Y.A. Tittle died last week. A Hall of Fame quarterback for the New York Giants, he is best known for the taking a knee on a football field. Actually, it was two knees.
In September 1964, the Giants were facing the Pittsburgh Steelers at old Pitt Stadium. Tittle was 38 years old and at the tail end of a 17-year professional career. He had led his team to three straight NFL Championship Games, in ’61, ’62, and ’63, but did not win.
In the game against the Steelers, he dropped back into his own end zone to throw a pass. He was viciously knocked to the ground and his helmet flew off. The pass was intercepted for a touchdown.
He struggled to his knees and stared blankly into the open field, bleeding from his head. The other players backed off and left him to himself. At that moment, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette photographer Morris Berman snapped a picture.
<snip>
In the 1960s, American culture was fracturing along a fault line, with the common man on one side and scorn against his mores and values on the other. The league’s commissioner at the time, Pete Rozelle, chose to take the side of ordinary Americans in the raging culture war, because they were his natural audience. The league sent star players to visit troops in Vietnam and issued rules requiring players to stand upright during the playing of the National Anthem.
In 1967, the NFL produced a film that combined sideline and game footage titled, “They Call It Pro Football.” The film was unapologetically hokey. It was crew cuts and high tops and lots of chain smoking into sideline telephones. With a non-rock, non-folk, non-“what’s happening now” soundtrack, heavy on trumpets and kettle drums. John Facenda, who would come to be called “The Voice of God” for his work with NFL Films, provided the vaulting narration. The production began with the words, “It starts with a whistle and ends with a gun.” There was nothing Radical Chic about it.
<snip>
When the 2017 seasons started, President Trump railed at the NFL for permitting the protests. Rather than back down, the NFL doubled down, employing the double speak of the cornered weakling. Try to imagine John Facenda speaking the words, “The NFL and our players are at our best when we help create a sense of unity in our country and our culture” – you can’t.
<snip>
It is easy to drop to one knee in a deliberate pose to protest something. Rising from two knees after spending yourself in a physical battle, that’s not so easy. It is why people watched, Roger.
https://townhall.com/columnists/thomasjfarnan/2017/10/16/roger-goodell-killed-the-goose-that-laid-the-golden-egg-n2395496
