who govern the world of male professional sport have to realise that they administer not simply their games, but they are also responsible for the meaningful creation of men with positive values who can act, in the best ways, as role models.

Featured image credit: “Blades”, by Kopii90 (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0], via Wikimedia Commons

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As the domestic violence controversy in the NFL has captured the attention of fans and global media, it seems it has become the No. 1 off-field issue for the league. To gain further perspective into the matter of domestic violence and the current NFL situation, I spoke with Greta Friedemann-Sánchez, PhD and Rodrigo Lovatón, authors of the article, “Intimate Partner Violence in Colombia: Who Is at Risk?,” published in Social Forces, that explores the prevalence of intimate partner violence and the certain risk factors that increase its likelihood.

What do you think of the recent media coverage of domestic violence in the NFL?

In 2010, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimated that in the United States 24% of women and 13% of men have experienced severe physical violence by an intimate partner at some point during their life. Furthermore, the Bureau of Justice Statistics (Department of Justice) calculates that domestic violence accounted for 21% of all violent victimizations between 2003 and 2012 and about 1.5 million cases in 2013. If emotional abuse and stalking are taken into account, the prevalence rates increase. In some countries the prevalence is even higher. In Colombia, for example, 39% of women have experienced physical violence in their lifetimes. The recent media coverage of domestic violence shows that this is an important policy issue that has not received adequate attention in the United States or internationally. Unfortunately, this is a missed opportunity to educate the public on the high prevalence rates and the negative effects domestic violence has, not only for the victim but for all the members of a family. Equally invisible in the coverage is the fact that domestic violence is an “equal opportunity” event, meaning that it is present in families regardless of socioeconomic status, race, ethnic affiliation, and so on. Domestic violence, and more specifically intimate partner violence, can be just as present in NFL players’ families who are on the eye of the public, as it can be in any other family. The issue, however, remains hidden for the most part. It takes a celebrity to be involved for the issue to gain visibility. In that sense, we are glad the media covered it. This is a policy issue that needs to be appropriately analyzed and addressed.

What do you think is an appropriate punishment for an NFL player who is convicted of domestic violence?

We agree that a professional sports organization, that has extensive media coverage with a large audience, including children and adolescents, should not allow a player who is convicted of domestic violence to participate. Organized sports organizations sell more than just games, they sell the personalities and lives of their players. Players are often held as role models, their careers and lives are admired. To allow a player to continue playing would endorse and normalize violent behavior. Intimate partner violence has long term negative physical, emotional, and economic consequences for the victims, which are often overlooked. In fact, children who witness violence at home have negative emotional and educational outcomes too. Witnessing violence as a child or being a victim of violence as a child are some of the strongest predictors for becoming a victim or a perpetrator of violence later in life. Therefore, the NFL or any sports organization should reject this kind of behavior by disallowing domestic violence offenders from participating in any of their activities.

Do you think that giving a person who commits domestic violence a more severe punishment will decrease the chances that the person will commit violence again?

Types and intensity of violence are varied, and so are the legal mechanisms in place to protect victims and punish batterers. Victims do not always get the support they need from law enforcement. Furthermore, protective and punitive laws are not always enforced in an adequate manner, consequently, victims have a chance to be re-victimized and re-traumatized as the perpetrators become even more violent as a result of the victims’ reporting. The proportion of domestic violence crimes reported to the police represents about 50% of all identified cases between 2003 and 2012 in the United States, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, Department of Justice. These issues are recursive. The experience for victims outside of the United States can be even direr as domestic violence legislation may be in its infancy.

Do you think that the recent media attention surrounding domestic and/or that this will increase or decrease the likelihood of/reduce other victims coming forward to report abuse?

Neither. Resolving intimate partner violence requires a multi-pronged approach. Increased visibility of the problem afforded by the recent media coverage might propel better law enforcement, increased funding for research, and implementation of prevention pilot programs that engage men and boys, just to name a few. We need better and more preventive, protective, and punitive mechanisms in place. In addition, the mechanisms in place need to be evaluated for effectiveness in responding to the issue. Until some of these steps happen, simply having more media attention will not have an effect on reporting.

What are some of the reasons women tend to stay in domestic violence situations?

Why do perpetrators exercise violence against their intimate partners? These questions go hand in hand, yet it is usually the first that is asked, although both are increasingly in the scope of research given the increase in violence against women worldwide. Women’s economic dependence on their partners, which gets amplified when children are present, contributes to women being locked into violent situations. Lack of employment options, being unemployed, having low-wage employment makes women financially dependent on their partners. Lack of affordable day care, day care with limited hours, and school schedules without after-school programs limit women’s participation in employment. Even women who are employed and have livable wages might find it hard to leave if temporary shelters and affordable housing are not available. But the barriers to exiting a violent relationship are not only material. Being abused is a stigmatizing experience. Victims are reluctant to be shamed by their family, friends, and society at large. In addition, the exercise of controlling and humiliating behaviors on the part of batterers has the effect of lowering the victims’ self-esteem and self-efficacy. Victims may doubt their capacity to survive on their own and with their children. But controlling behaviors also include batterers’ being effective at sabotaging the victims’ efforts to access her social support network, to gain employment, or to arrange an alternative living place. In many instances, the episodes of abuse are interspersed by weeks or months of relative calm, and victims may believe their partners have changed, only to find themselves in the same or worse situation. In addition, societies have cultural scripts of what is included in the marital contract, which may justify violence under certain circumstances. Gender norms give men the right to control their intimate partner’s behavior, to exert influence, and to resolve disputes with violence. Furthermore, women are socialized to prioritize the children and family “unity” over their welfare; women may perceive that the children will be negatively affected by a separation, not knowing the negative effects they may already be experiencing.

Who are most at risk for being a victim of domestic violence?

Several factors contribute to the risk of being a victim of intimate partner violence. While there are general patterns, the specifics may vary by country. In our recent study using data from Colombia’s Demographic and Health Surveys, we found that the highest risk factors were associated with the maltreatment of a woman’s partner when he was a child, and current child maltreatment by the woman’s partner. Higher risk is associated with lower educational status of both partners, lower socioeconomic status (only for physical violence), for younger women, and for women working outside of the home. This last factor is especially interesting given the role that income plays in household negotiation dynamics. Gender differences in power among family members affect each member’s economic choices and behavior, including individual’s bargaining over the allocation of material and time resources within the household, over gender norms, and even over how much abuse to exert or resist. It has long been hypothesized that income provides women with strong leverage in family negotiations. But our results and those found in studies in other countries are revealing that the dynamics of negotiation and violence may be heavily mediated by gender norms. In effect, gender norms about women’s socially acceptable behavior, including working for pay, might trump the leverage they can effect with income. In addition, we do not know the effect of relative wages of both partners on violence. What is known for the United States is that economic stress in a family increases the risk for violence. Gender norms of masculinity that prescribe men as the breadwinners have an effect: men who are unemployed are at greater risk for being perpetrators of violence. The same is true for men who endorse rigid views of masculinity, including the norms that men should dominate women.

How can we best help those most at risk of domestic violence?

Interventions at the individual and community level that address gender equitable norms and the construction of gender relations via socialization are simultaneously protective (batterer intervention programs) and preventive. In the same vein, promoting boys and men’s participation in activities considered feminine under rigid norms of masculinity, such as taking care of children, of the sick and disabled, and doing domestic work. Another line of response is to work on those risk factors that can be shaped by public policies, such as promoting equitable access to employment for women and an extended access to education to the population in general. In addition, special care is required for those groups that are at greater risk to suffer from violence, such as households with lower socioeconomic status, with younger women, more children, and where the partners have a previous history of maltreatment. Workshops on parenting skills and non-violent forms of disciplining children. Last, a policy response should also include better mechanisms for the victims to come forward and report the problem, support systems to help them escape from abusive domestic environments, and psychological service for trauma recovery.

Is there anything else you think we can learn about domestic violence in the United States from the recent NFL cases?

From the way the media covered it, it is clear that the general public is not well informed about intimate partner violence. More education will help de-stigmatize the issue.

Headline image credit: Grass. CC0 via Pixabay.

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By Ron Rodman

Sports fans eagerly anticipate television broadcasts of their favorite sports, whether it is baseball, basketball, soccer, hockey, boxing, golf, auto racing, or any of the other events aired on the tube. In the USA, the biggest television sports event is undoubtedly (American) professional football: the National Football League. In 2011, NBC’s “Sunday Night Football” was the highest-rated program on American TV; nine of the ten most-watched shows that year were NFL games or pregame shows (the other was the Academy Awards), and each of the 21 biggest audiences in TV history are Super Bowls. Football’s popularity may be attributed to the coincidence of the NFL season with the American holiday season (i.e., Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, Christmas, Kwanza, New Year’s Day, etc.). For many sports fans, football on TV is synonymous with the holidays, and vice versa.  One might say that football is part of American holiday festivities.

Professional football was broadcast on television as far back as 1939, when the Philadelphia Eagles played the Brooklyn Dodgers on October 22nd. Games were not telecast with any regularity until the 1950s, but after the 1958 NFL Championship Game between the Baltimore Colts and the New York Giants — the so-called “Greatest Game Ever Played” — football on television gained an enthusiastic following. The DuMont Network and ABC broadcast games in these early years, but NBC and CBS soon bought the rights to broadcast all professional football, with CBS broadcasting the NFL games, and NBC broadcasting AFL games.

By the early 1970s, NFL football became so popular that telecasts featured “pregame shows” that had high quality sets, analytical commentators (many of whom were former players or coaches) and, of course, catchy musical themes — all done to add an air of festivity to the broadcasts of the games. CBS offered one of the first pregame shows dating back to 1961, eventually becoming “The NFL Today,” in the 1970’s. The program was introduced by an upbeat, “light rock” musical theme, with a sort of light rock motif.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The theme was updated in 1982, adding a disco-style “wah-wah” guitar, and omitting the trombone glissando.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The arrangement was tweaked again in 1983, with the alteration of computer-generated visual images.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Not to be outdone, NBC had their own pregame show, “The NFL on NBC.” NBC became the sole broadcaster for AFL football games in 1964, and when the league merged with the NFL in 1970, NBC retained rights to the AFC games, with CBS taking the NFC. (ABC began airing “Monday Night Football” in 1977.)

The musical theme of “The NFL on NBC” in 1973 featured a driving brass section with “wah-wah” guitar, and a jazz-like sax solo:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Unlike CBS, NBC changed its musical themes frequently. Here’s composer by John Colby’s 1992 theme to the show:

Click here to view the embedded video.

And the 1995-97 version by Randy Edelman:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Like the CBS theme, the latter two NBC themes are festive, almost joyful, reflecting the playful nature of sports telecasts.

The Fox Network entered the NFL TV market in 1994 when the network outbid CBS for NFC games. The theme for its show, “Fox NFL Sunday,” was composed by Scott Schreer, Reed Hays, and Phil Garrod, who pitched three separate songs to Fox, who then spliced them together into one.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The use of the minor key and heavy percussion of the Fox theme creates a more serious tone than the more laid-back light jazz/rock themes of its predecessor. The theme leads to a perception that the broadcast is less about a festive game of skilled athletes, and more about a life-or-death combat by gladiators.

Fox’s gladiatorial theme was soon imitated by both NBC and CBS, who in turn used minor key, martial music for their own broadcasts. In my September blog post, I wrote about John Williams’ theme to NBC’s “Sunday Night Football,” called by at least one fan as “Football’s Imperial March.”

Click here to view the embedded video.

What caused the shift from festive athletes to combative gladiators in American pro football TV broadcasts? It may have much to do with America’s militaristic posture during the past decade (two wars fought), or television networks’ desire to align the game with the combative, hyper-masculine ethos that emerged from the post 9/11 era.

However, I would contend that we haven’t lost the festive spirit completely in pro football on TV. While the “Fox NFL Sunday” theme has become nearly synonymous with the NFL with its serious, militaristic tone, if we listen to the opening motif of the theme, we might detect a resemblance to a portion of a famous winter holiday song:

Click here to view the embedded video.

The song is Leroy Anderson’s famous “Sleigh Ride,” sung here in a classic recording by Johnny Mathis. The melody at the beginning of the “B” section (“Giddy up! Giddy up! Giddy up! Let’s go!”) has a melodic profile identical to the beginning of the Fox football theme. Here is a melodic comparison:

So, did Schreer, Hays, and Garrod get their inspiration from a festive holiday song? Maybe televised football hasn’t lost its festive spirit after all!

Happy Holidays, everyone!

Ron Rodman is Dye Family Professor of Music at Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota. He is the author of Tuning In: American Television Music, published by Oxford University Press in 2010. Read his previous blog posts on music and television.

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Image credit: Image courtesy of Ron Rodman. Do not reproduce without permission.

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With Mike Tomlin on his way to his second Super Bowl in three years and with Black History Month upon us, this is an ideal time to examine the movement that broke down the color barrier at the top of National Football League’s coaching hierarchy and transformed the NFL into an unlikely equal opportunity trailblazer.  Moreover, as American institutions of all sorts, from the Association of Art Museum Directors to the National Urban League, contemplate the merits of emulating the NFL’s Rooney Rule, it is important to investigate what the NFL’s equal opportunity progress means to us as a nation. N. Jeremi Duru, author of Advancing the Ball: Race, Reformation, and the Quest for Equal Coaching Opportunity in the NFL, explores this concept of a post-racial NFL.

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