Football: Archetypal Struggle, Deep Personal Identity

Why is football so "big?" How do we become so emotionally invested in our respective teams? It's just a game right? I don't think so. Football in the United States (as soccer in other countries) is an archetypal struggle tied directly to our deepest personal identity.

Jung revealed to all of us the power of what he called the "archetypes". He described them in various ways but essentially they're deep, powerful impulses, or instincts, that we all share. He labeled this and a related concept "The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious." The volume of his collected works with that label is well worth reading.

The classic archetypes he describes in that volume include "The Hero", "The Wise Old Man", and "The Mother", among others. These ideas and instincts are embedded deep within us.

They are so powerful and descriptive of our human experience that in literature and movie analysis and criticism the term "archetype" has split off from Jung into a slightly different but highly related meaning. There the word refers directly to certain plot or character "formulas," like "the hero", that are manifestations of Jung's abstract concept.

Of IMDB's list of the top grossing films of all time, about 80% the top twenty are about an epic archetypal struggle, the battle between good and evil. (e.g. "Star Wars" series, "Dark Knight", "Lord of the Rings" series, "Harry Potter" series.) Real fans of these movies feel a deeply personal connection to these movies that they can't seem to put into words. They can't seem to collect enough memorabilia and other symbols to express that attachment.

It is the same with football.

On the football field we witness an epic, archetypal battle. The quarterback is often "the hero." Older coaches are manifestations of the "wise old man" archetype. The team is made of players that are the warriors in a knock-down, drag-out struggle between good and evil.

This appeals to our deepest competitive instincts, instincts tied directly to our very need to survive. As Sumner Redstone pointed out in his autobiography, "The will to win is the will to survive."

This is why NFL Films, the exclusive producers of all those famous NFL football reels that we've been watching since the 70's, the ones with the slow-mo scenes of awesome hits, tackles, etc. presented those films with epic movie music playing in the background.

We watch as if an epic battle were unfolding on the field.

Remember George Carlin's brilliant and funny piece in which he compares baseball and football? Here's a little extract:

"In football the object is for the quarterback, also known as the field general, to be on target with his aerial assault, riddling the defense by hitting his receivers with deadly accuracy in spite of the blitz, even if he has to use shotgun. With short bullet passes and long bombs, he marches his troops into enemy territory, balancing this aerial assault with a sustained ground attack that punches holes in the forward wall of the enemy's defensive line..."

Now combine all this with that fact that our allegiance to one team or the other is usually tied to our very personal identity through deeply seeded personal elements such as where we went to college, our frat brothers, or more powerful still, where our respective families are from, or where we grew up.

So it's not just a game to us. Chess is just a game, but not football. As far as the instincts it triggers within us, we might as well be going to war ourselves to defend our family and home town. That's why we see "war paint", "war chants", flags flying in the wind, and other symbols associated with an army. Hell the awesome polynesian high school football teams do their ancestor's actual tribal war dances before each game.

So no wonder we cry, scream, and shout for our teams.

We're defending our personal identity, driven by our primal instinct to survive.

-Forsyth