Letter from a Reader:
Friday Night Tykes Is Child Abuse
January 27, 2014 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
After watching the first two episodes of Friday Night Tykes on the Esquire Channel on Tuesday nights, I became sick to my stomach. Friday Night Tykes is a takeoff from the TV series, Friday Night Lights, about Texas high school football. Friday Night Tykes is a multi-week series that chronicles the teams, players, and families of a tackle football league in San Antonio, Texas, for eight-and nine-year-old kids.
The verbal and physical abuse and treatment of these children is so graphic and brutal that after watching this, you will never want your children to ever play tackle football again. Despite the fact that Esquire Channel responded to criticisms of this show by stating that the show brings up important and serious questions about parenting and safety in youth sports, it seems to me the real intent of this series is not about exposing the horrors of youth football, which it does, but principally about entertainment, and it's criminal.
In the first week, one coach yelled at his players, "You have the opportunity today to rip their freakin' head off and let them bleed." And another coach told a child, "I want you to put it in his helmet... I don't care if he don't get up. Let's go!" In the second week, some of the coaches' teaching methods included statements like, "This is a rough sport. You're gonna get hurt." "I could care less if other teams cry." And after one young player threw up on the field, his coach yelled at him, "Stop your fucking crying. Get back in there." The bullying is over the top, as one coach berated his player, "Boy, if you don't say something, I'll kick your ass."
But the worst parts of this show are the dangerous hits to the head that these children are receiving during practice and in the games that could result in permanent brain damage and ultimately death. (See "NFL Concussion Settlement: $765 Million to Suppress the Truth About Brain Injuries," Revolution #316, September 15, 2013.) One youth was shown in the hospital with all sorts of wires attached to his head after he received a severe concussion during the game. When he became conscious, he could not remember his mother's name, his father's name, and even his own name! His father refused to blame this on football, saying, "It wasn't football that it happened; it was just an unfortunate thing that it happened." His parents did have an understanding of the dangers of concussions and was holding him out for a while, but he was going to play again, and would only be stopped from playing by his parents if he gets three concussions. From what I saw, this one concussion was enough to stop him from playing.
One player got a severe head hit when he was being tackled in a game and was laid out on the field, completely motionless. The coaches ran out on the field screaming, "He's injured, he's injured." They show him getting up and walking slowly off the field, but in the next clip, he's out there in the game carrying the ball again. How can anyone have such a complete disregard for a child's well-being by placing him back in the game minutes after he was hurt?
Severe head hits and potential head injuries are almost totally disregarded. As a young player lies moaning on the ground after a head hit, people around him claim that he is okay and that he just "got stung."
There are all sorts of scenes with players crying and getting hurt. There are a lot of scenes showing violent head-hits and many players piling on one player. One player told his parents that he was fearful. "I really don't want to get injured," he told them at the dinner table.
Dr. Robert Cantu, a neurosurgeon, has co-authored a book titled Concussions and Our Kids: America's Leading Expert on How to Protect Young Athletes and Keep Sports Safe. He is an expert on concussions in youth sports and has shown that compared to adult brains, youth brains are particularly vulnerable because they do not have a protective coating that adult brains have. He also has pointed out that "Youngsters have big heads and weak necks, and that bobblehead-doll setup puts them at much greater risk for concussion." He has concluded that kids should not participate in tackle football until they are in high school. "It's not appropriate that we're subjecting their [youth] brains to that kind of trauma when the alternative is playing the sport anyway, through flag football, and still learning the skills of tackle football, but practicing those skills on pads and dummies and not getting hit." ("Dr. Robert Cantu Speaks Out About Concussions In Youth Sports," www.trainemupacademy.org, February 19, 2013)
Friday Night Tykes shows us the ideological training these kids are getting that is turning them into little macho soldiers for U.S. imperialism. "Stop being emotional," one kid is told. "Only women are emotional. This is football. This is a man's game." One youth, who is the star of the team, was going to miss a game because of a relative's wedding, but was told by his coach, in opposing his mother's decision to take him to the wedding, "The only wedding you should ever go to is your own wedding."
The analogy being made to these youth of football being compared to the military is constantly a part of this TV show. "We're going to war with our general and troops," a team was told. Another team was told, "Suit up. Put on your armor. You're gladiators, and you're going to war."
There have been a number of articles written about the show calling it "depressing," "not normal imagery," and "not about child's play." Even a spokesperson for the National Football League, after watching the show's preview, said "the show is definitely troubling to watch."
Well, I've seen enough of this show to know what it is about and I don't want to watch it any more: seeing these cute little kids getting their precious little brains knocked around, seeing them crying when they get hurt, seeing them bullied by their coaches, seeing them being trained in anti-woman and pro-military ideology. Further, this show is for me the final nail in the coffin of tackle football, a sport that I have grown up loving. I just can't see how tackle football can be a part of the kind of world I want to live in.
The world I want to live in is described in detail in the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America (Draft Proposal) from the Revolutionary Communist Party. I encourage people to check out this very important document. This Constitution deals with sports and physical activities to provide "entertainment and recreation and promote health and fitness throughout society." In the society described in the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America, the "emphasis [for sports and athletics] is given participation of people broadly, and in particular the youth, in sports of many different kinds. The role of competition in sports will be recognized and given its appropriate place, but the basic and overall priority in sports will be to foster bonds of friendship, comradeship, community, cooperation and the shared experience and joy of sport, along with its contribution to health and fitness."
Friday Night Tykes presents a reality that is the complete opposite of the kind of world that I want to live in. What kind of world do you want to live in?
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