The Game is History

Long ago, I was one of those people who religiously followed football. Football serves as a wonderful metaphor for war, America and life but in the end it’s just a game.

I hate to be one of those football geeks who recalls the long gone age before Nike and multi-million dollar contracts ruined the sport but it’s hard not the get philosophical about the Chiefs during the Stram era. Compared to present day, the salaries were a mere pittance and TV coverage had yet to create touchdown dances and the like. More importantly, a lower income family could still afford to go the games and the parking lot wasn’t full of Johnson County dirtbags camping, er . . . tailgating. . . er . . . posing. Finally, the players seemed to have just a little more class than the mink coat wearing, blonde groupie screwing crack addicts that haunt Westport and The Plaza regardless of a win or loss.

Anyway, the most obvious aspect of Stram’s passing is that the old film that captures him during his heyday looks as though it could have been shot a hundred years ago. Present day NFL coaches don’t have charisma or charm, they’re little CEO’s. The game isn’t entertainment for working class families anymore; instead the pastime is branded content consumed in franchise sports bars and merchandized across the globe with apparel manufactured on some far off Asian peninsula. Like Stram, the glory days of the football and the Chiefs are dead.