>>>>An American sports magazine just had a short piece, prompted by the upcoming World Cup I suppose, about soccer shenanigans. (They unaccountably left out the famous photo of Vinnie Jones seizing an opponent's manhood in a vise grip). One of them was a guy -- sorry, I don't remember the name of the player or the club -- who had been arrested for cocaine possession. After scoring a goal he taunted the home fans by pretending to snort a line off the goal line. He got fined some huge amount of money.
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>>>That was Robbie Fowler (a fellow Liverpudlian). He always used to wear a plaster (bandaid) across the bridge of his nose - supposed to help breathing.
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>>>Incidentally, why do gridiron players paint black stripes across their cheeks, under the helmet?
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>>To deflect sun rays. I don't know the exact science of it, or if there really is a scientific basis, but that's why they do it.
>
>It doesn't so much deflect the sun's rays as absorb them so it doesn't reflect into the eyes. Overall, it makes it a bit easier to concentrate on the job rather than the sun. Not tons, but a bit.
>

That helps. Now I am genuinely curious about the mechanics of it, and wondering how much grasp I have of core physical principles. Probably a stupid question: if black is the absence of color (as I believe it is), why would a black stripe absorb sun rays? What makes that happen?

Mr. Curious