OP-ED: America’s (most dangerous) game
by Matt Eagan | Feb 4, 2010 9:45pm
(4) Comments | Commenting has expired
Posted to: Opinion
Super Bowl Sunday has become a quasi-national holiday but we should at least be honest about what we are watching. We are watching men slowly kill themselves.
Can someone pass the guacamole?
The game of football does permanent and irreversible damage to the brain and body and each year the medical evidence becomes more certain that the damage is more common and takes place earlier than anyone previously anticipated.
It has been widely reported that researchers at the Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy at the Boston University School of Medicine have asked football players to donate their brains after death so that the long-term impact of football can be studied. Sadly, they have not needed to wait long in some cases.
The early findings are sobering. Every brain they have studied has shown signs of chronic traumatic encephalopathy. More simply put, when Andre Waters, the tough, physical defensive back for the Philadelphia Eagles and Arizona Cardinals, committed suicide in 2006, his brain resembled that of an 85-year old Alzheimer’s patient. He was 44.
More sobering, researchers found signs of CTE in a player who was just 18 when he died.
In one sense, such results are not surprising. Football is a violent game.
The NFL, which has an unfailing sense of where future problems exist, has tried to get in front of the issue by updating its policy on concussions and by looking at ways to make the game safer. The problem, of course, is that the game can not be made too safe. The violence is part of its appeal.
And let’s not kid ourselves. Football is king.
The NFL’s already impressive television ratings have spiked again this year. The game between the Minnesota Vikings and the New Orleans Saints for the right to represent the National Football Conference in the Super Bowl was the most watched non-Super Bowl television program viewed on one network since the last episode of “Seinfeld.” (The benefits for victims of 9/11 and Haiti were watched by more people but were broadcast on multiple networks.) And CBS has sold out advertising for Sunday’s game, where a 30-second spot will run a cool $3 million. All of this as the economy continues to struggle to regain its footing.
There is no reason to believe the specter of permanent damage that the game causes its participants will dampen its popularity. Football is uniquely designed to make certain most of its players are faceless numbers, while heavily protecting the few whose faces we do know. Behavior that would bring assault charges in the real world is allowed but the quarterback, the face of football, must not be touched in a way that would inconvenience him.
But the NFL’s foresight can’t change simple facts. Nor can Martin M. Looney, D-New Haven, the state Senate Majority leader and Sen. Thomas Gaffey, D-Meriden, co-chairman of the Education Committee. Gaffey and Looney have introduced legislation requiring high school athletes to be benched until they are given medical clearance if they are suspected of having a concussion.
Nothing wrong with the proposed law. It makes sense, especially since an estimated 40 percent of high school athletes who suffer a concussion return to the field too early, according to the Center for Injury Research and Policy at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio.
Such a change should be enacted immediately but, when it comes to football, there is a more fundamental question that needs to be asked. If it is one day proven (and we are not there yet) that youth football causes the same kind of damage found in Andre Waters and Mike Webster and a host of others, will we allow our kids to play?
Put another way, will we one day decide that we love football more than we love our kids?
(4) Comments
posted by: Matt W. | February 5, 2010 4:52pm
Statistically speaking, riding in cars presents a much greater risk to the health of our children than does playing football. Although it seems we have decided that the benefits we gain, and those our children gain, through access to modern transportation outweigh the risks. I think the same can be said for football and more broadly, organized sports in general - the benefits outweigh the risks. While the risks and benefits tend to increase at each level of competition, the increases may not be equal, i.e. may not maintain a constant ratio so the rational solution is for the player and his family to evaluate the risk /reward dynamic at each level to determine whether or not they are comfortable with continued participation. The answer is most definitely not for someone to decide that playing football, or riding in cars for that matter, is simply too great a risk for others to take. Finally, I would suggest some advice in the words of my former football coach, “suck it up Nancy your slip is showing.”
posted by: ossman52 | February 5, 2010 6:02pm
Matt W., if you were to compare the frequency of actual potentially damaging physical contact your child will - not might - have with another player in every practice and every game of football, to the minimum of six collisions in a lifetime that a driver (not a passenger) will experience, your former coach’s “advice”, as cute as it is, shows the kind of indifference to the legitimate concerns expressed in the article. Certainly nobody is suggesting banning football for any age group. A healthy discussion is needed, however, in light of the ever-increasing availability of real clinical data, to address the increased safety of the players through further research and development. To level the playing field, if you will, parents who are willing to jeopardize their child’s safety and long-term health in favor of the potential benefits of participation - assuming that those are the reasons - should be required to waive their rights, and the rights of their children to litigation should something happen to diminish the quality of life of their children as a result of said participation. There are other sports and non-sporting activities that provide similar benefits with lower risk of permanent damage. I find it hard to imagine that your coach would be so quick to use that phrase on his own child after the kid complains about being in a wheelchair or can’t finish junior high or can’t function in society due to severe head trauma from playing football. Don’t forget to check your slip on your way out.
posted by: thomas hooker | February 6, 2010 4:34pm
In fact parents are already discouraging their sons from playing football. I did. He played rugby instead, a sport that does not feature the blindside collisions of football. The injuries are so horrendous, and the high likelihood of serious brain damage now so clearly known, that it is becoming a common source of concern and discussion among parents in this state.
Let’s be clear: we’re not talking about bruises and minor scrapes; we’re talking about brain damage. One in four high school football players sustains at least one concussion during his playing career. Do you want your son to suffer irreversible brain damage? From playing a sport?
There are lots of other sports a child can participate in, including soccer, swimming, rowing, lacrosse (hope the risks are lower there), and others. There’s no need to put your child at serious risk.
Even in the sport’s heartland in the Deep South I cannot believe that parents will continue to encourage their sons to play football as it becomes clearer how the sport is hurting their children. Even yahoos love their children.
If the equipment makers can’t come up with a way to protect the developing brains of teenage boys, football will decline in popularity. No doubt.
posted by: Doug Hardy | February 7, 2010 9:57pm
Watching the Super Bowl here and I just saw one of the Colts nearly kill Jeremy Shockey, but these guys are so powerful they just get up and walk it off. Shockey should retire this year. He came into the league as a bit of a twit anyway, but he’s taking a terrible beating.
