Like a lot of football fans last Sunday, I was giddy that the Super Bowl was finally upon us.
Before the game, I sat around anxiously for a few hours and wondered who was going to win, how they were going to win and which of my friends would bring some halfway decent beer.
Needing to find an outlet for my excitement, I switched over to ESPN to watch the “Sunday Countdown: Special Edition,” to see what my fellow sports journalists deemed worthy enough to discuss.
There was certainly no shortage of topics covered by ESPN. They ran a piece on the trials and tribulations of Cardinals quarterback Kurt Warner, a piece on the youth of Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin, and, of course, a piece on Steelers safety Troy Polamalu’s hair.
Then I saw something that made me see the NFL in a new light.
ESPN ran a segment on Pat Tillman, a former Arizona defensive back who, after the Sept. 11 attacks, decided to forego an NFL career to enlist in the U.S. Army.
Tillman served several tours in the Middle East and on April 22, 2004, he was shot and killed in what was determined to be a case of friendly fire, an Army term that denotes an apparent accidental killing of a soldier by another soldier of the same company. Congress is still investigating the specifics of Tillman’s death.
ESPN reported that Tillman is being considered for honorary induction into the Pro Football Hall of Fame for his sacrifice. Multi-network football analyst Cris Collinsworth went as far to say that Tillman’s act was “the essence of what the NFL and its players are all about.”
I’m no expert, but I would think that a person who opted to risk his life to serve the interests of his country as opposed to getting a multi-million dollar contract for swatting at a ball is the very antithesis of what the NFL is all about.
What ESPN, Collinsworth and a lot of pundits seem to often forget is that the NFL (and every other sporting league, for that matter) exists to entertain. That’s it. The only difference between an NFL game and two people playing Madden ’09 on a Playstation 3 is that more people want to watch the NFL game. Other than that, their societal contributions are about the same.
If the NFL does admit Tillman to the Hall of Fame, it will be exploiting his patriotism and sacrifice to further its public image. It would be disgusting to equate his actions with those who are remembered just for playing a game well. Tillman deserves to be honored, but not by the organization that he shunned in order to pursue something greater.

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