Life Imitates Art
 

Growing up as a kid I had several favorite sports movies. You know the classics, Caddyshack, The Longest Yard, Slapshot… the list goes on and on. However, one movie in particular that caught my attention, though I was not allowed to see, yet somehow I did, was North Dallas Forty. This movie came out in 1979.  It was a semi-fictional account of life as a professional football player. Loosely based on the Dallas Cowboys team of the early 1970's. It starred Nick Nolte, Charles Durning, Mac Davis and several others. I remember being shocked, amused, and thinking to myself how pro football players were rock stars of the gridiron. The excessive partying, the carousing with women, the drug taking and alcohol consumption, etc.  Now, several years later as an adult, I still pop that movie in and I really see the message. It is not only an account of a bunch of fun-loving, TV-throwing, screaming giants busting each other up on the field. It is an indictment of the harsh realities that many pro players have and continue to participate in: steroids, rapes, domestic violence, illegal drug and alcohol abuse, unethical business practices (by agents and teams also)… the list goes on and on. Yes it is a downer, but often times a cold hard fact, as the character played by former Oakland Raider, John Matuszak, yells in the movie, "Every time I call it a game you  call it a business.  Every time I call it a business you call it a game!"  Ouch! I don't like painting the picture so completely bleak, Hell I don't make the news, I just talk about it. As a kid when I first saw this movie I was enamored by what appeared to be glamorous.  Now I'm just brought right down to earth and I see that ART IS IMITATING LIFE.