Post-modern culture has conflated "games" with "sports."
You are uniformed about "MacArthur's time." Army football began in 1890. MacArthur entered West Point on 13 June 1899. He played left field for the baseball team. President of the United States and General of the Army Dwight D. Eisenhower and General of the Army Omar Bradley were on the 1912 Army football team.
If football was considered so "barbaric" why did the academies play football nine years before MacArthur even entered West Point?
Post-modern culture has conflated "games" with "sports."
What is the point you are trying to make?