Photo by Vinnie Cammarano
Key Points
My vote for attorney general will go to whichever candidate pledges to decriminalize “the flinch.”
An offensive lineman, a guy who weighs in at close to a fifth of a ton, is required to squat down publicly while wearing extremely tight pants, a stance and a costume that both look very comfortable. After becoming “set,” he must, according to football law, remain totally motionless for as long as it takes for his quarterback to quit barking like a dog or hollering “HUT HUT FORTY TWO BLUE MIKE SEVEN” or some other secret code.
These words are instructions – sort of like a GPS. The lineman needs to hear them in order to go bust the appropriate head.
His head, meanwhile, is encased in expanded polypropylene foam surrounded by an outer shell of injection-molded polycarbonate, aka a helmet. It’s like having a high-tech bucket on your head and is not optimal for hearing, which is why human heads come equipped with ears instead of listening holes. To add to the difficulty, there are 50,000 deranged students and alumni hollering into each opening.
The sixth-of-a-ton slobbering psychotic across from the offensive lineman can prance around, jump, make threatening gestures, move back and forth, and try to time a running start. If the offensive lineman moves, even ever so slightly, he is treated like he kidnapped the Lindbergh baby.
The guys on the other side start pointing at him and one might even run up and legally push him over. Whistles blow, the coach throws his visor, approximately half the crowd moans, the cheerleaders look puzzled, and the “yellow rag of official disapprobation” is thrown into the air. While the poor guy stands there in his own little circle of self-loathing, the referee goes to the sideline, looks into a camera and CALLS HIS NUMBER.
I ask you, has this man not suffered enough? Why take five yards away from his team? That penalty, by the way, is a clear case of collective punishment, outlawed by Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention.
In the NCAA, players are still technically students. When I taught, we were told to handle minor issues on the spot by redirecting behavior. Referees could do that. They could be equipped with fly swatters and, when a lineman flinches, whack him one on the rump and say sternly, “we don’t do that here…cut it out.”
Besides, a flinch is a sudden, small INVOLUNTARY movement – by definition, the guy didn’t mean to do it. He’s being punished for an accident, which is downright medieval, like when they used to put some serf’s eyes out for looking at a king.
Have we not advanced any more than this as a culture? We need to stop this madness. It’s time for equity on both sides of the line of scrimmage, fair play and a square deal and opportunities for all of our oversized children in tight pants.
Free them from the flinch. And free up our intercollegiate on-field law enforcement officials to focus on the things that really matter.
Like keeping an eye out for the illegal shift – whatever in the heck that is.