{"id":28677,"date":"2022-02-12T03:56:00","date_gmt":"2022-02-12T03:56:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=28677"},"modified":"2022-02-16T14:19:46","modified_gmt":"2022-02-16T14:19:46","slug":"what-the-conversation-talks-about-when-it-talks-about-football-3-essential-reads-ahead-of-the-super-bowl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/what-the-conversation-talks-about-when-it-talks-about-football-3-essential-reads-ahead-of-the-super-bowl\/","title":{"rendered":"What The Conversation talks about when it talks about football: 3 essential reads ahead of the Super Bowl"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Matt Williams<\/a>, The Conversation<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Super Bowl is all about wings. Well, it\u2019s about wings and commercials. OK, OK, it is about wings, commercials and four 15-minute quarters of broken play interspersed with moments of occasional sporting drama and a halftime singsong.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In fact, football is about all that and much more. Over the last 12 months, The Conversation has published articles on everything from race and sexuality in the NFL to how climate change may affect the game<\/a> in years to come.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So if this year\u2019s Super Bowl is a little dull, or you simply want to avoid being sold a truck every commercial break, here are a few interesting reads on what is happening in the football, but off the field.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1. NFL\u2019s abysmal record on hiring diverse coaches<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Super Bowl LVI is taking place in the shadow of a controversy over racial discrimination in the the NFL. On Feb. 1, former Miami Dolphins head coach Brian Flores filed a lawsuit against three teams and the league, alleging a pattern of racist hiring practices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To George B. Cunningham, professor of sport management at Texas A&M University, the legal development is perhaps hardly surprising. His article explores<\/a> the \u201cglaring absence of nonwhite head coaches\u201d in the NFL.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cunningham notes that at the beginning of the 2021 season there were just three Black head coaches in the NFL \u2013 the same as there were in 2003.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This isn\u2019t a result of performance; there is no evidence that Black coaches are less qualified or have worse results. Rather, Cunningham notes, \u201cbiased decision-making, organizational cultures that value similarity, and societal forms of bias and discrimination are all to blame for the lack of diversity among NFL head coaches.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2. An equally bad record on supporting gay athletes<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Racial gaps at the top level of coaching isn\u2019t the only disparity in American football. There is also a distinct lack of gay athletes in the sport.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In fact, the first openly gay active NFL player only came out in June 2021. The announcement, by Las Vegas Raiders defensive lineman Carl Nassib, received widespread attention and praise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Penn State\u2019s John Affleck writes that to \u201chave a gay player in America\u2019s most-watched sport represents a landmark moment\u201d but that it does not mean \u201cthe end of homophobia in sport.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Affleck notes the case<\/a> of Michael Sam, a star college football player who was projected as a fourth-round draft pick heading into 2014. But after confirming in interviews that he was gay, he slid to a sixth-round projection. Ultimately, \u201che was not selected until the 249th pick overall \u2013 eighth to last \u2013 in the final round of the draft,\u201d Affleck writes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Barriers to out athletes continue today. Affleck cites 2021 research showing that half of LGBTQ respondents to a survey said they had \u201cexperienced discrimination, insults, bullying or abuse while playing, watching or talking about sports.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

3. Decision making away from the field of play<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Big players made big calls during this year\u2019s NFL season \u2013 but not all of them were right, and not all of them were on the field.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers made a call that was out of his field of expertise \u2013 and he was very, very wrong.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A few days after being diagnosed with COVID-19, Rodgers offered what USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences\u2019s Joe \u00c1rvai described as<\/a> \u201ca smorgasbord of pandemic misinformation and conspiracy theories\u201d defending his decision to skip the COVID-19 vaccine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As someone who studies how people think, \u00c1rvai was also intrigued by Rodgers\u2019s claim that his position on vaccination was due to his being \u201ca critical thinker.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To \u00c1rvai, critical thinking is not \u201csome after-the-fact justification someone makes to convince others \u2013 or themselves \u2013 that their opinions or behaviors are sound.\u201d Rather, it is a \u201cpattern of behaviors that happen before someone makes a judgment, like coming to the conclusion that something is risky.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He outlines three ingredients for critical thinking:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

  1. Acknowledging when to balance instinctive reactions with the need for a heavier psychological lift.<\/li>
  2. Following basic principles regarding information and being willing to change your mind in response to new insights.<\/li>
  3. Recognizing when it is time to look for experts to help.<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    \u201cUnfortunately, Aaron Rodgers is far from alone when it comes to poor critical thinking,\u201d \u00c1rvai laments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Matt Williams<\/a>, Breaking News Editor, The Conversation<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    This article is republished from The Conversation<\/a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Matt Williams, The Conversation The Super Bowl is all about wings. Well, it\u2019s about wings and commercials. OK, OK, it is about wings, commercials and four 15-minute quarters of broken play interspersed with moments of occasional sporting drama and a halftime singsong. In fact, football is about all that and much more. Over the last […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":28678,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[293,8025],"tags":[11317,3982,414,2071,305,498,4389,313,155,463,11316],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28677"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28677"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28677\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28679,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28677\/revisions\/28679"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28678"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28677"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28677"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28677"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}