The Duke of Wellington said, ten years after the battle while at Eton: “The battle of Waterloo was won here.” Richard Sherman, the outspoken cornerback, has a similar perspective:
I understand that football teaches you values. It teaches you accountability. It teaches you work ethic. It teaches you how to be a teammate. It teaches you how to overcome adversity. How to deal with loss. How to deal with being coachable. All those are skills that translate to the real world. In just about any job, you have to be part of a team. Don’t go into other people’s lanes. Football teaches you those lessons. It teaches you at a young age. It teaches you to overcome fear. It teaches you, ‘Hey, I’m 190 pounds and he’s 305 pounds. I still have to have to have the courage to go in there and mix it up with him.’ Those are lessons I don’t know how to teach otherwise … There’s a chance you’re getting hurt but there’s also a chance that you learn these lessons, you have a great life, you have a career. If you don’t play professionally, if you don’t even play in college, those life lessons that you learn will translate and elevate you in life in general.
Many of these things are true of all team sports, although football is special when it comes to teaching courage due to its intensely physical nature. Those who mock it as “sportsball” are ignorant fools and physical cowards who would never dare to line up in the trenches, either as children or adults, and will be of no utility whatsoever when the shooting starts.