but the question for me is why is the game no longer as "family friendly" as it was when I was in my 20s and 30s ? My wife has a solid answer. When we were first married in 1963 the Coliseum crowd was much older than today. She argues that television has made the game far more popular with its focus on the younger generation which has resulted in a much younger crowd and hence the higher testosterone level. My addition to that is that for some unexplained reason our youngsters today are not as secure within themselves as before and one way of making yourself feel better about yourself is to put someone else down. Also the over identification to a team -as in the article above-means you have a personal stake in your team-hence a higher emotional investment -much like someone putting your wife or children down.
There was a small movie on the subject not long ago called The Fan. it was about a parking lot attendant who had no one in his life except a certain professional football team. He would call in to a local sport talk program every day and listened to sport talk all day. When he got fed up with the team's QB he actually investigated the habits of the player and went to kill him !
But even outside of sports I find young people far more aggressive in whatever they pursue than I can remember at that age. So I think we are actually taught to be aggressive. I know in my profession it used to be that you could sit down with opposing counsel or with the insurance company and work out a compromise settlement beneficial to both sides. Today it's all out war !
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/23/2016 10:25AM by waterfield.
