How We Talk When We Talk About Johnny Manziel (Ombudsmandry)

For those of you who may not know, Johnny Manziel, a redshirt freshman quarterback for Texas A&M won the Heisman Trophy last season (the first freshman to do so) and guided the Aggies to an 11-2 record and a no. 5 finish in the AP Poll.

I'm reminded of this nearly every day because Manziel's exploits, both on the field and off, are meticulously documented through social and traditional media. America can't get enough of the legend of Johnny Football. That's right, grown men are unabashedly and unironically calling a 20-year old kid "Johnny Football" (Johnny Fucking Football, if you're not into the whole brevity thing). 

Since winning the Heisman and beating Oklahoma in the Cotton Bowl. Manziel has been spotted sitting courtside at various sporting events, earned a new Mercedes, took in Mardi Gras in New Orleans, done his level best to avoid contact with actual Aggie fans, was declared the "King of Cabo" by TMZ and met rapper/former Degrassi hero Drake. (I bet he calls him Aubrey). 

Johnny Manziel is America's hero. He's the rootinest, tootenist quarterback since Broadway Joe. He's living the dream of every poor schlub with long dashed d-1 aspirations. He's got talent, fame and, apparently, unlimited access to basically everything. 

Think on that readers, dwell on that, dwell on the fact that Manziel basically exists as a youthful surrogate for your average football fan.

Now... imagine if Manziel was black. 

Did I just blow your mind? Did I just go Toure on your ass?

Ok, so don't actually imagine the Johnny Manziel is black - that's a weird and unproductive thought exercise. 

Instead imagine that, out of nowhere, a black freshman quarterback put on an electric season, won the Heisman trophy and then proceeded to party his ass off for the ensuing four months - popping dom in the club with his parents, driving an expensive car and trolling his own fanbase. 

There would be mass hysteria! It's pure, unadulterated gloryboyism! 

Imagine with me, if you will, if that same athlete had been arrested only a few weeks prior to the start of the season for scrapping in a bar district and using a fake ID? (It should be noted that Manziel missed no playing time for this, and his punishment was handled internally).

Why he'd not only be a glory boy, but also a thug! He'd be no good to anyone. Awarding him the Heisman trophy would be a disgrace to the good name of the Downtown Athletic club. (Gregg Easterbrook would personally bar the doors to the event).

"But Kyle," you say, "we're living in post-accidental racist America. Surely you're trying to make mountains out of molehills?"

I counter, "Bullshit." 

There was another electric young quarterback who recently came out of nowhere to destroy SEC offensive records and win a Heisman Trophy. Like Johnny Manziel, the fans have also given him a charming nickname. 

Perhaps you're familiar with $cam Newton? 

Newton's no innocent (he was kicked out of Florida for stealing a laptop and someone in has family probably received a hefty sum for delivering him to Auburn), but he certainly doesn't deserve the amount of vitriol that is routinely leveled at him via sports radio and online forums. 

You may argue that Cam is actually castigated because he allegedly took money to play at Auburn and thus violated the romanticized notion that all college players are just dedicated "student-athletes" playing to lift the spirits of their fellow young scholars. If intimations of untoward behavior are all it takes to stain an athlete forever, I point toward Manziel's sudden influx of discretionary cash and priority access to basketball games. After I'm done pointing at that, I'll point toward A&M's own illustrious history.

(Ahem...)

But, if you still think Cam is a false equivalency, turn instead to former Oklahoma State star (and apparent nightclub enthusiast) Dez Bryant. Prior to being drafted into the NFL, Bryant was asked by Miami Dolphins' GM Jeff Ireland if his mother was a prostitute. That question is not only utterly inappropriate, but also oh wow yeah kind of racist. 

Even more egregious than Ireland's questioning was the Palm Beach Post's Ben Volin claiming that Bryant's recent behavior justifies what Ireland asked. Go home America - clearly racism is solved. 

"Ok," you concede, "maybe there is a little bit of double standard. Maybe black athletes are more highly scrutinized and more harshly judged than white ones, but why single out Johnny Football?" 

Let's delve back into that arrest report from earlier:

Seaton says an officer on bike patrol intervened to break up a fight between Manziel and McKinney. McKinney told the officer that Brant, Manziel's friend, called him a racial slur and he approached 

Brant. Seaton says Manziel then shoved McKinney and the two exchanged punches.

The arrest that kicked off the legend of Johnny Football all started because Manziel felt that he was honor-bound to defend his friend's right to degrade a passing pedestrian with a slur. 

Of course, that's all dependent on whether or not the police report is true. It's possible that McKinney embellished the story, or that Manziel didn't hear Brant say what he said.

Regardless, it's odd to me that no one in the national media has asked about this particular part of the incident, if only to get a good soundbite of Manziel admonishing such behavior.

Instead, it's swept under the rug, it's not something that's fun to talk about.

Just like it's not fun to talk about the incredible chasm between the way in which Manziel is received and the way previous, black, college superstars have been received. 

It's a difficult thing to write about. First, one must prove that there is a clear difference in public perception - which is pretty hard to do - and even then, the type of person who doesn't want to think about these kind of things will claim that there is no difference and that the writer is merely "race-baiting" (the preferred phrase of anyone avoiding introspection for the past forty years).

Beyond that, what purpose does such an observation actually serve? It tells us that football fans may be racist (however inadvertently) and may have a selective bias about whether or not an athlete's behavior offends him or her, but that's not news. 

What does the legend of Johnny Football tell us about America?

I think the most basic (and, again, not unexplored answer) is that white behavior is still very much held up as normative. When a black athlete indulges in the perks that come with talent it's seen as aberrant and detrimental to "The Game" - the sport-above-sport from which all punditry flows. 

When a white athlete partakes in similar indulgences, he is praised for having fun out there and doing what anyone would do in his situation. 

Of course, my conclusions about all of this could be wrong, but I'm dead certain that the way we're ignoring this double standard is a black eye on sports journalism as a whole. 

I Went to the Alabama Game (A Southern Gothic Tale)

My deep love of the brawny men is no secret. I would estimate that I spend at least three hours per day reading about college football in some form. This brings me great pleasure, but, for the most part, I am assaulted on all sides by my nearest companions about the foolishness of my passion. Regardless, I ignore them and soldier on. In the parlance of John L Smith, my piss is hot.

The big time game of opening weekend this year was the annual Cowboys' Classic, held at Jerry Jones' stadium in Arlington. It's meant to be a showcase game for high profile teams (occasionally, it's not) and this year happened to feature a top 10 matchup, #2 Alabama vs #8 Michigan.

My younger brother happens to be an Alabama student, and, through the back alleys of the natural gas world, my father managed to secure four suite tickets to the game - so it was decided that the three of us would attend. This meant missing a UT home game, but, much to my girlfriend's chagrin, I made up for this absence during the week by securing a ticket to our upcoming game against Ole Miss in Oxford.

It should be noted that I bear an intense dislike of the SEC as a whole and Alabama in particular. I find the conference's athletic achievements to be overstated and won through unscrupulous means. The fact that SEC has now become a thinly-veiled codeword for some of the worst parts of southern culture is also troubling. There may be a nobility in the idea of this ragtag group of largely poor and obese states coming together in unity to challenge the rest of the nation, but any grandness is rapidly nullified by the boorish crowing of these yokels.

Bama is the focusing lens for all of this SEC pride, and perhaps that is why they are the most deplorable. The school claims 14 titles (of which only a handful are legitimate), they backed into an undeserved championship last year, and they are coached by an unethical egomaniac who routinely bends rules meant to protect student-athletes in order to give himself an advantage on the playing field.

That said, I somehow found myself walking through the parking lot of Cowboy's Stadium in a red shirt, surrounded by similarly clad southerners with red faces and red solo cups.

Both fan bases had assembled an impressive contingent of tailgating rigs, so hats off to those intrepid travelers.

As my father and I approached the stadium, a young, friendly looking drunk pounced ahead of us and shouted, "Roll tide!" My conditioned response whenever yelled to in a parking lot on a fall Saturday is to cast up my pinky and forefinger and shout, "Hook 'Em." I was halfway through the ritual when I realized that this was an inappropriate setting. Luckily, the drunk wandered off during my confusion, so no harm was done.

We accidentally tried to enter the wrong gate, so we were forced to lurk further around the outside of the stadium. This provided time for more people watching. There wasn't much of note to see. There was an A&M tailgate set up, doubtless the work of some poor Aggies desperate to ingratiate themselves with their new SEC overlords. There was also a tailgate manned by a Bama fraternity which featured a tasteful cardboard sign that simply read, "Tits?" I didn't see any evidence that this act of romance was having its intended effect.

My brother and the proper gate located, we headed into the air-conditioned confines of what is informally known as the Death Star. The suite is a pretty nice place to watch a game, particularly if it's a game between two teams that you don't take any particular interest in. There are three televisions mounted on the walls. One was showing Mississippi State, the other Auburn, and the third the Rangers. If this game had taken place in 2008, there's no way in hell that a Ranger game would be on the television. Anyone who suggested such a stupid thing would be summarily tossed out.

There was a small table with hors-d'ouvres - shrimp, veggies and hummus, macaroni and cheese. I loaded up on shrimp and hand cut chips while my father paraded us about, introducing my brother and I to all of the folks from his company who had come out to the game. One man showed us a photo he had taken with Gene Stallings, who had apparently been wandering around our area. Stallings coached at Texas A&M from 1965-1971 where he amassed a 27-45-1 record, as well as two NCAA probations.  He also contributed to the maelstrom of idiocy that was the Texas A&M move to the SEC this past summer. He also won a national title at Alabama (where he earned another major NCAA infraction), which is why he was at the game. I'm glad I didn't have to see him and pretend to respect him.

Introductions and whatnot over, I settled in with a Shiner Bock to endure the war of attrition that is Nick Saban football.

The game quickly got out of hand, which was unsurprising. What was surprising was the behavior of the Alabama fans around me. As I stated previously, I really love college football. I am often chastised for how much I love it, and yet, I don't think that I can say I love college football in the way that these Bama fans did. I'm not sure I love anything the way the love Bama. It was a sort of primal passion that I don't think I could summon unless threaten by a bear or other woodland creature. Even the most insignificant play was greeted with uproarious cheers or vicious curses. Grown men were stomping about like angry schoolchildren after poor play - it was, quite frankly, unnerving.

I hate to perpetuate the idea that the SEC has the best fans in college football, as I think there is more to being a fan than pure unadulterated passion. I think that a sense of decorum and an understanding of the game is a necessary component to ideal fandom. Passion is important, yes, but if it's purely passion then all of the WGS wanks who love to prattle on about sports being a modern day form of barbarism have a point. It reduces fandom to an animalistic fervor that is decidedly unbecoming. There were also some sequined ladies in front of the band, whose only purpose appeared to be shaking their chests back and forth to the fight song, another thing that said WGS wanks would not care for.

Paul Tillich, imminent 20th century scholar of religion, postulated that the essence of faith is Ultimate Concern. As defined in his work Dynamics of Faith here.

"Man, like every living being, is concerned about many things, above all about those which condition his very existence...If [a situation or concern] claims ultimacy it demands the total surrender of him who accepts this claim...it demands that all other concerns...be sacrificed."

(Thanks Wikipedia).

Now, I would never compare football driven ecstasy to religion, because that is reductionistic and unhelpful and, generally the work of first-year philosophy student wanks who don't know their ass from the exit to Plato's cave.

However, what I witnessed last Saturday came awfully close to Ultimate Concern. For those three and a half hours, nothing mattered more to the fans in red than Alabama football. I suddenly understood how these grown and semi-educated (no offense, Ryan) were capable of deluding themselves into believing that they had earned 14 championships, that Nick Saban was an honorable coach, that Alabama deserved to be the number one team every year. In the words of Tillich, their love of Alabama football had "transcended the drives of the nonrational unconsciousness and the structures of the rational consciousness." Football had rendered their thinking bodies inert, all that was left were rammers and jammers and yellow hammers spilling out of their hearts and mouths.

So, I watched a hapless Michigan team get beaten down. I watched Saban joylessly command his squadron of oversigned troops. I engaged in a ridiculous dance with the bartender upon the acquisition of each fresh Shiner Bock, due to his insistence that I utilize the utterly impractical koozie that he had foisted upon me. But most of all, and for the first time I ever, I watched myself become a little disgusted by the Brawny Men and the effect that they had on those around me.

Luckily, I got to go home and watch OU struggle against UTEP, and all was right with the universe.