Hats

I came close to being a Steelers fan this past year.

Well, actually, “fan” is probably too strong a word. I was going to root for Pittsburgh, because of the hats. I was going to hope they won in a very noncommittal way and maybe even catch a game or two on television.
The reason for this is that in January we were in Pittsburgh. Annaka was a few weeks out of surgery but still in the hospital. The older two kids and I, along with my parents, were visiting for the weekend. The Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh has a number of diversions, and we were spending some time in the 6^th floor atrium, a large, three story rec-room big enough for a kid to blow off some steam. We were planning on playing hockey, but New Era, the very famous sport cap company, was giving away Pittsburgh Pirates and Steelers hats in the middle of the room.

Now, like many of you, I could never convince myself to wear a Pirates anything. Pirates play baseball and I’m a Cardinal fan and therefore the Pirates are the enemy. Football, though, for me, is much more benign, so the kids picked out a few Steelers hats and we went on our way.

The caps didn’t really mean much to me one way or another, because I didn’t grow up with football. In high school we played baseball and basketball and we sometimes ran track. I’m a St. Louis fan, yes, but the Rams left, and I could never bring myself to consciously root for a Chicago franchise. (Again, it’s nothing personal against Chicago, it’s just…you know.)

However, as I’ve aged and had children, there was something about football that began to entice me. What I found appealing, besides the fact that it’s one of the rare times in a week where it’s socially acceptable to sit and eat junk food for three hours, is the tradition of it all.  I wanted to create a sports tradition for my kids, and the Steelers’ storyline made sense.

“Why are we Steelers fans, dad?” one of my kids would ask someday. “We live in Illinois.”

“Well, don’t you remember, child?” I would respond, “Little Annaka’s life was saved in Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh is the city of her second birth. And they also gave us those free hats.  Remember?”

The fact that the Steelers made it to the playoffs last year, of course, didn’t hurt.

It would be a quaint story, one that reinforced our family narrative. Rooting for Pittsburgh would be an annual source of family bonding. It would be something we could look forward to now and remember fondly when the kids are all grown up and act like they don’t know us.

And then, of course, the President picked up his smartphone.

As an abrupt rhetorical pivot, Mr. Donald J. Trump may be the only person in American history that consistently and unapologetically makes bad things worse just by telling us what he thinks.

For example, in case you haven’t heard, North Korea has nuclear missiles.  North Korea.  How does a person even make that worse?  The worseness of that situation should be imputable, like at a glass ceiling of bad.  But Trump did it.  He picked up his smartphone, cyberbullied the biggest psycho on the planet, and now here we are, the closest we have been to a nuclear war since the Cuban Missile Crisis.

And if that wasn’t enough, he has nearly ruined an entire NFL season, an organization that is already in need of a considerable P.R. makeover, by, again, simply not filtering what is in his brain.  The truth is, his stream-of-consciousness rambling is enough to get a pee wee soccer coach fired, but he’s the President. A certain amount of authenticity is nice, I guess, but seriously.  Openly mocking senators? From your own party? Please tell me the G.O.P. is vetting someone to start running against this guy a year from now.

Now, what do I, personally, think about the flag “controversy?”  Well, personally, I think it actually is disrespectful. It is shameful. My father served in Vietnam and I was always taught to respect the flag. It truly does bother me when Americans, regardless of their background, disrespect a symbol that people have fought and died for throughout our country’s 240 year history.

Having said that, however, we also need to keep in mind that forced patriotism is not really patriotism, and requiring someone to stand for a symbol that partially represents freedom of thought is a little suspect, anyway.

More importantly, however, the “not-standing-for-the-National-Anthem” thing would likely have died down after a while. Before Mr. Trump started tweeting about it and otherwise calling people names, players not standing were protesting a historical narrative and ideological position that you may or may not believe even exists. When the President became involved, however, it became personal. It became a protest against a specific individual doing what he has always done, which is to create controversy and incite division in order to boost ratings.

So, finally, let’s turn back to the hats.  I personally, cannot root for a team that refuses to respect the American flag. Even a basic understanding of how the world functions should convince a person that, “Hey, America has its problems, sure, but the least I can do is stand for my own country’s national anthem.” 

On the flip side of that, do I think the players have the “right” to kneel at football games?  Of course they do.  Do owners have the “right” to fine those players? Sure. It’s partially entertainment. If the script says to stand at attention and you don’t do that, then you also have the freedom to suffer the consequences. 

The entire spectacle, however, has become a useless diversion more suited for reality television than running a country. If only there had been hints.