By Mark Lassiter

The National Football League (NFL) seems to be getting along quite well without recent almost-team-part-owner Rush Limbaugh. That blip came and went pretty quickly, but it’s still worth looking at, both as an example of how politics and race can play out on and off the field, and as an examination of sports as sanctuary.

One could chalk up the quick destruction of conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh’s attempt last month to become part-owner of an NFL franchise as a sweet example of turnabout being fair play.

After all. Limbaugh’s the guy who once infamously denigrated the achievements of the Philadelphia Eagles’ black quarterback Donovan McNabb, a certain NFL Hall of Famer, and who once said the NFL “all too often looks like a game between the Bloods and the Crips without any weapons,” among his many disparaging remarks about African Americans and others.

So, it wasn’t all that surprising that when it became known that Limbaugh was part of a group seeking to buying the St. Lions Rams franchise, several NFL players immediately spoke out against it. Equally important, one owner, Jim Irsay, of the Indianapolis Colts, publicly declared he wouldn’t favor any ownership group in which Limbaugh was involved, and even the NFL Commissioner, Roger Goodell, said he found Limbaugh’s statements about race “divisive” and “polarizing.”

In short, it quickly became clear that the always strenuously apolitical NFL would likely face a significant protest from within as well as outside its ranks – a controversy that would overturn for millions of fans one of the sports/entertainment juggernaut’s most critical attractions: sanctuary from the madness of workaday life.

More than anything, football fans prefer to cheer their favorite teams in relative peace. For hours upon hours on Sundays, NFL football provides more therapeutic value than most are willing to admit. For example, each and every Sunday for as long as I can remember, my father, Cleve Lassiter, settled into his favorite chair for an afternoon vacation from the harsh urban reality of social work in New York City. I continue that family tradition by savoring each and every Saturday I have a college football broadcast assignment, or a Sunday afternoon with no pending deadlines.

We fans want to cheer for our favorites, jeer the opponents, scrutinize plays, pore over instant replays, debate stats and scores and provide our own lopsided commentary as a means of recreation. Most of all, we want to celebrate with our friends. These are the reasons the Super Bowl is a certified national holiday for social gatherings of fans and non-fans alike. I don’t know a single person who cares which players voted Democrat and which Republican.

Another thing worth noting, as Washington Post and ESPN sports columnist Michael Wilbon did. “…stadiums in the United States are completely integrated on Sundays. Churches are not…Sports are not without prejudice; but they’re the closest thing this society has to a true meritocracy, and as a result, cooperative and constructive human relations in the pursuit of winning are unavoidable. ”

The possibility of Rush Limbaugh as an NFL team owner, and the heated political debate it would have provoked would have threatened that entrenched tradition for fans, the gridiron-focused unity of teams– and all the lucrative business relationships of the NFL and individual teams.

Not to worry. Limbaugh’s business partners in the effort got the hint, and soon came the announcement that their partnership had been dissolved: The words that made Rush Limbaugh a multi-millionaire many times over have also made him a pariah to that most American of institutions – professional football.

Mark Lassiter is already looking forward to watching the New Orleans Saints and Denver Broncos in the NFL playoffs.