We Are the Champions

For college football fans, this last weekend saw battles between old rivals, some of them within the same state. A few of the contests featured postgame brawling after the victors attempted to plant their collegiate flags on the opponents’ home field.

This kind of disrespect is tantamount to defeating an enemy, going into their village, and violating their women in front of the vanquished combatants and the entire citizenry.

North Carolina State University defeated the University of North Carolina 35 to 30. When the game was over, NC State defensive end Davin Vann took the “Tuffy” flag from one of the cheerleaders and tried to plant it at midfield on the Tar Heel logo. A brawl broke out.

The University of Florida defeated Florida State 31 to 10 in a bitter, in-state rivalry. At the game’s conclusion, Florida edge rusher George Gumbs Jr. ran to the logo and planted the flag at midfield. Another ruckus erupted.

The biggest brawl resulting from postgame taunting came from the University of Michigan’s upset of Ohio State, when Raheem Anderson and Tavierre Dunlap were reported to have “joined together to plant their giant Michigan flag in the center of Ohio Stadium.” The fighting was so bad that police had to use tear gas to quell it.

In the immediate aftermath of the fight, Michigan running back Kalel Mullings told FOX Sports in an on-field interview the incident was “bad for the sport.”

“Ok,” I thought to myself. “Sensible conjecture from this young man.”

Mr. Mullings continued, “It was such a great game. You hate to see stuff like that happen after the game. Bad for the sport, bad for college football.”

“Bravo, young man,” I thought.

“But, at the end of the game, they gotta learn how to lose, man. You can’t be fighting and stuff just because you lost a game.”

Clearly, the young man had missed the point.

Michigan had pulled the same stunt in 2022 when they defeated the Buckeyes, and Haitian-born football player Mike Sainristil planted the flag at the Ohio State fifty. No violence ensued, but it was not forgotten.

I wondered what is wrong with these people. Rubbing the opponent’s nose in his defeat is boorish and lacking in dignity and proper breeding.

As an American of European heritage, I am aware that symbols have meaning. There was, for example, no greater shame a Roman soldier could suffer in battle than for the aquilifer (the soldier who carried the legion’s eagle standard, or aquila) to allow the legion’s banner to fall into the hands of the enemy.

Winston Churchill spelled out the rules for behavior in regard to war in the epigraph to The Second World War: The Gathering Storm: “In War: Resolution / In Defeat: Defiance / In Victory: Magnanimity / In Peace: Good Will.” Magnanimity and good will seem sadly lacking these days.

It occurred to me that boorishness and unsportsmanlike conduct might be traditional among a certain group. I observed that every college football player mentioned by name above is black. So I did my homework.

Shaka Zulu, the great Zulu king and conqueror from 1816 to 1828, viewed war as a bloody battle ending with the total destruction of the enemy forces. He wrote, “In war, strike an enemy once and for all. Let him cease to exist as a clan or he will live to fly at your throat again.” He added, “If there must be war, let it be total war.”

That takes us beyond the hot bloodedness of college “kids” to some of the unnecessary and ill-conceived acts of barbarism in the National Football League. On Sunday, the Jacksonville Jaguars quarterback Trevor Lawrence, while sliding at the end of a six-yard run, suffered a concussion from a vicious hit by Houston Texans defender Azeez Al-Shaair.

The NFL suspended Mr. Al-Shaair for three games as punishment for the illegal hit. And he himself issued an apology after the game: “To Trevor [I] genuinely apologize to you for what ended up happening . . . .” But he added, “To the rest of the people who I’ve been called every single name in the book from reporters with their hands ready for a story to find their [villain], to racist and Islamophobic fans and people, you don’t know my heart nor my character which I don’t need to prove to any of you. God knows my intentions and anyone who has ever been a teammate or friend of mine knows my heart.”

Yes, it’s all about those Islamophobic fans.

This season, there have been 21 incidents of NFL players being ejected for dirty play. Every one of those players was black.

As a young football fan in 1978, I was struck by an incident in which Oakland Raider Jack Tatum made a hit against New England Patriots wide receiver Darryl Stingley in a preseason game. Mr. Stingley was paralyzed from the neck down by that hit, which was not ruled illegal, only hard. What seared the incident into my memory was that Mr. Tatum, who took great pride in his nickname “The Assassin,” never visited quadriplegic Darryl Stingley in all the years thereafter and never even called. In 1980 Mr. Tatum published a book, They Call Me Assassin, in which he was unapologetic for his pain-inflicting, violent ways.

Many blacks now consider themselves the owners of the sport, and some have openly proclaimed their superiority at it. About a year ago, former NFL running back Rashard Mendenhall called for a racially segregated football game to replace the Pro Bowl. Posting to X, he wrote: “I’m sick of average white guys commenting on football. Y’all not even good at football. Can we please replace the Pro Bowl with an All-Black vs. All-White bowl so these cats can stop trying to teach me who’s good at football. I’m better than ur goat” (“goat” is an abbreviation for “Greatest Of All Time”).

What if Mr. Mendenhall has the right idea? What if we do him one better and split the entire sport into two leagues — one all-white and the other all-black? We would probably end up with one league that displays plenty of skill and sportsmanship, and another that might have a bit more speed and athleticism but lacks sportsmanship. That league would probably feature plenty of taunting, violence, and mayhem.

That would be fine, as far as I am concerned. I would watch the contests of the former, where the players display behavior worthy of emulation, and I would leave the other league to fans of its own.

Maybe the “White League” would develop into something like rugby, which is largely but not exclusively a white man’s sport. Rugby originated in England in 1823 and came to be called “a hooligans game played by gentlemen.” It is a beautiful, bone-crunching, exciting, and rough sport that I highly recommend. Each match consists of 80 minutes of play with fast-paced, continuous action; no huddles; and no timeouts. On the high school, club, and collegiate levels, it’s traditional for the two opposing teams to socialize after a match.

How very white.