Football took another blow to the head at a University of Maryland symposium, with several sportswriters acknowledging that it’s going to be hard to make a collision sport brain-safe. Bob Costas scored the lead quote with “This game destroys people’s brains.”
Speaking of brains, young-fogey conservative Matt Lewis took a swipe at unkempt svengali Steve Bannon, pointing to Virginia as proof white nationalism won’t work on a purple electorate. Of course, Lewis said just the other day Gillespie wasn’t running a racist campaign, so add salt to taste.
No, journalists will never tire of interviewing Trump voters in flyover country, if only because they’re easy to find; they’re stuck where they are, like the bunch Politico found in Johnstown, Pa. The biggest surprise — or is it? — was that these folks were most enraged not by Democrats but by the NFL protesters.
“Shame on them,” Del Signore said. “These clowns are out there, making millions of dollars a year, and they’re using some stupid excuse that they want equality—so I’ll kneel against the flag and the national anthem?”
“You’re not a fan of equality?” I asked.
“For people who deserve it and earn it,” he said. “All my ancestors, Italian, 100 percent Italian, the Irish, Germans, Polish, whatever—they all came over here, settled in places like this, they worked hard and they earned the respect. They earned the success that they got. Some people don’t want to do that. They just want it handed to them.”
“Like NFL players?” I said.
“Well,” Del Signore responded, “I hate to say what the majority of them are …” He stopped himself short of what I thought he was about to say.
Schilling and her husband, however, did not restrain themselves.
“The thing that irritates me to no end is this NFL shit,” Schilling told me in her living room. “I’m about ready to go over the top with this shit. We do not watch no NFL now.” They’re Dallas Cowboys fans. “We banned ’em. We don’t watch it.”
Schilling looked at her husband, Dave McCabe, who’s 67 and a retired high school basketball coach. She nodded at me. “Tell him,” she said to McCabe, “what you said the NFL is …”
McCabe looked momentarily wary. He laughed a little. “I don’t remember saying that,” he said unconvincingly.
Schilling was having none of it. “You’re the one that told me, liar,” she said.
She looked at me.
The NFL?
“Niggers for life,” Schilling said.
“For life,” McCabe added.
Which brings us, full circle, back to brain damage.