ANTH 1101

Sara Juengst
27 November 2016
Cultural Event Paper
On November 17, 2016, I went to the New Orleans Saints vs. Carolina Panthers game
here in Charlotte at Bank of America Stadium. Football has been a big part of American culture.
It was invented in the 1860s but never really took off for another few decades until it became
more like the modern game that we know today. Most people know how football works. Both
teams try to drive down the field to score points. It is an 11 on 11 game where you try to advance
the ball through passing or running, against the other teams defense. There are lots of ways to
score, whether it is with a touchdown, when you cross a specific plane 100 yards down the field,
or a field goal, where you kick the ball in between the uprights for 3 points. There are also les
common methods of scoring such as a safety, where a player gets tackles in their own endzone,
or a kick return, where a player takes a kickoff and runs it back to the touchdown. The goal is to
win the game, play well throughout the season, and then make it to the playoffs, and be the last
team standing and win the Super Bowl. Football has been a big part of American culture since its
conception. Whether it's the NFL, college football, or high school football, it has taken over as
"America's sport." The sport has become so popular and high demand that thousands of people
will pay over $60 to come see the game in the arena. These arenas and domes usually 75,000
people, with the largest seating 110,000 in Ann Arbor Michigan.
With these thousands of people here watching the game, the environment is very unique.
First, you have the sights; take a look around Bank of America Stadium, and you will see a sea of
Panthers blue and black from all of the fans at the game. The smell is distinct - cigarettes, Bud

Light, and Bojangles is all over the stadium. And the sound of 75,000 people cheering when a
good play happens can almost be deafening. When you first arrive to the game before kickoff,
its very calm. Players are down on the field, and the stadium is relatively quiet, except for some
music playing over the stadium speakers. As it gets closer to kickoff, the stadium gets louder as
everyone gets more and more anxious for the game to start. The national anthem is sung, and the
teams come out for the opening kickoff, and the whole stadium is buzzing. From there, its two
and a half hours of constant emotion. A big touchdown for the home team is scored, and the
whole stadium goes nuts. The home team's quarterback throws an interception, or the running
back fumbles and turns it over, the whole arena goes quiet and everyone is cursing up a storm,
with the few away team fans cheering. You have players flinging their bodies at the ball carrier in
attempt to force a fumble or at least slow him down. For the 60 minutes of game time, the whole
experience is a wild ride with its highs and lows. However, the best moments came after the
game. The Panthers won, so everybody was excited. Everybody is flooding out the stadium down
the ramps and everybody is still cheering and chanting things like Keep Pounding. You exit the
stadium, and everyone downtown is wearing Panthers game and overall the morale is high
because of a good, close victory.
Football has lots of traits relating to anthropology. One is a hierarchy. For example, one
hierarchy of power is in the structure of the team. You have the owner, who has say over
anything, and then the General Manager and the President of Football Operations. Those two
people have the authority to control the team, but still less powerful than the owner. Then, you
continue down the pyramid, as you get to the head coach who runs the teams personnel. The
head coach also has assistant coaches in the offensive and defensive coordinators who run that
unit, and then more assistants to the coordinators, like the quarterbacks coach or defensive line

coach. That is also without mentioning lesser team authority, such as scouts, equipment
managers, and film producers. Then you have the players, who have their own little hierarchy.
There are 5 captains who are viewed as the leaders, and they lead their team, sort of like the head
males in a tribe. You generally have positions that are more important than others and with more
authority. For example, nobody would really ever argue that Cam Newton, the quarterback and
one of the most important players on the team, is less important than a guy like the punter, Andy
Lee. Thinking about his power, you will see that is earned. Cam Newtons authority and role in
this team is an ascribed power. He came in as a rookie and one of the youngest men on the team,
and worked his way to improve and to become a leader. He gradually gained the respect of his
peers to be voted a team captain and have one of the highest honors somebody on the team could
have. Thats the thing with football - hardly anybody comes in with assumed status. Most people,
whether coaches or players, start their way at the bottom and work up to achieve their titles.
Economy is another big part of how football operates. Teams have to offer money to
players to try to convince them to come to their team. The team exchanges their money for the
players services. You also have teams exchanging between themselves. Teams can use their
players as a sort of currency and trade between each other, swapping their players in an
attempt to improve their team. Players are not the only people that can be used in a trade, as you
can also trade coaches, managers, and draft picks as well.
Down to the actual game itself, football is all about a battle for power. Power in
anthropology is defined as the ability to influence the actions of others which is all what
football comes down to. (Oregon State University). Both teams are out there trying to win the
game. The actual ball represents that power and the transfer of power; as the offense advances it
down the field and toward the endzone, the defense begins to feel more and more helpless and

weak. You can see how important the power of having the football is when players will do
anything to stop the offense from advancing it. They will launch their bodies at the player with
the ball, trying to tackle them and bring them down, even though it could mean a lot of harm or
injury to themselves. The players just want to take the opposing team off of their original plan
and take control of the game. I went to the game with my friend, Ryan, who was in town for the
game from The University of Louisville , where he is also taking an Anthropology class. After
the game, he said that I definitely see how football is a battle over power. If I were an outsider
and I didnt know anything about football, I would wonder why guys are flinging their bodies at
the guy with the ball. Clearly it must be important if they are battling over it like that.
Another aspect of the game relating to anthropology is language. Obviously, the players
speak English, but must communicate in a complex system. For example, the offense cannot just
come up to the line of scrimmage and have Cam Newton yell out to his team, Okay, first down,
lets run it up the middle. Obviously the defense will know what to expect and there will be bad
results for the offense. Instead, he will tell his team something like Red Right 30 Pull Trap on
3. The players will understand what the quarterback is saying and will run the play accordingly.
Or on a pass play, Cam Newton wouldnt come up and say Okay, lets pass it. Kelvin Benjamin,
you run a streak, and Devin Funchess you run a slant. I will look for you, Funchess. He will
come up and say something like 3 Wide Jumbo Ace Split Delay. The offense will again know
what to do and the defense will not. The playcalling system is like a whole language, and all 32
teams pretty much have their own languages. It is important in football to be able to
communicate and make sure that the other team does not know what you are saying, so you can
attack on the element of surprise. I also went to the game with my friend Matt, who I went to
high school with, He played football since he was young and played football for our high school.

When I asked about learning a playbook, he said that We had our own playbook. I never really
had to learn a playbook until I got onto varsity. There are lots of different things to learn, like
what keywords correlate with each route, and what keywords correlate with blocking
assignments and things like that. I never really stopped studying the playbook, and I could hardly
imagine how complex an NFL one is. Matt saying that he never stopped studying the playbook
puts it into perspective on how hard it can be to pick up a playbook, so it definitely is like a
second language in those regards. To get an NFL players perspective on the playbook, we will
look to former NFL players, Broncos wide receiver Bennie Fowler and retired wide receiver
Nate Jackson. In an interview done with Sports Illustrated, Fowler said that the playbook is the
size of a dictionary. (Treadway, 2014). football-speak is a language. If you do not master it,
you are lost. Nate Jackson also shared the same idea with the playbook, saying in his memoir
thatfootball-speak is a language. If you are not fluent, then you are lost (Treadway, 2014).
Almost all accounts from football players will tell you that learning the playbook is just like a
complex language.
Another key element of football is strategy. In anthropology, strategy can relate to
different things. One example of this is a pack of chimps planning an attack. In class a while
back, we watched a video of a pack of chimps attacking another pack. You can see that they
carefully planned out their attack. They approach the other pack of chimps very quietly so they
will be unsuspecting. Then, when the moment is right, the attackers start their attack and get very
loud and start beating on trees to scare the victims. The football team also plans like the chimps.
The whole week before the game, the coaches will scout the opponents and make observations.
They will note things that are important and needs to be pointed out, like tendencies of certain

players, or what they are very strong at and what we must be alert of at all time. Then the game is
like the actual attack. Each team will put their plans into place and begin to fight.
So whether you are talking about the game of football itself, or the whole workings and
structure of it, it is just one anthropological event. You have the league itself, which is a
hierarchy from the structure of the team personnel, coaches, players, and scouts. You also have
the battle over power to remain the best and strongest team in the league. Then there are other
factors, like the language and strategy. Football really has become a cultural event that occurs
every Sunday that not many people realize.

Works Cited

Power in Anthropology. Retrieved November 26, 2016, from

http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/anth37/

Treadway, D. (2014, August 4). How difficult is it to memorize an NFL playbook? Retrieved
November 27, 2016, from http://www.si.com/extra-mustard/2014/08/04/how-difficult-itmemorize-nfl-playbook-neurologist-explains