The following is taken from the writings of Willa Cather when she was a student at the University of Nebraska. She is talking about football in general (actually references some of the players in the quotes below), but since she was a student at UNL and fan of the University football team, i think it is appropriate
"Of course it [football] is brutal. So is Homer brutal, and Tolstoi; that is, they all alike appeal to the crude savage instincts of men. We have not outgrown all our old animal instincts yet, heaven grant we never shall! The moment that, as a nation, we lose brute force, or an admiration for brute force, from that moment poetry and art are forever dead among us, and we will have nothing but grammar and mathematics left. The only way poetry can ever reach one is through one’s brute instincts. “Charge of the Light Brigade,” or “How they brought good news to Aix,” move us in exactly the same way that one of Mr. Shue’s runs or Mr. Yont’s touchdowns do, only not half so intensely. A good football game is an epic, it rouses the oldest part of us."
"Taken as a game, it is a royal one. It is one of the few survivals of the heroic. It is as strictly Anglo-Saxon as fencing is Latin. It is founded on the bulldog strength which is the bulwark of the English people. It has in it something of the old stubborn strength that goes clear back to the day of the Norman conquest. The descendants of King Harold can never be entirely gentlemen; there must always be a little of the barbarian lurking in them somewhere. When the last trace of that vital spark, that exultation of physical powers, that preference of strength to dexterity, that fury of animal courage dies out of the race, then providence will be done with us and will have some new barbarian people ready to come and conquer."
-Willa Cather
