In the best of all possible worlds, people everywhere would wish to take a day to genuinely honor and reflect upon all men or women who have made a significant, positive impact on our lives, and emulate them.

It is one thing, however, to enact laws and ordinances to insure equality in jobs, in housing, in education, in where to sit on a bus and in seating at luncheon counters. It is yet another to make an attempt, however well intentioned, to twist the arm of an electorate to pay homage by dint of a symbol. A more effective way for the N.F.L. would have been to declare from the beginning that it would not hold a Super Bowl in any state that does not observe King Day; if the voters want it, then that's up to them.

More perplexing, the cities of Phoenix and Tempe both already observe King Day. It appears unseemly that those municipalities should be penalized because of others in the state.

And why, in fact, should the stipulation for a King Day in Arizona be so crucial to the N.F.L. anyway?

Primarily, it seems, because 56 percent of the players in the league are black, and many of them, as well as a number of white players, according to Joe Browne, a spokesman for the league, are sensitive toward the issue. Thus, the league deemed it important.

Also, perhaps, the N.F.L. Players Association in general is a consideration. It is headed by Gene Upshaw, a black man. Tagliabue seems eager to heal old wounds with the union and work out a collective bargaining agreement, a document absent since the strike of 1987.

The league, receiving assurances from Arizona politicians, was confident the King proposal would pass. A majority of voters, apparently, thought this was a case not of bigotry, but of a kind of blackmail, and voted, by a narrow margin, "No." The guess here is that Arizona has about the same percentage of bigots and nonbigots per square foot as most other states.