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(Sunday is NFL day, not church day any longer. So I am posting this Blog today. The content will explain why. And by the way, it is longer than usual.)

It’s time to say it. The NFL is a microcosm of the decline of the American character that has become infected with greed, egoism, and power.

I say that as a former college quarterback who once foolishly dreamed of an NFL career.

That was a very long time ago, when football was a game.

Now it is a business, big business, run like big business, focused on money like big business, willing to do anything to make money like big business, thriving on the greed and egos of its CEOs (in this instance owners and players) like big business.

Ray Rice, Adrian Peterson, and other players like them deserve criticism and/or punishment, but they are also scapegoats for a league corrupt from top to bottom. Consider this: The owner of the Minnesota Vikings for whom Peterson plays has been convicted for fraud against his former business partners and fined 85 million dollars, not just accused, but convicted.

I guess dishonesty in business is acceptable in the NFL, and why not, since it uses blackmail tactics itself to force cities to build new stadiums and secure a future Super Bowl, both of which occurred – you guessed it – in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Zygi Wilf (owner of the Vikings) is the epitome of the way the NFL thinks and acts

Look at what has happened to the NFL (and other major professional sports) over the last 40 years and you see what has happened to America.

Integrity is secondary to making money. It doesn’t matter whether it is the league itself, the owners, or the players. The bottom line is money, not some money, not decent money, but big money, money in the billions – regardless of the non-monetary costs to society!

The NFL is the 1% in this country writ large.

Regrettably, the NFL is not the only example of bad character. What is wrong with professional sports today has trickled all the way down to America’s children.

The obsession in youth sports is not with making money but with winning, not for or because of the kids, but because of the parents. To a degree that is simply disgusting, there are parents who never realized their own dreams in a sport now trying to fulfill them through their children. Perhaps worse, some push their children to compete at an age when they should only be having fun to gain bragging rights in their neighborhood or school district.

In today’s America the only fun kids younger than high school playing organized sports have is when they win, and not always then. But let’s be clear. For every winner there are legions of losers.

I just witnessed firsthand an eleven year old boy get humiliated in a tennis competition his parents put him in that was way beyond his level of ability. They said, “He has to start somewhere.”

You’ve got to be kidding me. That boy’s head was hanging down on his chest. He turned away from his dad when he tried to give him a fist bump. He left the court in tears.

I defy anyone to show me how that was an experience that will make that child into a better man when he grows up.

This much is for sure. Winning a tennis match, a basketball game, a soccer game when you’re eleven years old is more often than not about parents rather than children, about parental egos, parental prestige, parental needs. Moreover, youth sports these days is also a business, so much so that in many areas the costs involved make organized teams available only to kids from families that can afford to pay for them to play.

Even then, many times kids get to play if they are selected during “try outs,” something to which kids should never, ever be subjected. The only qualification a child should ever need to play on a team is the desire to do so. Period!

So America this past week was shocked and dismayed at the Ray Rice and Adrian Peterson stories and the way the NFL has mishandled it all.

But that will mean something only if we take a long hard look at ourselves to see to what extent the NFL is a microcosm of the loss of character our nation as a whole has suffered, and then start viewing sports as a game, not a way of life, and certainly not worth the price we are paying for them, both in money and in loss of character, whether in the big leagues or little league.