Jenkins: Bell tolls, but football will never die

You can feel it building, a groundswell of doom. In the wake of Junior Seau's suicide, and the National Football League's ongoing issues with on-field violence, we're hearing that football is a dying sport. Give it 20 years or so, they say. By then, it will be gone forever.

That sounds like May talking. Wait until September, when the fever sets in. America's passion with football will resume, never to diminish in any significant way.

Here's the thing about the wave of disaster that has tarnished the sport in recent months: None of it is new. Teams have offered cash bounties on the opposition since the 1950s, and probably much earlier. Decades of jarring collisions have left players crippled, demented or dead before their time.

What sets apart the reign of NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell is that aggressive steps are being taken to make the game safer -- and that's long overdue. A somewhat milder sport won't affect its appeal in the slightest, for it will always be associated with courage and grace within the realm of combat.

As my wife likes to say, "Men go to war."

She's not all that crazy about the concept. But it's a pretty handy slogan, whether it's two kids wrestling in the backyard or tough guys choosing fists before words. This is a country in which boxing, race-car driving and other life-threatening sports thrive, and always will, in the face of eternal outrage.

The notion of the NFL shutting down is so laughably absurd it hardly requires debate. This is a multibillion-dollar industry in which all the owners make money, television contracts test the bounds of opulence, and public demand -- the driving force behind any successful business -- is off the charts.

I'll guarantee you, as much as fans have debated safety issues of late, they're focusing more on Peyton Manning, Andrew Luck, Robert Griffin III and their local teams in what could be a record season for widespread appeal.

The college level? Please. There's far too much money to be had, to say nothing of rampant interest, no matter how dreadfully the Bowl Championship Series has crafted recent postseasons. Maybe it's easy for some suburban California community to denigrate the sport, but don't run that past the folks in Alabama, Florida, Ohio or Texas, where high-school football is a religion, literally the primary focus of countless small towns.

What about kids in elementary and middle school? That's the essence of the death-to-football argument, that more parents will prevent their kids from playing, and the sport's ground-level core will be irrevocably dismantled.

I'm all for parents making that call. I heard it from my own father, nearly 50 years ago. I played all the major sports in pickup games -- every single day, if I could -- including touch football. Tackle football was out. Not that I had to be told; I figured you had to be nuts to hurl your body into that gladiator pit. Most of my sports-mad buddies felt the same way, but we envied the hell out of those who were willing. Man, did those guys get the girl, as it were.

Pop Warner football has been around since 1929, and it's quite an institution, but I've always found it a little bit sad, especially as it involves really little kids. Already they're wearing uniforms and knocking heads? I wouldn't mind seeing it eliminated altogether, and I would submit that the sport would continue to thrive.

Play touch football, get your chops down, craft a bit of feel for the game, then take that crucial next step at the high-school level. By then, you'll know if you really want it that badly, and unless I'm misjudging the unbridled passion for this sport, I don't think there are enough protective parents to turn football into a wasteland. Too many moms and dads either revere the sport or live their lives through their kids' high-school deeds.

If the NFL ever eliminates the kickoff, a truly exciting play that represents the essence of the sport, it will have gone too far on the safety issue. Otherwise, every new rule gets hearty applause from here. In the face of current and imminent lawsuits, the NFL will do everything in its power to reduce and monitor concussions, including a program that would track retired players.

So how does this awakening threaten the future of the sport? I believe most fans are repulsed by the sight of a tackler leading with his helmet, then knocking himself unconscious. They're not thrilled when some helpless, off-the-ball player gets viciously blindsided by someone who turned his body into a guided missile. They'd love to know that guys are playing clean, but they know today's excessive violence is related to rampant use of performance-enhancing drugs.

So we live with all that. What the doomsday critics forget is the gorgeous leaping catch in the corner of the end zone, a clever running back darting miraculously through the opposition, a perfectly thrown pass -- elements that will always be in place. Never forget that this is an elegant game, and it's something that cannot be killed.

Bruce Jenkins is a columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle. His email address is bjenkins@sfchronicle.com.