Bert Whyte'e

SPORTLIGHT

‘Acc

ing to Freud, young priest is trying to protect the egg

~ Worshippers cheer as young priest

protects egg for love of Mother

‘

the eg
first j

Obviously - football is a syndrome of religious rites symbolizing the struggle to preserve
g of life through the rigors of impending winter. (At least, so says an article printed
n The Rocky Mountain Bulletin, which provides a new insight into the game, which —

we hope —. our readers will take in the spirit in which it was written).

The rites begin at the au-
tumnal equinox and culminate
on the first day of the New
Year with “great festivals
identified with bowls of plen-

- ty; the festivals are associat-

ed with flowers such as roses,

fruits such as oranges, farm

Crops such as cotton, and even
Sun-worship and ~appease-
ment of great reptiles such as
alligators.

_ In these rites the egg of life
IS symbolized by what is call-
€d “the oval,” -an_ inflated
bladder covered with hog
Skin. The convention of “the
Oval” is repeated in the archi-
tectural design of the vast out-
door churches in which the
Services are held in every town
and city, also in the greater

Centres of population where

an advanced priesthood per-
forms. ;

These enormous _ roofless
churches dominate every col-
lege campus... and bear wit-
ness to the high spiritual de-
velopment of the culture that
Produced them. Literally
Millions of worshippers at-
venga

Subconsciously, these hordes
of worshippers are seeking on
outlet from sex-frustration in
anticipation of violent: maso-
chism and sadism about to be
enacied by a highly-trained
Priesthood of young men. Foot-
ball abviously arises out of
the Oedipus complex. Love of
mother dominates the entire
Yitual, The churches, without

©€xception, are dedicated to
Alma Mater.

The rites are performed on
a rectangular area of green
grass oriented to the four di-
rections. The grass, symboliz-
ing summer, is striped with
ominous white lines represent-
ing the knifing snows of win-
ter.

‘The ceremony begins with

colorful processions of music-
ians ~ and semi-nude’ virgins
who move in an out of ritual-
ized patterns. This excites the
thousands of worshippers to
rise from their seats, shout
frenzied poetry in unison and
chant estatic anthems through
which runs the Oedipus theme
of willingness to die for love
of Mother.
. The actual rites performed
by twenty-two young priests
of perfect physique, might ap-
pear.to the unititiated as a
chaotic conflict concerned
cnly with hurtling the oval
by kicking it, then endeavor-
ing to rescue and protect the
egg. However, the procedure is
highly stylized .. .

The group in so-called
“possession” of the oval’ first
arrange themselves in an egg-
shaped “huddle” as it is called,
for a moment of prayerful
meditation and whispering of
secret numbers to each other.

Then they rearrange them-
selves with relation to the po-
sition of the egg. In a typical
“formation” there are seven
priests “in the line,” seven
being a mystical number as-
sociated not, as Jung purists
might contend, with the “sey-

en last words,” but actually
with sublimation of the “sev-
en deadly sins” into “the sev-
en cardinal principles of edu-
cation.”

The central priest crouches
over the egg, protecting it
with his hands while over his
back-hovers the “quarterback”
The transposition of “back
quarters” to “quarterback” is
easily explained by the Adler
school, To the layman the cur-
ious posture assumed by the
“quarterback”... immediately
Suggests the Cretan origins
of Mycenaean art, but this
popular view is untenable. Ac-
tually, of course, the ‘‘quarter-
back” symbolizes the libido,
combining two instincts, name-
ly (a) Eros, which strives for
even closer union and (b) the
intinct for destruction of any-
thing in the path of Eros.
Moreover, the “Pleasure-pain”
excitement of the hysterical
worshippers focuses entirely
on the actions of the libido-
quarterback. Behind him are
three priests representing the

‘male triad.

At a given signal the egg
is passed by sleight-of-hand
to one of the members of the
triad, who endeavours to move
it by bodily force across the
white lines of winter .., At the
end of the second quarter,
implying the summer solstice,
the processions of musicians
and semi-nude virgins are re-
sumed...

T A RECENT hearing be-

for a U.S. Senate commit-
tee in Washington, a famous
doctor testifying on the nar-
cotics racket said, “The prob-
lem we have to face is that the
drug addicts we treat don’t
get over it; sooner or later,

~ they all go back on dope.”

One witness waiting to testi-
fy couldn’: let that pass. ‘Here
is a fellow who didn’t go back
and who'll never -go back,”
he shouted.

The doctor took a good look
at the interrupter, then grin-
ned. “Oh, Barney Ross,” he
said. “Well, you’re an excep-
tion.”

In No Man Stands Alone, the
former lightweight and welter-
weight champion tells how
he became a “junkie” and how
he managed to kick the mon-
key off his back. It’s a battle
that has to be fought again
every day, but 10 years after
he took the “drying out” cure
at Lexington, Barney is still
part of the. one percent of
patients who have never gone
back on drugs.

That's a slim percentage, and
Barney Ross realizes that
something must be done for
those 99 percent who fail to
“kick the habit.”

“The addict should be treat-
€q as a sick man, because that
is what. he is,’ writes Ross.
“Putting him in jail doesn’t do
anybody any good. He should
be sent for the cure and his
case should be followed up to
see if he can stick to the cure.
If the doctors become certain
that he can’t — and for the
oldtimers particularly, we
know there is no hope — then,
in my opinion, we should
treat him thé way the English
de, namely, give him the dope
he needs through a govern-
ment clinic.” -

Ross’ proposal is in line
with a similar proposal made
by this writer some years ago
in the Pacific Tribune, and I
make no apology for giving it
so much space ‘in a sports
column,. because. the. drug
problem is a major one in Van-
couver. The U.S. Communist
leader, William Z. Foster, also
advocated this solution in his
book, Pages from a Worker’s
Life.

Only a small part of the
Ross story (written by Barney
with the aid of Martin Ab-
ramson) deals with the dope
question. :

The rise of Barnet David
Rasofsky from a Chicago
ghetto to fame and fortune as
Barney Ross, lightweight and
welterweight champion of the

worid, is told in simple ex-
citing prose. Chicago was a
gangsterlang in the Roaring
Twenties, and young Ross, a
real trumbenik (troublemak-
er) was thrilled when he got
a job running errands for Al
Capone. Eventually his fistic
ability saved Barney from be-
coming a hoodlum, but it was
a close thing.

Most of the fighters of his
era were Irish, Italian or Jew-
ish, with some good Negroes
coming up.

BARNEY ROSS

“There are practically no
good Jewish boys or Irish boys
in boxing today, and the Ital-
ian boys are beginning to van-
ish too. Their families are do-
ing better, money-wise, they
get more of a chance to go to
college, so why should they
take a chance on getting their
brains knocked out?”

ce ce bo3

Barney Ross won the world’s
lightweight title from tough
Tony Canzoneri on June 21,
1932. Two years later he took
the welterweight crown from
Jimmy McLarnin, the pride
of Vancouver. McLarnin won
a rematch but Ross took the
rubber, thus “winning perm-
anent possession of McLarn-

”

in,’ as one sports writer ob-
served.
These great battles, and

others up to the time he lost
the welter belt to Hammering
Henry Armstrong in 1938, are
described graphically by Ross
in his book.

Later came the war, and his
medal-winning conduct at

Guadalcanal with the US.
Marines, followed by dope ad-
diction and the successful

battle against it — the hard-
est fight of his life.

All of it makes good read-
ing and No Man Stands Alone
gets a plug from this corner.
The book costs $4.50 and can
be purchased at the People’s .
Co-op Bookstore, 337 West
Pender.

January 10, 1958 — PACIFIC TRIBUNE—PAGE 11