why do you like football essay

Essay On Football for Students and Children

500+ words essay on football.

Essay On Football- Football is a game that millions of people around the world play and love. It can be called a universal game because every small and big nation plays it.

Moreover, it’s a great relaxer, stress reliever, teacher of discipline and teamwork . Apart from that, it keeps the body and mind fit and healthy. It’s a team game that makes it a more enjoyable game as it teaches people the importance of sportsmanship. Leadership, and unity .

History of Football

The history of football can be traced back to the ancient times of the Greeks. Everyone knows that the Greeks were great sportsmen and have invented many games.

Football happens to one of them. A similar game like football is played in many countries but the latest version of football that we knew originates in England. Likewise, England formulated the first rule of the game. From that day onwards the football has progressed in ways we can’t imagine.

Importance of Football

Football is an important game from the point of view of the spectator as well as the player. This 90 minutes game is full of excitement and thrill.

Moreover, it keeps the player mentally and physically healthy, and disciplined. And this ninety-minute game tests their sportsmanship, patience, and tolerance.

Besides, all this you make new friends and develop your talent. Above all, it’s a global game that promotes peace among countries.

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How to Learn Football

Learning any game is not an easy task. It requires dedication and hard work. Besides, all this the sport test your patience and insistence towards it. Moreover, with every new skill that you learn your game also improves. Above all, learning is a never-ending process so to learn football you have to be paying attention to every minute details that you forget to count or missed.

Football in India

If we look at the scenarios of a few years back then we can say that football was not a popular game in except West Bengal. Also, Indians do not take much interest in playing football. Likewise, the All India Football Federation (AIFF) has some limited resources and limited support from the government.

But, now the scenario has completely changed. At this time football matches the level of cricket in the country. Apart from that, the country organizes various football tournaments every year.

Above all, due to the unpopularity of football people do not know that we have under-17 and under-23, as well as a football team.

Football Tournaments

The biggest tournament of Football is the FIFA world cup which occurs every 4 years. Apart from that, there are various other tournaments like UEFA cup, Asian Cup (AFC), African completions (CAF) and many more.

To conclude, we can say that football is very interesting that with every minute takes the viewer’s breath away. Besides, you can’t predict what’s going to happen the next second or minute in football. Apart from all this football keeps the one playing it fit and healthy. Above all, it can be a medium of spreading the message of peace in the world as it is a global game.

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Essay on Football

Short Essay on Football

The following article provides an outline for an essay on football. Football is a sport that has been around for centuries, and millions of people around the world love this game. It is considered a widely popular sport worldwide, with teams from all around the world competing against each other. Football is a game of two teams with eleven players in each group, where players use their feet to kick a ball into their opponent’s goal.

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Football is an exciting, fast-paced game that requires skill, strategy, and teamwork to succeed. Any surface—grass, artificial turf, or indoors suitable for playing, and people of all ages and backgrounds enjoy it. Whether you are an amateur player or a professional footballer, football will always be an exciting game to play and watch!

Importance of Football

Football is the finest sport that everyone enjoys. It is a game that requires strength, endurance, and talent. The competition aims to score goals by kicking or heading the ball into the other team’s goal.

Football is a significant sport from both the players’ and spectators’ perspectives. Additionally, this 90-minute match puts their sportsmanship, tolerance, and patience to the test. Above all, it is a worldwide game that promotes peace between nations.

Origin of Football

Around 476 BC, China considers having been the origin of football. The game was then brought to England by the Romans and became widely popular there. In the early 1800s, a man named Walter Camp began codifying football rules, and it soon became one of the most popular sports in America.

Football has been around for centuries, with its origins thought to date back to medieval times. Football is now one of the most popular sports worldwide, with millions of people playing it regularly.

Why do so many people love playing football?

Football has become one of the most famous sports in the world, with millions of people playing and watching it every day. It is an excellent alternative to staying active, socializing with friends and family, and having fun. But why is it so popular? One reason could be that football is a game that all ages, genders, and skill levels can enjoy. It also offers an opportunity for competition and camaraderie among players. Football is relatively easy to learn and can be played anywhere—from the local park to a stadium. With its fast-paced action and thrilling moments of victory or defeat, it’s no wonder why so many people love playing football.

Rules of Playing Football

Following are some basic rules for playing football. These include

• The ball kicked with the foot.
• Players besides the goalkeeper avoid touching the ball with their hands.
• Players must not push or trip other players.
• A goal counts only when kicking the ball into the opponent team’s goal.
• After a successful goal, the team who conceded the goal gets kicked off their half of the field.

If you follow these rules, you will be well on your way to enjoying a football game!

Benefits of Playing Football

Playing football is an excellent way to stay fit and healthy. It is also a lot of fun, whether playing competitively or just for recreation. Playing football has many benefits, including improved cardiovascular health, muscle strength and flexibility, and increased social interaction.

Some basic rules are defined to follow accordingly to play football safely and effectively. These include wearing appropriate clothing and footwear, using proper equipment, and being aware of your surroundings. Following these rules will help you enjoy your football experience while keeping yourself and others safe.

Whether you are a new player or have been playing for years, there is always more to learn about this wonderful game. This essay on football article has insight into what football is all about and why so many people love playing it. Everyone should play football at least once in their lives. We hope you will do it too.

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Essay on My Favourite Sport Football

Students are often asked to write an essay on My Favourite Sport Football in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on My Favourite Sport Football

Why i love football.

Football is my favourite sport because it is full of excitement. It’s a game played with a round ball that two teams try to kick into each other’s goal. I love how football brings people together.

Playing Football

When I play football, I feel healthy and strong. Running on the field, passing the ball, and scoring goals are thrilling. It teaches me to work with my team and think quickly.

Watching Football

Watching football games is fun, too. Fans cheer, and the atmosphere is electric. I learn new moves and feel happy when my favourite team wins.

Football is a fantastic sport that I enjoy playing and watching. It’s simple to understand and always exciting.

250 Words Essay on My Favourite Sport Football

Introduction to football, playing the game.

The game is simple. Players run across a large field, trying to kick or head the ball to their teammates or into the goal. Only the goalkeeper can use their hands, and only within a special area near the goal. The game lasts for 90 minutes and is split into two halves.

I adore football because it is exciting. Every match is full of surprises and skilled moves. Players like Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo show incredible talent that makes the game a joy to watch. The feeling when your team scores is amazing, and the sadness when they lose is also real.

Teamwork and Friendship

Football teaches teamwork. Players must work together to win. It’s not just about one person; it’s about the whole team moving as one. This sport has given me many friends. We play together, and we learn to trust and support each other on and off the field.

Health Benefits

Football is also great for health. It makes you run, improves your stamina, and keeps you fit. It’s a fun way to exercise, and you don’t even notice how much work your body is doing because you’re enjoying the game.

In conclusion, football is my favorite sport because it is thrilling, it brings people together, and it is good for health. It’s more than just a game; it’s a source of happiness, friendship, and fitness for me.

500 Words Essay on My Favourite Sport Football

Introduction to my favourite sport, the rules of football.

Football has simple rules. Each match lasts for 90 minutes, divided into two halves of 45 minutes. The team with the most goals at the end wins. If the score is tied, the game can end in a draw, or sometimes extra time is added to find a winner. Players must use their feet, heads, and bodies to control and pass the ball. Only the goalkeeper can use their hands, and only within the marked area around their goal.

I love football because it is thrilling. Every match is unpredictable, which makes watching and playing it very exciting. The sport requires speed, strength, and strategy. As a player, I enjoy the feeling of being part of a team and working together to win. Cheering for my favourite team during a game brings me joy, especially when they score.

Football Teaches Important Values

Health benefits of playing football.

Playing football is good for health. It improves cardiovascular fitness, strengthens muscles, and enhances coordination. It also boosts endurance and helps in maintaining a healthy weight. I enjoy playing football because it is a fun way to exercise and stay fit.

Popularity of Football

Football is one of the most popular sports in the world. Millions of people watch matches and support their favourite teams. Major tournaments like the FIFA World Cup bring fans together from all over the globe. The sport has the power to unite people, regardless of their background or where they come from.

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How to Write a Non-Cliche College Essay About Sports + Examples

What’s covered:, what makes a sports essay cliche.

• How To Make Your Sports Essay Unique

Great Examples of College Essays About Sports

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You’ve been brainstorming essay topics for your college applications, and you think you’ve finally found the right one: an extended metaphor likening your experience on the field with overcoming personal struggles. The problem: many other students have this same thought. 

The purpose of a college essay is to make yourself stand out as a unique individual, but when students write about sports, they often blend in. Because of that, students are usually advised to pick a different topic.

That being said, it is possible to write a non-cliche college essay about sports if you put in a little extra effort. Read along to learn how to make your sports essay different from all the other sports essays.

Sports essays are cliche when they follow a standard trajectory. Some of these trajectories include writing a story about:

• An agonizing defeat
• Forging bonds with teammates
• Overcoming adversity
• Overcoming an injury
• Refusing to quit
• Victory during a big game

Because sports essays have very similar themes and “lessons learned,” it can be difficult to make your story stand out. These trajectories also often focus too much on the sport or storyline, and not enough on the writer’s reflections and personality.

As you write your essay, try to think about what your experience says about you rather than what you learned from your experience. You are more than just one lesson you learned!

(Keep in mind that the sports essay is not the only college essay cliche. Learn about other essay cliches and how to fix them in our complete guide).

How to Make Your Sports Essay Unique

1. focus on a specific moment or reflection..

The college essay is a way for students to humanize themselves to admissions officers. You do not feel human if you are describing yourself as just another player on the field!

One important way to make your essay about you (not just about sports) is by focusing on a specific moment in time and inviting the reader to join you in that moment. Explain to the reader what it would be like to be sitting in that locker room as you questioned the values of the other players on your team. Ask your reader to sit with you on the cot in the trainer’s room as your identity was stripped away from you when they said “your body can’t take this anymore.” Bring your reader to the dinner table and involve them in your family’s conversation about how sports were affecting your mental health and your treatment of those around you.

Intense descriptions of a specific experience will evoke emotions in your reader and allow them to connect with you and feel for you.

When in doubt, avoid anything that can be covered by ESPN. On ESPN, we see the games, we see the benches, we even see the locker rooms and training rooms. Take your reader somewhere different and show them something unique.

2. Use sports to point out broader themes in your life.

The main risk when writing about sports is neglecting to write about yourself. Before you get started, think about the main values that you want to express in your sports essay. Sports are simply your avenue for telling the reader what makes you unique. 

As a test, imagine if you were a pianist. Would you be able to talk about these same values? What if you were a writer? Or a chemist? Articulating your values is the end, and sports should simply be your means.

Some values that you might want to focus on:

• Autonomy (you want to be able to set your mind to anything and achieve it on your own)
• Growth (you seek improvement constantly)
• Curiosity (you are willing to try anything once)
• Vulnerability (you aren’t afraid to fail, as long as you give it your all)
• Community (you value the feedback of others and need camaraderie to succeed)
• Craft (you think that with deliberate care, anything can be perfected)
• Responsibility (you believe that you owe something to those around you and perhaps they also owe something to you)

You can use the ESPN check again to make sure that you are using sports as an avenue to show your depth.

Things ESPN covers: how a player reacts to defeat, how injuries affect a player’s gameplay/attitude, how players who don’t normally work well together are working together on their new team.

Things ESPN doesn’t cover: the conversation that a player had with their mother about fear of death before going into a big surgery (value: family and connection), the ways that the intense pressure to succeed consumed a player to the point they couldn’t be there for the people in their life (value: supporting others and community), the body image issues that weigh on a player’s mind when playing their sport and how they overcame those (value: health and growth).

3. Turn a cliche storyline on its head.

There’s no getting around the fact that sports essays are often cliche. But there is a way to confront the cliche head-on. For example, lots of people write essays about the lessons they learned from an injury, victory, and so on, but fewer students explain how they are embracing those lessons. 

Perhaps you learned that competition is overwhelming for you and you prefer teamwork, so you switched from playing basketball to playing Dungeons & Dragons. Maybe, when your softball career ended abruptly, you had to find a new identity and that’s when you became obsessed with your flower garden and decided to pursue botany. Or maybe, you have stuck with football through it all, but your junior-year mental health struggle showed you that football should be fun and you have since started a nonprofit for local children to healthily engage with sports.

If your story itself is more cliche, try bringing readers to the present moment with you and show why the cliche matters and what it did for you. This requires a fair amount of creativity. Ensure you’re not parroting a frequently used topic by really thinking deeply to find your own unique spin.

Night had robbed the academy of its daytime colors, yet there was comfort in the dim lights that cast shadows of our advances against the bare studio walls. Silhouettes of roundhouse kicks, spin crescent kicks, uppercuts and the occasional butterfly kick danced while we sparred. She approached me, eyes narrowed with the trace of a smirk challenging me. “Ready spar!” Her arm began an upward trajectory targeting my shoulder, a common first move. I sidestepped — only to almost collide with another flying fist. Pivoting my right foot, I snapped my left leg, aiming my heel at her midsection. The center judge raised one finger. 

There was no time to celebrate, not in the traditional sense at least. Master Pollard gave a brief command greeted with a unanimous “Yes, sir” and the thud of 20 hands dropping-down-and-giving-him-30, while the “winners” celebrated their victory with laps as usual. 

Three years ago, seven-thirty in the evening meant I was a warrior. It meant standing up straighter, pushing a little harder, “Yes, sir” and “Yes, ma’am”, celebrating birthdays by breaking boards, never pointing your toes, and familiarity. Three years later, seven-thirty in the morning meant I was nervous. 

The room is uncomfortably large. The sprung floor soaks up the checkerboard of sunlight piercing through the colonial windows. The mirrored walls further illuminate the studio and I feel the light scrutinizing my sorry attempts at a pas de bourrée, while capturing the organic fluidity of the dancers around me. “Chassé en croix, grand battement, pique, pirouette.” I follow the graceful limbs of the woman in front of me, her legs floating ribbons, as she executes what seems to be a perfect ronds de jambes. Each movement remains a negotiation. With admirable patience, Ms. Tan casts me a sympathetic glance.   

There is no time to wallow in the misery that is my right foot. Taekwondo calls for dorsiflexion; pointed toes are synonymous with broken toes. My thoughts drag me into a flashback of the usual response to this painful mistake: “You might as well grab a tutu and head to the ballet studio next door.” Well, here I am Master Pollard, unfortunately still following your orders to never point my toes, but no longer feeling the satisfaction that comes with being a third degree black belt with 5 years of experience quite literally under her belt. It’s like being a white belt again — just in a leotard and ballet slippers. 

But the appetite for new beginnings that brought me here doesn’t falter. It is only reinforced by the classical rendition of “Dancing Queen” that floods the room and the ghost of familiarity that reassures me that this new beginning does not and will not erase the past. After years spent at the top, it’s hard to start over. But surrendering what you are only leads you to what you may become. In Taekwondo, we started each class reciting the tenets: honor, courtesy, integrity, perseverance, self-control, courage, humility, and knowledge, and I have never felt that I embodied those traits more so than when I started ballet. 

The thing about change is that it eventually stops making things so different. After nine different schools, four different countries, three different continents, fluency in Tamil, Norwegian, and English, there are more blurred lines than there are clear fragments. My life has not been a tactfully executed, gold medal-worthy Taekwondo form with each movement defined, nor has it been a series of frappés performed by a prima ballerina with each extension identical and precise, but thankfully it has been like the dynamics of a spinning back kick, fluid, and like my chances of landing a pirouette, unpredictable. 

Why it works:

What’s especially powerful about this essay is that the author uses detailed imagery to convey a picture of what they’re experiencing, so much so that the reader is along for the ride. This works as a sports essay not only because of the language and sensory details, but also because the writer focuses on a specific moment in time, while at the same time exploring why Taekwondo is such an important part of their life.

After the emotional image is created, the student finishes their essay with valuable reflection. With the reflection, they show admissions officers that they are mature and self-aware. Self-awareness comes through with statements like “surrendering what you are only leads you to what you may become” and maturity can be seen through the student’s discussion of values “honor, courtesy, integrity, perseverance, self-control, courage, humility, and knowledge, and I have never felt that I embodied those traits more so than when I started ballet.” These are the kinds of comments that should find their way into a sports essay!

“Advanced females ages 13 to 14 please proceed to staging with your coaches at this time.” Skittering around the room, eyes wide and pleading, I frantically explained my situation to nearby coaches. The seconds ticked away in my head; every polite refusal increased my desperation.

Despair weighed me down. I sank to my knees as a stream of competitors, coaches, and officials flowed around me. My dojang had no coach, and the tournament rules prohibited me from competing without one.

Although I wanted to remain strong, doubts began to cloud my mind. I could not help wondering: what was the point of perfecting my skills if I would never even compete? The other members of my team, who had found coaches minutes earlier, attempted to comfort me, but I barely heard their words. They couldn’t understand my despair at being left on the outside, and I never wanted them to understand.

Since my first lesson 12 years ago, the members of my dojang have become family. I have watched them grow up, finding my own happiness in theirs. Together, we have honed our kicks, blocks, and strikes. We have pushed one another to aim higher and become better martial artists. Although my dojang had searched for a reliable coach for years, we had not found one. When we attended competitions in the past, my teammates and I had always gotten lucky and found a sympathetic coach. Now, I knew this practice was unsustainable. It would devastate me to see the other members of my dojang in my situation, unable to compete and losing hope as a result. My dojang needed a coach, and I decided it was up to me to find one. 

I first approached the adults in the dojang – both instructors and members’ parents. However, these attempts only reacquainted me with polite refusals. Everyone I asked told me they couldn’t devote multiple weekends per year to competitions. I soon realized that I would have become the coach myself.

At first, the inner workings of tournaments were a mystery to me. To prepare myself for success as a coach, I spent the next year as an official and took coaching classes on the side. I learned everything from motivational strategies to technical, behind-the-scenes components of Taekwondo competitions. Though I emerged with new knowledge and confidence in my capabilities, others did not share this faith.

Parents threw me disbelieving looks when they learned that their children’s coach was only a child herself. My self-confidence was my armor, deflecting their surly glances. Every armor is penetrable, however, and as the relentless barrage of doubts pounded my resilience, it began to wear down. I grew unsure of my own abilities.

Despite the attack, I refused to give up. When I saw the shining eyes of the youngest students preparing for their first competition, I knew I couldn’t let them down. To quit would be to set them up to be barred from competing like I was. The knowledge that I could solve my dojang’s longtime problem motivated me to overcome my apprehension.

Now that my dojang flourishes at competitions, the attacks on me have weakened, but not ended. I may never win the approval of every parent; at times, I am still tormented by doubts, but I find solace in the fact that members of my dojang now only worry about competing to the best of their abilities.

Now, as I arrive at a tournament with my students, I close my eyes and remember the past. I visualize the frantic search for a coach and the chaos amongst my teammates as we compete with one another to find coaches before the staging calls for our respective divisions. I open my eyes to the exact opposite scene. Lacking a coach hurt my ability to compete, but I am proud to know that no member of my dojang will have to face that problem again.

In the beginning, you might think this is another cliche sports essay about overcoming adversity. But instead, it becomes a unique statement and coming-of-age tale that reads as a suspenseful narrative. 

The author connects their experience with martial arts to larger themes in their life but manages to do so without riffing off of tried-and-true themes. Through statements like “I knew I couldn’t let them down. To quit would be to set them up to be barred from competing like I was” we learn about the students values and their desire to be there for those who depend on them. 

The student also brings it full circle, demonstrating their true transformation. By using the “Same, but Different” ending technique , the student places themself in the same environment that we saw in the intro, but experiences it differently due to their actions throughout the narrative. This is very compelling!

“1…2…3…4 pirouettes! New record!” My friends cheered as I landed my turns. Pleased with my progress, I gazed down at my worn-out pointe shoes. The sweltering blisters, numbing ice-baths, and draining late-night practices did not seem so bad after all. Next goal: five turns.

For as long as I can remember, ballet, in all its finesse and glamor, had kept me driven day to day. As a child, the lithe ballerinas, donning ethereal costumes as they floated across the stage, were my motivation. While others admired Messi and Adele, I idolized Carlos Acosta, principal dancer of the Royal Ballet. 

As I devoted more time and energy towards my craft, I became obsessed with improving my technique. I would stretch for hours after class, forcing my leg one inch higher in an effort to mirror the Dance Magazine cover girls. I injured my feet and ruined pair after pair of pointe shoes, turning on wood, cement, and even grass to improve my balance as I spun. At competitions, the dancers with the 180-degree leg extensions, endless turns, and soaring leaps—the ones who received “Bravos!” from the roaring audience—further pushed me to refine my skills and perfect my form. I believed that, with enough determination, I would one day attain their level of perfection. Reaching the quadruple-pirouette milestone only intensified my desire to accomplish even more. 

My efforts seemed to have come to fruition two summers ago when I was accepted to dance with Moscow’s Bolshoi Ballet at their renowned New York City summer intensive. I walked into my first session eager to learn from distinguished ballet masters and worldly dancers, already anticipating my improvement. Yet, as I danced alongside the accomplished ballerinas, I felt out of place. Despite their clean technique and professional training, they did not aim for glorious leg extensions or prodigious leaps. When they performed their turn combinations, most of them only executed two turns as I attempted four. 

“Dancers, double-pirouettes only.” 

Taken aback and confused, I wondered why our teacher expected so little from us. The other ballerinas seemed content, gracing the studio with their simple movements. 

As I grew closer with my Moscow roommates, I gradually learned that their training emphasized the history of the art form instead of stylistic tricks. Rather than show off their physical ability, their performances aimed to convey a story, one that embodied the rich culture of ballet and captured both the legacy of the dancers before them and their own artistry. As I observed my friends more intently in repertoire class, I felt the pain of the grief-stricken white swan from Swan Lake, the sass of the flirtatious Kitri from Don Quijote, and I gradually saw what I had overlooked before. My definition of talent had been molded by crowd-pleasing elements—whirring pirouettes, gravity-defying leaps, and mind-blowing leg extensions. This mindset slowly stripped me from the roots of my passion and my personal connection with ballet. 

With the Bolshoi, I learned to step back and explore the meaning behind each step and the people behind the scenes. Ballet carries history in its movements, from the societal values of the era to each choreographer’s unique flair. As I uncovered the messages behind each pirouette, kick, and jump, my appreciation for ballet grew beyond my obsession with raw athleticism and developed into a love for the art form’s emotive abilities in bridging the dancers with the audience. My journey as an artist has allowed me to see how technical execution is only the means to a greater understanding between dancer and spectator, between storyteller and listener. The elegance and complexity of ballet does not revolve around astonishing stunts but rather the evocative strength and artistry manifested in the dancer, in me. It is the combination of sentiments, history, tradition, and passion that has allowed ballet and its lessons of human connection to become my lifestyle both on and off stage.

This essay is about lessons. While the author is a dancer, this narrative isn’t really about ballet, per se — it’s about the author’s personal growth. It is purposefully reflective as the student shows a nice character arc that begins with an eager young ballerina and ends with a reflection on their past. The primary strength of this essay is the honesty and authenticity that the student approaches it with.

In the end, the student turns a cliche on its head as they embrace the idea of overcoming adversity and demonstrate how the adversity, in this case, was their own stereotypes about their art. It’s beautiful!

“Getting beat is one thing – it’s part of competing – but I want no part in losing.” Coach Rob Stark’s motto never fails to remind me of his encouragement on early-morning bus rides to track meets around the state. I’ve always appreciated the phrase, but an experience last June helped me understand its more profound, universal meaning.

Stark, as we affectionately call him, has coached track at my high school for 25 years. His care, dedication, and emphasis on developing good character has left an enduring impact on me and hundreds of other students. Not only did he help me discover my talent and love for running, but he also taught me the importance of commitment and discipline and to approach every endeavor with the passion and intensity that I bring to running. When I learned a neighboring high school had dedicated their track to a longtime coach, I felt that Stark deserved similar honors.

Our school district’s board of education indicated they would only dedicate our track to Stark if I could demonstrate that he was extraordinary. I took charge and mobilized my teammates to distribute petitions, reach out to alumni, and compile statistics on the many team and individual champions Stark had coached over the years. We received astounding support, collecting almost 3,000 signatures and pages of endorsements from across the community. With help from my teammates, I presented this evidence to the board.

They didn’t bite. 

Most members argued that dedicating the track was a low priority. Knowing that we had to act quickly to convince them of its importance, I called a team meeting where we drafted a rebuttal for the next board meeting. To my surprise, they chose me to deliver it. I was far from the best public speaker in the group, and I felt nervous about going before the unsympathetic board again. However, at that second meeting, I discovered that I enjoy articulating and arguing for something that I’m passionate about.

Public speaking resembles a cross country race. Walking to the starting line, you have to trust your training and quell your last minute doubts. When the gun fires, you can’t think too hard about anything; your performance has to be instinctual, natural, even relaxed. At the next board meeting, the podium was my starting line. As I walked up to it, familiar butterflies fluttered in my stomach. Instead of the track stretching out in front of me, I faced the vast audience of teachers, board members, and my teammates. I felt my adrenaline build, and reassured myself: I’ve put in the work, my argument is powerful and sound. As the board president told me to introduce myself, I heard, “runners set” in the back of my mind. She finished speaking, and Bang! The brief silence was the gunshot for me to begin. 

The next few minutes blurred together, but when the dust settled, I knew from the board members’ expressions and the audience’s thunderous approval that I had run quite a race. Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough; the board voted down our proposal. I was disappointed, but proud of myself, my team, and our collaboration off the track. We stood up for a cause we believed in, and I overcame my worries about being a leader. Although I discovered that changing the status quo through an elected body can be a painstakingly difficult process and requires perseverance, I learned that I enjoy the challenges this effort offers. Last month, one of the school board members joked that I had become a “regular” – I now often show up to meetings to advocate for a variety of causes, including better environmental practices in cafeterias and safer equipment for athletes.

Just as Stark taught me, I worked passionately to achieve my goal. I may have been beaten when I appealed to the board, but I certainly didn’t lose, and that would have made Stark proud.

This essay uses the idea of sports to explore a more profound topic—growing through relationships. They really embrace using sports as an avenue to tell the reader about a specific experience that changed the way they approach the world. 

The emphasis on relationships is why this essay works well and doesn’t fall into a cliche. The narrator grows not because of their experience with track but because of their relationship with their coach, who inspired them to evolve and become a leader.

Have a draft of your college essay? We’re here to help you polish it. Students can participate in a free Peer Review, or they can sign up for a paid review by CollegeVine’s experts. Sign up for your free CollegeVine account today to start improving your essay and your chances of acceptance!

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10 Great Longform Essays About Football in American Culture

Pre-superbowl reading—or a way to avoid it completely.

Football is not the most literary of sports. Baseball has a much more intellectual pedigree, fueled by an intense American nostalgia, literary and otherwise; boxing has drawn the attention of Ernest Hemingway, Norman Mailer, Joyce Carol Oates and Katherine Dunn; tennis only needs David Foster Wallace (but Álvaro Enrigue is good too); and even soccer has  Among the Thugs (not to mention Monty Python’s “ Literary Football Discussion “); American football, though, can only be associated with a few good works of literature—though there are some out there . But literary or not, football is part of the fabric of American culture, and so you’re likely aware that this weekend it’s throwing its grand annual competitive soiree: the Superbowl. If you’d rather be reading, but still want to engage in the cultural moment, I recommend starting with one of these great longform essays about football in contemporary American culture, which cover everything from our evolving understanding of CTE to football’s relationship to television, domestic violence, and yes, of course, Trump. If you’ll be watching the game, well, read up anyway—there will be lots of time to talk about all these essays during the million and one commercial breaks.

Reid Forgrave, “ The Concussion Diaries: One High School Football Player’s Secret Struggle with CTE ” GQ , 2016

A heartbreaking and humane essay written, in part, to honor the last wishes of a young ex-football player who killed himself after years of struggle with CTE—chronic traumatic encephalopathy—and asked his family to share his words with the world. On football culture, toughness, family, and fear.

Zac left instructions: Print his story off his laptop, post it to Facebook, use the pain of his life and too-early death to warn the world about CTE. Get people like us—football fans, football players, football lifers—to face the truth about people like him.

And now we have. Those were his instructions, so that’s what his family did. So now what?

We could ban football. (But we love football.) We could allow people to play football only once they turn 18, which is what Omalu has proposed. (And what happens when 18-year-old athletic phenoms—freight trains who have never learned to tackle properly—are suddenly turned loose on one another? Is that better?) We could take away tackling. (Sorry, no one’s watching the National Flag Football League.) We could build a safer helmet. (Which will only encourage players to use their heads as weapons.) We could have a consistent concussion protocol through all levels of football. (We already do in the NFL. Ask Cam Newton how well it’s working.)

Every solution ends up not solving enough of the problem.

And for most of us, this is perfectly okay. The paradox of CTE’s discovery is that it’s given most of us a sneaky ethical out, hasn’t it? No professional football player can claim now to be unaware of the risks. It’s a free country. We’re all adults here.

Unless we’re not adults. Unless we’re kids, like Zac was. Can we really let kids keep doing this? If so, how? Now what?

Mark Edmundson, “ Football: The Lure of the Game ” Los Angeles Review of Books , 2014

In this personal love letter to football, Edmundson considers the beauty and joy of the sport in poetic prose—and even compares football to poetry (“they overlap more than you think,” he writes) as well as America itself (violence and grace; freedom and exploitation; glory and ignominy: terrible beauty).

I sometimes wonder (being, I suppose, of a wondering disposition) what it is that draws us to the game. By Saturday afternoon in the fall—assuming I’ve kept away from mid-week games—I’m feeling something like an addict’s need. The urge to see some football really does feel nearly physical. It’s an American hunger, this interest in the game: I’m almost sure of that. Football’s played in Canada but, despite impressive marketing efforts, it hasn’t caught on in Europe or anywhere else. I don’t think it ever will. That is unless America and the world become synonymous, the way Rome became synonymous with the world for some time. Football is the American game, like rock is the American music, and black speak is the American vernacular, burgers and fries are (like it or lump it) American food, and golden beer served at sub-zero temp is the American drink.

If visitors from a galaxy far away landed in our precincts, landed in New York City, say, and asked us to show them (not tell, show them) what we were all about, how would we respond? I’d be tempted to take them to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the palace of Western culture. Or I might be inclined to guide them up between the sentinel lions at the New York Public Library and into the great reading room. But in either case, I’d be wrong. I’d be idealizing. No, surely the best place to take them, if they wanted to see America, would be out to the Meadowlands to watch the Giants go to war with the Redskins, or take on the Dallas Cowboys, blue versus gray, the Civil War one more time. Maybe better, one would take them up close to a flat screen TV—high definition, surround sound, the works—and let our visitors view the images that have now become, if this is possible, more life-like than life. And you would point to the screen in joy and consternation and sometimes in dismay or something close to horror. And you’d be tempted to say: This is who we are. This is what we Americans are about. But then, what exactly would you mean?

Chuck Klosterman, “ Will Violence Save Football? ” GQ , 2015

Klosterman’s essay about football discusses and dismisses the two prevailing theories about football—that it will die out, and that it will change dramatically—instead arguing that it’s actually violence, and the tendency of fans of a widely decried pleasure to close ranks, that will keep the sport around. His argument is, in 2017, frighteningly familiar and relevant.

A few months after being hired as head football coach at the University of Michigan, Jim Harbaugh was profiled on the HBO magazine show Real Sports. It was a wildly entertaining segment, heavily slanted toward the intellection that Harbaugh is a lunatic. One of the last things Harbaugh said in the interview was this: “I love football. Love it. Love it. I think it’s the last bastion of hope for toughness in America in men, in males.” Immediately following the segment, the reporter (Andrea Kremer) sat down with Real Sports host Bryant Gumbel to anecdotally unpack the story we’d all just watched. Gumbel expressed shock over Harbaugh’s final sentiment. To anyone working in the media (or even to anyone who cares about the media), Harbaugh’s position seemed sexist and ultra-reactionary, so much so that Rush Limbaugh felt the need to support it on his radio show.

This is what happens when any populist, uncomfortable thought is expressed on television.

There’s an embedded assumption within all arguments regarding the doomed nature of football. The assumption is that the game is even more violent and damaging than it superficially appears, and that as more people realize this (and/or refuse to deny the medical evidence verifying that damage), the game’s fan support will disappear. The mistake made by those advocating this position is their certitude that this perspective is self-evident. It’s not. These advocates remind me of an apocryphal quote attributed to film critic Pauline Kael after the 1972 presidential election: “How could Nixon have won? I don’t know one person who voted for him.” Now, Kael never actually said this.†† But that erroneous quote survives as the best shorthand example for why smart people tend to be wrong as often as their not-so-smart peers—they work from the flawed premise that their worldview is standard. The contemporary stance on football’s risk feels unilateral, because nobody goes around saying, “Modern life is not violent enough.” Yet this sentiment quietly exists. And what those who believe it say instead is, “I love football. It’s the last bastion of hope for toughness in America.” It’s not difficult to imagine a future where the semantic distance between those statements is nonexistent. And if that happens, football will change from a popular leisure pastime to an unpopular political necessity.

††What she actually said was: “I live in a rather special world. I only know one person who voted for Nixon. Where they are I don’t know. They’re outside my ken. But sometimes when I’m in a theater I can feel them.”

Timothy Michael Law, “ Football’s Cancer ” Los Angeles Review of Books , 2015

There’s more than one kind of violence at play here; this essay tackles systematic racism and exploitation as the primary problems with football in America.

Commentators are presently drumming up hysteria over concussions in the NFL and criticizing the sport for its overt violence, but there is a more surreptitious malady. Outbursts of violence in society, according to Žižek, sidetrack us. The violence in the background, structural and systemic, is more pernicious.

If football is ailing, it is not because it is too dangerous but because high-stakes players have figured out how to use it to create enormous wealth by exploiting a working class of athletes while minimizing their responsibilities to them. Economic exploitation is the cancer spreading throughout the body of the sport, proliferating cells as it corrodes the health of its overwhelmingly black workforce.

Most of the players are black, the fans white. For these few hours on Saturday, white college kids, alumni, and Bulldog fans who have come from near and far will act as if they have seen gods on earth. The scene is electric, and you might be easily fooled into thinking that here is proof of post-racial America. Once you’ve lived outside the South, you realize how remarkable it is that football’s popularity is greatest in Southern states that were and remain the most segregated, where antebellum hierarchies are reflected in attitudes outside of stadiums but where, during fleeting moments of athletic competition, predominately white audiences cheer madly for black athletes. Racism persists in the South in ways that some younger Americans elsewhere can no longer fathom, but black athletes and entertainers have been making white audiences (in both the North and South) laugh and cheer for centuries—so long as they are staying in character. A hip-hop artist and an athlete may sing to us, rap to us, play for us, but we still want to control the script.

Žižek cautioned that we often fail to notice systemic evils because secondary and tertiary concerns distract us. To address malignant biases and our own propensity to exploit requires the kind of uncomfortable work that keeps many fearful of seeing a therapist. The media fascination with concussions allows them to appear serious about football’s problems, but since they are part of the profiteering, exploitative machine, we should never expect to find this urgent confrontation among football’s talking heads.

In not a few ways, football’s cancer is the same cancer that has attempted to silence and demonize the #BlackLivesMatter movement. Young black men remain useful as long as they turn a profit for the managerial class and don’t shout too loudly about their labor conditions and opportunity. The impulse that drives many to consider football’s maladies of little consequence is the same impulse that drives the #AllLivesMatter response, and this impulse stems ultimately from a recalcitrant attitude that refuses to look squarely in the mirror, beyond the surface Žižek warned about.

Malcolm Gladwell, “ Offensive Play ” The New Yorker , 2009

In which Malcolm Gladwell asks the question: “How different are dogfighting and football?”

These are dogs that will never live a normal life. But the kind of crime embodied by dogfighting is so morally repellent that it demands an extravagant gesture in response. In a fighting dog, the quality that is prized above all others is the willingness to persevere, even in the face of injury and pain. A dog that will not do that is labelled a “cur,” and abandoned. A dog that keeps charging at its opponent is said to possess “gameness,” and game dogs are revered.

In one way or another, plenty of organizations select for gameness. The Marine Corps does so, and so does medicine, when it puts young doctors through the exhausting rigors of residency. But those who select for gameness have a responsibility not to abuse that trust: if you have men in your charge who would jump off a cliff for you, you cannot march them to the edge of the cliff—and dogfighting fails this test. Gameness, Carl Semencic argues, in “The World of Fighting Dogs” (1984), is no more than a dog’s “desire to please an owner at any expense to itself.” The owners, Semencic goes on,

understand this desire to please on the part of the dog and capitalize on it. At any organized pit fight in which two dogs are really going at each other wholeheartedly, one can observe the owner of each dog changing his position at pit-side in order to be in sight of his dog at all times. The owner knows that seeing his master rooting him on will make a dog work all the harder to please its master.

This is why Michael Vick’s dogs weren’t euthanized. The betrayal of loyalty requires an act of social reparation.

Professional football players, too, are selected for gameness. When Kyle Turley was knocked unconscious, in that game against the Packers, he returned to practice four days later because, he said, “I didn’t want to miss a game.” Once, in the years when he was still playing, he woke up and fell into a wall as he got out of bed. “I start puking all over,” he recalled. “So I said to my wife, ‘Take me to practice.’ I didn’t want to miss practice.” The same season that he was knocked unconscious, he began to have pain in his hips. He received three cortisone shots, and kept playing. At the end of the season, he discovered that he had a herniated disk. He underwent surgery, and four months later was back at training camp. “They put me in full-contact practice from day one,” he said. “After the first day, I knew I wasn’t right. They told me, ‘You’ve had the surgery. You’re fine. You should just fight through it.’ It’s like you’re programmed. You’ve got to go without question— I’m a warrior. I can block that out of my mind . I go out, two days later. Full contact. Two-a-days. My back locks up again. I had re-herniated the same disk that got operated on four months ago, and bulged the disk above it.” As one of Turley’s old coaches once said, “He plays the game as it should be played, all out,” which is to say that he put the game above his own well-being.

Jamil Smith, “ The Necessity of Football ” New Republic , 2015

In this essay, Smith, a onetime associate producer at NFL Films—where his job was to assemble glorifying montages—argues that it actually the inadequacies  of football, and not its saving graces, that make it so necessary to the American experience.

I have no excuse, really. Every time I’ve thought about leaving the sport behind, I remember my favorite photograph: a black-and-white shot my mother took of me in my football uniform in the eighth grade, standing next to my father and smiling after a win. But nostalgia is a reason to love the game, not a reason to need it. Perhaps, then, this is where I should tell you why—even in the wake of Omalu’s revelations—I feel we still need football. Not to rescue the NFL’s largely black labor force from its humble origins, or to entertain the masses that refuse to let it go in the wake of mounting tragedies. We need it partially because football serves as a kind of fun-house mirror for our national character.

The reflection comes in various forms: social movements, national tragedy, political spectacle, and yes, our sports. And we are a dramatic country, so much so that the volume of theatrics we see in every corner of our lives dulls our senses. We need more, and we need it louder. And in spectator sports, we want to see the best versions of ourselves reflected back at us, or else why would we consider it entertainment? We want to believe that inside that arena, everything will be all right because our men are the strongest, and our fight is the hardest. This is why between 2012 and 2015 the Department of Defense paid 18 NFL teams a total of more than $5.6 million for marketing and advertising, including flying military bombers over stadiums at taxpayers’ expense. It’s also why we watch hit montages week after week, delighting in the crack of the pads or the punch of the music without wondering whether that player just got pushed a bit further toward CTE. Football marries artfulness to brutality, providing the most honest interpretation of American character that we have available, and I enjoy football despite its horrors because I have learned to do the same in my life in America.

The problem is that too few of us recognize ourselves in the beauty and the carnage the NFL presents each Sunday. The game won’t change because we’re not changing. I hope a new audience will be exposed to Dr. Bennet Omalu’s story and understand that the only way to get football to change is to present its faults in an uncompromising fashion, pressuring the NFL and those who love the sport to face themselves and do better. Omalu exemplifies a model of America in which its citizens, in virtually every political context, work to change this nation for the better. Abandoning football won’t fix the sport—Americans need it so that, one day, we might learn to see ourselves for who we truly are.

Louisa Thomas, “ Together We Make Football ” Grantland, 2014

A look at the NFL’s history of domestic violence—players who commit it, fans and teams who ignore it—and what that says about sports culture and the myth of football as a “family.”

Domestic violence does not happen on a football field. It happens in bedrooms, cars, parking lots, elevators. Intimate-partner violence and sexual assault are epidemic in the military. They are pervasive in Silicon Valley, on college campuses, in small Alaskan towns. They exist in all countries and in all times. Getting rid of football would do nothing to change this.

And yet there are connections between a culture that sidelines women and disrespects them, a culture that disrespects women and tolerates violence toward them, and a culture that tolerates violence toward them and commits violence toward them. Nearly half—48 percent—of all arrests for violent crimes among NFL players are arrests for domestic violence.

Men have worried that masculinity was under threat for as long as football has been around. The sport as we know it, after all, began during an era and in a class so nervous about decline that there was a condition, neurasthenia, to describe men’s anxiety. The easiest way to prove you were a man was to adopt an attitude of aggression. Those who were vulnerable or different were, and are, not merely unwelcome. It’s as if they were contagious. It is as if they were dangerous.

The NFL calls itself a family. If that’s the case, it’s a family of fathers and sons but not wives and daughters. It’s a family that more closely resembles the mob than a family connected by blood or love. It’s a family that protects its own by cutting others, a family that privileges loyalty over what’s right. But loyalty goes only so far in the NFL—because at some not-so-distant point, the family turns into a business. When concussions enter into it, or salary caps, or age, the family becomes about winning Sunday’s big game or about the business’s bottom line. If it’s a family, then it’s a fucked-up family.

Nicholas Dawidoff, “ The Comprehensive Illusion of Football ” The New Yorker , 2015

Television changes everything—including football.

“Before modern TV, it must have felt more abstractly gladiatorial,” Richard Linklater, the filmmaker, who was himself a Texas high school quarterback, says. We were discussing the way that these days, on television, you can impart personalities to the players and coaches on the screen. The N.F.L. has wired participants for sound and improved its broadcasts’ camera angles and photograph definition. Camera operators pan the field and sidelines for raw reactions. The emotion fans tend to feel most keenly is outrage, and, following along, producers have lately specialized in conveying assorted shades of indignation. We think of Giants coach Tom Coughlin as a man perpetually aggrieved and consider Buffalo Bills coach Rex Ryan a puerile teen-ager—after all, that’s how they behave in our homes. Of course, both men are far more complex. “Once you can see their eyes, everything changes, and you think you know them,” Linklater says. “TV does that—that powerful, possessory bond with the audience. The public might fawn over actors they know from movies, but if they know you from television, they act like they’re a relative. They really think they have access, and they almost consume them.”

Part of football’s appeal is the violence, which gives it the feeling of a real-life action movie. But the violence has always been risky for TV, as well as for the players. Long before there was any public controversy concerning the long-term effects of football-related blows to the head, TV sought to make the game more palatable by magnifying its balletic beauty and deëmphasizing the brute concussive aggression of the hitting. One of the game’s most notorious collisions took place on “Monday Night Football” in 1985, when Giants linebacker Lawrence Taylor sacked Washington Redskins quarterback Joe Theismann. The reverse camera angle revealed Theismann suffering a grotesque compound leg fracture. That was too much reality for family television. In the decades since then, much to the dismay of defensive coaches, the most revealing football rules changes have put restraints on contact and otherwise eased the task of completing passes. Part of this is that America loves touchdowns, and another piece of it is that passing looks prettier on TV. But concerning ourselves with the graceful choreographies of receivers and defensive backs also relieved us of the unsettling responsibility for witnessing what’s going down off-camera.

Paul Solotaroff with Ron Borges, “ The Gangster in the Huddle ” Rolling Stone , 2013

An in-depth profile of former Patriots tight end and convicted murderer Aaron Hernandez—who, four years later, has yet another murder trial coming up in less than two weeks.

Most people, even self-important stars blowing thousands on bottle-shape women, might have simmered down about now. But the 23-year-old Aaron Hernandez wasn’t like most people; for ages, he hadn’t even been like himself. The sweet, goofy kid from Bristol, Connecticut, with the klieg-light smile and ex-thug dad who’d turned his life around to raise two phenom sons– that Aaron Hernandez had barely been heard from in the seven hard years since his father was snatched away, killed in his prime by a medical error that left his boys soul-sick and lost. Once in a great while, the good Aaron would surface, phoning one of his college coaches to tell him he loved him and to talk to the man’s kids for hours, or stopping Robert Kraft, the Patriots’ owner, to kiss him on the cheek and thank him damply. There was such hunger in that kid for a father’s hand, and such greatness itching to get out, that coach after coach had covered for him whenever the bad Aaron showed–the violent, furious kid who was dangerous to all, most particularly, it seems, to his friends.

Robert Lipsyte, “ Donald Trump Represents the Worst of Football Culture ” The Nation , 2017

An essay that bemoans Trump—a failed team owner himself—as emblematic of the worst aspects of “jock-culture”, but looks to Colin Kaepernick and others like him as a ray of hope.

His kind of boastful, bullying, blowfish persona is tolerated in locker rooms (as in sales offices, barracks, trading floors, and legislatures), just as long as the big dog can deliver. Which he has done. It’s no surprise that his close pals and business associates in SportsWorld include two other notorious P.T. Barnums, boxing’s Don King and wrestling’s Vince McMahon (whose wife, Linda, is now Trump’s pick to head the Small Business Administration).

Another typical jock-culture trait is rolling over for the alpha(est) dog in your arena, be it the team leader, coach, owner, or even the president of Russia. One wonders, had Trump become a successful NFL owner, would he have wimped out as completely as New England Patriots’ owner Robert Kraft did when Russian President Vladimir Putin pocketed his Super Bowl ring in 2005 and walked out of their Moscow meeting room with it. It was never returned.

As the season ended, Kaepernick’s teammates awarded him their Len Eshmont Award for “inspirational and courageous play,” making a mockery of reports in the media that he had been alienating the rest of the team. Edwards describes the media and the sports establishment as clueless when it comes to Kaepernick’s growing support among athletes—a phenomenon that promises “some turbulent times over the upcoming Trump era.”

Kaepernick’s most transcendent transgression has been the way he punctured the comfort of football’s sweaty sanctuary, letting in both light and some hard truths—including this reality: that objectified and extravagantly well paid performers can still have real thoughts about the world outside the white lines, a world becoming more and more perilous for those who think Trumpball should not be the national pastime.

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Emily Temple

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