{"id":703533,"date":"2026-01-25T08:51:29","date_gmt":"2026-01-25T08:51:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/703533\/"},"modified":"2026-01-25T08:51:29","modified_gmt":"2026-01-25T08:51:29","slug":"why-do-we-love-football-chuck-klostermans-new-book-explores-americas-obsession","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/703533\/","title":{"rendered":"Why do we love football? Chuck Klosterman\u2019s new book explores America\u2019s obsession"},"content":{"rendered":"

George Plimpton is credited with the \u201cSmall Ball Theory,\u201d which he expounded upon in a 1992 essay for the New York Times<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis stated that there seems to be a correlation between the standard of writing about a particular sport and the ball it utilizes \u2014 that the smaller the ball, the more formidable the literature,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n

For a refined sportswriter like Plimpton, he theorized that sports like golf and baseball had a better literary catalogue than, say, football and basketball.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn keeping with the Small Ball Theory, football has relatively slim pickings,\u201d he wrote, noting that fictional titles such as \u201cNorth Dallas Forty,\u201d \u201cEnd Zone,\u201d and \u201cSemi-Tough\u201d were more illuminating than nonfiction works. Though he did mention his own book, \u201cPaper Lion,\u201d and Jerry Kramer\u2019s famous as-told-to with Dick Schaap, \u201cInstant Replay.\u201d<\/p>\n

All five of those books are fantastic and are part of my ever-expanding sports book library, which has overtaken my office, a closet and my basement, much to my family\u2019s chagrin. Still, I would respectfully disagree with that dated idea.<\/p>\n

Some of my favorites include \u201cBringing the Heat,\u201d by Mark Bowden, \u201cCollision Low Crossers,\u201d by Nicholas Dawidoff, \u201cBlood, Sweat and Chalk,\u201d by Tim Layden. These books take you inside the game. David Maraniss\u2019 biography on Vince Lombardi, \u201cWhen Pride Still Mattered,\u201d transcends the genre. Is Fred Exley\u2019s classic \u201cA Fan\u2019s Notes\u201d a football book? It certainly defines the mania of being a true fanatic. This season, I\u2019ve written admiringly about Seth Wickersham\u2019s new book on quarterbacking, \u201cAmerican Kings.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

Access is hard to come by these days, and it\u2019s not like American men are diving into fiction as they once did. But there\u2019s plenty of good writing about sports, and football in particular. A new book about the game recently crossed my desk. It\u2019s titled \u201cFootball,\u201d<\/a> and it\u2019s by Chuck Klosterman, the prolific pop culture writer and author.<\/p>\n

If you like football and you like Klosterman, well, you might already own this book, as it went on sale this past week. But if you like either football or Klosterman, I\u2019d recommend it all the same. It\u2019s a wonderful addition to the genre. Just to warn you, it\u2019s not a breakdown of the Sean McVay coaching tree or a deep dive into the power brokers of the NFL. It\u2019s the exact book you\u2019d expect from Klosterman, who has always dabbled in sportswriting or sports talking in his quest to explain the world through culture.<\/p>\n

“No one wants to see someone die on the football field, but the fact that it is possible does raise the stakes.”<\/p>\n

\u2014@CKlosterman<\/a> and @PabloTorre<\/a> on why football’s “4- to 7-second windows of hyperkinetic, violent action” are so profoundly seductive pic.twitter.com\/JeJKGdBZry<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Pablo Torre Finds Out (@pablofindsout) January 22, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not about any specific aspect of football,\u201d he said in a phone conversation. \u201cIt is about the idea of football as this almost universal thing. The only thing left about the American monoculture is like football and Taylor Swift. And there are these things that sort of inform the experience of living in this country, even if you don\u2019t care. If I had to give a little more elaborate answer, I would probably say it describes how football maybe is the defining concept of the last half of the 20th century. And I don\u2019t know if it will continue to be that moving forward. The 21st century might be different, but I think if we\u2019re trying to understand America from 1950 to the year 2000, this is probably the best vessel.\u201d<\/p>\n

Klosterman said his publisher wasn\u2019t that interested in a football book when he raised the idea.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know what they imagined the book was going to be,\u201d he told me, \u201cbut it was not the book that ended up coming out, because now they seem happy about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

He had written 12 books, but he figured now was the time to write one specifically about sports.<\/p>\n

\u201cI guess in some ways I see basketball as my favorite game in a vacuum, but football seems so much more important to me,\u201d he said. \u201cI watch it so much. I care about it more. I talk about it much more.\u201d<\/p>\n

Part of the early conceit in the book is that he\u2019s writing to some theoretical audience in some unlikely future where football is extinct or just not as popular as it is now. Through that lens, he\u2019s going to explain why it was so important in his lifetime. Klosterman is a rabid football fan. He played nine-man high school football in North Dakota and has a love-hate relationship with the Dallas Cowboys and a fanatical commitment to college football, the kind reserved for Southerners and degenerate gamblers, even though he\u2019s not an SEC grad and doesn\u2019t bet.<\/p>\n

Personally, I\u2019m dubious that football will ever lose its luster.<\/p>\n

There was a scare a decade ago about concussions killing football, and we all remember when a lot of people turned on the NFL, on both sides of the political divide, because of Colin Kaepernick and the national anthem. (Klosterman writes about all of this.) But, of course, football has never been more popular. Kids are still playing it in high school, and we\u2019re all watching it more than ever.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll see, we\u2019ll see,\u201d he said. \u201cThe thing is, yes, you\u2019re right in the sense that right now, in the present, it seems more likely that football would usurp every other sport and there would only be football. But that seems much more plausible considering the current condition of the world, and I guess the best argument that I would make in response is that, well, nothing has lasted forever.\u201d<\/p>\n

There\u2019s an idea that football is a bubble, but this one seems to only expand with no pop in sight.<\/p>\n

\u201cFootball can only get bigger,\u201d Klosterman said. \u201cThe NFL, particularly, is designed only for expansion. It cannot be the same.\u201d<\/p>\n

Games are on nearly every day of the week. The NFL has discovered it can put games on Christmas, even if it falls on a Wednesday. The schedule is soon going to expand to 18 games. Next year\u2019s national championship for college football will be on Jan. 25. The college game is beset with organizational chaos, and yet this season\u2019s national championship was uniquely popular. Its result was downright wholesome.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not like the football-loving masses have been turned into hooting idiots. While people still call into sports radio to rant, the seeming goal of the football fan now is to sound educated, whether it\u2019s about the modern offense or sports betting. Some of the most popular content online and, for some reason, on sports radio, is \u201cfilm\u201d analysis. Average fans speak in jargon that they\u2019ve learned from football writers and ex-quarterbacks, all of whom use it to sound smart.<\/p>\n

For many people, football is the way we communicate, more than ever.<\/p>\n

Most people assume the rise of legalized sports betting is one reason why football is more popular than ever, and Klosterman writes about that in the book. In the chapter \u201cAllegory of the Cave,\u201d he quotes his brother-in-law: \u201cYou can\u2019t understand football if you\u2019re not betting on it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Klosterman doesn\u2019t bet, but as he writes, \u201cWhat I\u2019ve discovered is something I never anticipated: Gambling enriches football, at least conversationally.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is interesting, like when I talk to other dads, if we\u2019re meeting for some school event, we\u2019re all usually talking about sports, and there\u2019s always these two conversations going on,\u201d he told me when I brought this up. \u201cOne, we\u2019re talking about what\u2019s happening in the NFL or what\u2019s happening in the NBA, and then the other conversation is all these guys telling me what they lost money on or how excited they are because they see this value in the upcoming Tulane-Ole Miss game or something. It\u2019s weird. They\u2019re both about sports, and they are both talking about players and games and outcomes, but they\u2019re two silos. One is about this thing that all people are experiencing, and the other is this incredibly personal thing that one person is experiencing because they\u2019re putting money into it.\u201d<\/p>\n

As a father and a 47-year-old man, I can confirm.<\/p>\n

If you live in a football market or a college town, though, not every conversation is about gambling. Just like not every conversation was about concussions or the national anthem or whatever football-adjacent topic was dominating the headlines.<\/p>\n

Living in suburban Chicago, we just wrapped up two feel-good stories that dominated the season: Indiana football and the Bears.<\/p>\n

The Hoosiers, of course, won a national championship last Monday night, a scenario so unlikely it\u2019s still hard to fathom that it actually happened, and the Bears are, with the hire of Ben Johnson, suddenly a competent, fun team.<\/p>\n

\"Indiana<\/p>\n

\n Indiana University fans celebrate at a watch party in Bloomington during Monday night\u2019s College Football Playoff national championship game between the Hoosiers and Miami Hurricanes. (Jon Cherry \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Like most of the Chicago area, the suburb in which I live is full of Indiana grads (and parents of current students) and, of course, Bears fans.<\/p>\n

I have a 15-year-old son and a 12-year-old daughter. My son is a Pittsburgh Steelers fan, like me, who recently walked into my home office wearing a bootleg Kaleb Johnson T-shirt and complaining that special teams coach Danny Smith has moved on to Tampa Bay. I remember the first time he was truly angry after a loss. It was the first time I took him to a game in Pittsburgh, and the Jets came back to win. It was Kenny Pickett\u2019s first game, and Mitch Trubisky got benched. He\u2019s never been the same. Now I\u2019ve noticed he\u2019s started posting Indiana content on his Instagram stories in honor of his mom, a loud and proud IU grad.<\/p>\n

My daughter has never cared much about sports until this season. Now, she loves Fernando Mendoza and is especially infatuated with Bears quarterback Caleb Williams, who also paints his nails and drinks matcha lattes. When the Bears played the Rams in the divisional round, I was covering the game and received impassioned texts from her. She was anxious in the fourth quarter, and she was upset after the loss.<\/p>\n

She was now, like her brother before her, a true fan through pain. She is why football will never die.<\/p>\n

For all the negativity out there about the game \u2014 the greed, the gambling, the violence, the never-ending bloat \u2014 when Indiana wins a national title and the Bears are making people happy and then painfully sad, it\u2019s hard not to see why we love the game so intensely.<\/p>\n

Football makes us feel something personal and something communal. That\u2019s why we put up with everything that comes along with it.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s normal for Americans to have an abnormal relationship with football,\u201d Klosterman writes, \u201cand I\u2019m too normal to confront my simplicities.\u201d<\/p>\n