As a football fan, the last month has been a full-on delight. College and pro playoffs overlapping, great games, nonstop action. It doesn’t get much better. This past weekend I was glued to the NFL Divisional Round. I had a couple of horses in the race. Having grown up in New England, I’m a lifelong Patriots fan, and after 40+ years in Chicagoland, a Bears enthusiast. If you were paying attention too, you know how that turned out. The Pats are moving on. The Bears…well.
If you were watching, you may have also noticed something interesting on the back base of every team’s helmet: the words “Choose Love.”
At first glance, that phrase feels more at home in a church or a yoga studio—certainly not in a setting where large, fast men repeatedly and enthusiastically collide with one another. It feels out of place, doesn’t it?
And yet, there it is. And I’m digging it.
While teams can select from a variety of messages through the NFL’s Inspire Change initiative, “Choose Love” was selected league-wide this weekend in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. King talked about love constantly. Some of his most powerful words include: “I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear.” And “Hate paralyzes life; love releases it.”
In a post I wrote last September titled Choose Love (yes, I’m writing about choosing love again..it never gets old, and honestly, is there a better topic to obsess over?), I highlighted another of his lines: “Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into a friend.”
But, back to the helmets. While messaging like this might feel mismatched with an NFL playoff game, if the goal is to inspire change, broadcasting a message of love to tens of millions of mostly 35+ year-old men is a pretty smart play. This demographic isn’t exactly leading the charge on emotional openness.
So, what does it mean for a guy on the couch, beer in hand, DoorDashing Jersey Mike’s or Pizza Hut (what else would you order but the official sub and pizza of the NFL?) to read “Choose Love” hundreds of times in a three-hour game?
Maybe nothing. It’s just there, like another ad. But repetition has a way of sneaking under the radar (i.e. the aforementioned sub and pizza…just saying…those ads are constant!). No explanations. Just three words showing up repeatedly in one of the most masculine spaces we have.
Maybe the mind starts to play with it. Choose love…over anger? Over resentment? Over hate? Over fear?
Maybe it spurs him into action. To be kind. Or patient. Or curious. Or forgiving.
I sure hope so. Men aren’t exactly flooded with enriching, emotion-inducing messages as they move through their days. And maybe that’s why this campaign matters. Maybe if we keep introducing love, subtly, even unexpectedly, into more male spaces, it starts to register. That loving is just as manly as football.
