There is a reason we stopped throwing Christians to the lions "for our entertainment pleasure". How a society that calls itself "civilized" can tolerate the seduction of young athletes by a temporary thrill (while they are still able to compete,) and lots of money; in exchange for permanent brain damage to themselves; "for our entertainment pleasure", as well as for the enrichment of "some greedy profiteers"; is shameful.
11
I hope he’s taking advantage of cannabis as a neuroprotectant and finding relief in some therapy he has access to here in Colorado. My heart goes out to him.
1
I am scared for my nephew. He was an offensive lineman in a well-known Texas high school, and now he is in college doing the same thing. He and his dad are football fanatics. So, I don't know how to express my concerns without sounding judgmental.
98
A study done out of the University of Colorado in a local school district interviewed parents, coaches, and the players themselves relative to the impact of brain injuries and the possibility of quitting the game due to long term and irreversible damage. Sadly, it was the parents who were most supportive of their children continuing to play football and obviously, the most resistant to the idea of stopping the injuries via quitting the team. One might expect this in Texas, but Colorado?
Sometimes the facts just don't matter.
6
"He was denied disability benefits."
Not quite burying the lead, but close enough.
4
What is good about football?
It's the most racially integrated sport.
It creates opportunity for those from the most deprived backgrounds.
It gives purpose to those who otherwise would be floundering.
It motivates many to live healthy life styles when they otherwise would not.
It teaches teamwork to those who otherwise would be isolated or selfish.
It redistributes money from the rich to the poor.
It makes an education available to those who otherwise would never have the chance.
It allows many to escape gang and drug infested neighborhoods and live far better lives.
It creates the opportunity for players to make friendships with people outside their social circles.
It allows many to earn the respect of others when their lives outside of football are consistently negative.
It gives kids something to do with their free time other than playing video games.
And the vast majority of those who play football do not suffer from CTE.
As of today, we know that 110 football players contracted CTE. Well over a million kids play football, just at the high school level.
5
Universities that cause brain damage to their students should not be accredited.
Also, every football team should hire an equalizer. Every time a player gets a concussion, the equalizer punches the university president.
Since university administrations refuse to share the wealth generated by the athletes, they should at least share the pain.
11
Tackle football is the modern-day equivalent of lions and gladiators. My brother suffered traumatic brain injury in a car accident in 1972 and lived. I would not wish CTE on my worst enemy. Universities, as farm clubs for the NFL, are complicit. I cannot support subjecting student athletes to a "sport" that could render them into the equivalent of a potted plant. It isn't pretty. Mothers will be the end of this mess. Leave it to the mothers.
7
In 40 states, the highest-paid state employee is a university team coach, while adjunct university faculty qualify for food stamps. We spend on athletics what other, more civilized countries spend on education and health care, and we sacrifice our best athletes for our passive amusement. We risk recapitulating Rome.
24
The denial of disability insurance is telling. Professional football has become the modern version of gladiator contests. Once he was injured and unable to play, he was of no use to them. Today's massive padding allows harder and harder hits. As the article described, the brain floats in fluid inside the skull. Physics is pretty basic and inertia isn't helped by padding. With the sudden stop of a hard impact the brain slams into the skull. The padding and armor give the illusion of protection, but it's just that, an illusion.
10
I played rough as a kid. I think I had 3 or 4 concussions by the time I was 15. I broke two legs, one time playing sand lot football without a helmet, and another time sledding on steep and dangerous hills in Michigan. My friends and I banged ourselves around, deliberately crashing bikes, and being towed at considerable speed on toboggans on snowy roads behind one buddy's dad's pickup. I picked the occasional fight, until I was, deservedly, thoroughly beaten by a kid who knew how to used his fists. At around 13 or 14, I remember getting hit hard by bigger kids in a rough sand lot football game (after recovering from my 4th grade near-compound leg fracture).
I finally got scared, and the fear calmed me down. I topped out at 5-7 and 150 pounds by 18. In hindsight, I feel lucky that I was small. I can see now where football could have taken me, had I been larger. I think that even my few head injuries have had some cognitive and memory consequences, looking back over the past 70 years and my brain function now, as an older man. I have grown weary of this violent society, and cannot stand watching contact sports, and haven't seen a football game or a boxing match in many years.
8
This guy made it to the pros. He was a star player most of his life and got to be the big man on campus. I don’t feel badly for him. The guys that get my sympathy are all those marginal high school and college athletes who just took as many hits without the any of the glory, and now years later are hobbled by the same injuries.
2
I no longer watch tackle football at any level. I don't buy tickets or click on stories. I've reached the conclusion that it is immoral to help incentivize people to ruin their health.
10
The leading causes of suicide are mental illness and substance abuse. Many do not get care. Many are processed through the criminal justice system, especially racial minorities. Spending on mental illness is a tiny fraction of total health care spending. I am bipolar. And by virtue of that fact, my life expectancy is 10-20 years less than yours.
Football players choose to play football knowing the risks. And I'm guessing that less than 50 have committed suicide. The crusade to end football has many advocates, but not many are football players. By contrast, most of us with mental illnesses would appreciate more spending, more research, and more public support for suicide prevention.
The attention to football players, when it comes to suicide and CTE is way out of proportion with the attention given the seriously mentally ill.
Lots of folks who don't like football use the players' well-being as an excuse. What many really don't like is that football is so popular and they have no interest, and so they feel left out. Myself, I wish these folks would give more attention to the 47,000 non-football playing Americans who commit suicide each year.
6
Football should be regulated to the flag type only. My son was 6’6 in high school and weighed 275, playing guard on the offensive line. He got a concussion as a sophomore and we removed him from the sport. He was not happy. However, he has not gotten another concussion since because of contact sports. He is now 205, a runner, and his brain is healthy.
9
Helmets need to be instrumented with accelerometers (sensors that measure shock) so data can be collected on the frequency, magnitude and direction of hits to the head. Data could even be collected while the game is being played. Ultimately, this data can be used to limit participation.
I think this is a lot of room for improvement in helmet shock absorbing. Combining this with data collection has the potential of making the game safer.
“How can universities, places of higher learning that are devoted to the development of young minds and that in some cases spend millions of dollars researching the ill effects of brain injuries, justify running multimillion-dollar football machines that put those brains at risk of lifelong damage?”
Indeed! Football should be banned in all educational institutions at all levels, and especially in those schools which receive state or federal funding. Public funding must not be used to enable suffering and death from traumatic brain injuries. We know better now, and to do otherwise is merely immoral.
8
"How can universities, places of higher learning that are devoted to the development of young minds and that in some cases spend millions of dollars researching the ill effects of brain injuries, justify running multimillion-dollar football machines that put those brains at risk of lifelong damage?"
The answer is simple and obvious: there is no possible justification for a supposed institution of learning to indulge in a "sport" proven to cause brain damage. If students and alumni were't so besotted with jock worship, the cruel irony would be obvious, and college football--the phrase is almost an oxymoron--would have been obsolete a long time ago.
5
In less than 25 years and far too late most major universities will give up on football. They will be chased by lawsuits and shame but try to claim the moral high ground.
4
Agree with the regent who said football has no place at any esteemed place of higher education. But football is funding all of the non/minimal spectator sports. Those sports would have to stop granting scholarships like occurs at the Division III level. On second thought, who cares. Do those sports really need more than minimal funding? Who really cares if they're just a notch above intramural?
6
We need to rename Chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) to Neural Frontal Lobe disease (NFL) disease.
5
Please call it Brain Injury not "Head Trauma"
9
Knowing what we know today, any parent who allows his or her son to play tackle football should be arrested for child abuse.
5
The talent pool steadily shrinks. Sadly, in gladiator sport fashion, there will still be an audience for football even when it is played only by those who have almost no other options. But less of an audience, you can be sure. How this will play out will begin with more and more struggling high schools discontinuing their programs. It will continue when we see very few fans in the stands of any but the most high profile college programs. Then pro football will follow the same pattern and clubs will fold due to lack of people in the stands. Football will then become like the Sport of Kings (have you been out to a racetrack on a Thursday lately?). Like a downtown boxing arena with a big name card and about 57 rear ends in the stands. Boxing and horse racing once were the most popular sports in the United States--and how the mighty fell.
The quick rise and fast n' furious flop of the AAF should be a wake-up call. The Pop Warner numbers should be a screaming five-alarm fire bell in the ear. Just as American's love a good horse race, but hate what greedy people have turned that sport into---they love the game of football but cannot and will not stand what greed and disregard for player safety have turned it into. After all, they like human beings almost as much as horses.
3
Football is dangerous.
It should be outtlawed...immediatly.
1
What an absolute shame for everyone that plays and enjoys football. At the same time, however, I grew up in the South, where High School Football (all caps) ruled the school, sucked up a grossly disproportionate share of school resources, and bred a culture of bullying and sexual predation.
I feel bad for anyone who will lose their beloved sport, but from my perspective, good riddance. Schools will be infinitely better off without its toxic presence; the players (many of whom aren't educated enough to even understand the dangers they face) will avoid a life of CTE complications; and, indeed, our society will improve as a result. GOOD. RIDDANCE.
9
One simple question: why not just make head hits illegal? All such hits to be reviewed during the game in progress by officials off TV camera. Automatic suspension immediately imposed? Could not a new way of blocking and tackling be devised to avoid head hits? Answer I assume is not simple. (e.g. do concussions occur often at the bottom of a pile where review would be impossible?) Replies invited.
1
Because it isn't that simple. These are coup- counter coup injuries to the brain that often occur just from the body taking a hard enough hit. Imagine the brain being like a ball floating in a jar filled with fluid. Every time a person is hit hard enough the ball sloshes around and hits the sides of the jar, or the brain hits the skull. All of these injuries have a cumulative effect that can be truly devastating.
1
I am glad that this is getting some recognition in football. But it's not only a football problem. Numerous concussions are a risk in many occupations. I've had them while farming, firefighting, and earlier in life as a combat engineer. Being too close to the concussive blast of explosives rattles the brain pretty darned well, as does a kick in the head by a cow, or having parts of a widow-maker land on your noggin. There's no doubt they all take a toll. I can feel it daily. And I think many of those returning from our many war zones have concussive problems that are more easily routinely diagnosed as PTSD.
5
Ultimately, this problem is not with a sport but with our culture. Football is as violent as it is because that sells tickets and cable views. Look at the popularity of MMA fighting -- plenty of young men and women putting their brains at risk there too. We might shrug and say, well, they're adults and they're choosing to take the risks, just as we might say about baseball players using steroids. But we spectators are not absolved of guilt. Our culture considers it okay to sacrifice some of its youngest and healthiest members for the entertainment of others. A few will be made unbelievably rich, many others will be left disabled or even dead. Stop watching, stop paying if you want it to change.
5
Someone should write an article comparing concussion statistics of professional football and rugby players. Though they're both played by big, fast men and involve violent tacking, no one is Europe is calling for rugby's abolition. Why is that?
@Tim Roberts Simple - Rugby players don't wear helmets. Football players are eager to hit so hard because they (falsely) believe their helmet is a form of protection, as well as (correctly) a weapon to the other player.
Take away the helmets and the NFL would be much safer. However team owners would have to tattoo the team insignia on the heads of the players, because they would be loath to sacrifice the branding that the helmet made them used to.
Backing me up on this is the lower incidence of Parkinson's among retired rugby players and among the (mostly now deceased) leather-helmet era NFL players.
6
My son did not play football. But, when 17 yrs old had a very bad tractor accident in an old tractor with no cab. The tractor’s dual wheels rod broke, the steering wheel pin broke. Tractor was heading downhill on gravel pulling an irrigation part. The dual wheels on deep ditch side were now sideways. And in split second, the tractor began its flip over into a very deep ditch. Son had one choice, he couldn’t jump uphill over descending tractor...so, he jumped downhill. He almost made it.... Dual wheels hit his back (I can still see the tire marks), pushing his (back if head) head down into the gravel/sand at bottom of ditch, etc. We know he was knocked unconscious for a while. He later literally dug himself out and under, from the tractor with his right hand and used his right foot to push himself slowly up the hill to the mostly unused country rd. Broke hips, pelvis, cracked knees and femurs, elbows, shoulders and joints. Cracked jaw both sides in two places, sustained closed head injury and severe concussion. Broke all pairs left rib cage and pierced his L lung...bleeding out, Son is now 34 yrs. The multiple, violent, headaches, never stop. The psychological, emotional, physical, damages that create changes in the body and psych and mind, never stop. NE Medical College, Omaha sent me 5-6”s of stack of papers...helped me understand. Had to learn love a different son. These men go thru’ same thing. Sadly.
5
High school football is child abuse. If kids want to play football they ought to be legally emancipated just like young bug riders as they start out as jockeys in the thoroughbred industry. There needs to be an acknowledgement of the danger, not a note from their parents. No football before sixteen.
College football players need to be guaranteed lifetime health care. The same healthcare given to the university staff. They make money for the university, they need to be given something in return.
Professional football players (bless their hearts) deserve every dollar they can get. They sacrifice their brains for our Sunday entertainment, the sky should be the limit on their paycheck.
3
I don't watch Football anymore.
It is immoral to ask the players to place
the brains and bodies on the line
for our entertainment.
9
i live in Canada where both CFL and NFL football is popular, but ice hockey reigns supreme. And anyone who watches hockey - especially the NHL - knows about the head shots. The league has tried to crack down but the game is too fast and too violent. Seeing a strong young man taking a serious body check - especially when he's not looking or expecting it - and then watching him try to get up with knees wobbling and barely able to skate back to his bench...The camera cuts to the opposing bench and all the players are high-fiving the culprit. The crowd is loving it. The commentators say its part of the game. My girlfriend, who works in health care, will not watch it. I don't think I'm far behind. It's time to ditch the barbarian sports.
11
my mother's 90 and probably in the opening stages of alzheimer's/dementia, but to be in your 30's or 40's and in the same position?
3
Shame on high schools and colleges if they continue tackle football, and other sports where the head is used as a battering ram!
Flag football is a great sport to play. If people want to watch blood sports, there's virtual reality. But I call them sickos.
1
I never played organized football. I forbid my son to play organized football. The two best decisions I ever made.
Football players are bigger, faster, and meaner than ever before. But the human body is still nothing more than a Baggie filled with blood.
4
There are other non-contact sports for youngsters to enjoy, especially in their formative years. Football is money ball. It's a gladiator sport. Men and women risk their health for the benefit of their colleges. The small percentage that go on to the pros find that even a smaller percent remain active as a "career." You don't want dementia at 40.
3
hits add up. how about slaps on the helmet by a dozen guys with 60 pound arms? a dozen of them after every decent run/catch/block? that they still do this at every level of football shows the game can't be fixed by anyone currently involved in it. i love watching NFL, but i wouldn't miss it.
2
It's very simple. Remove the helmet. The helmet is a weapon, not a protective device. There are certainly other measures that can help. I saw that Pop Warner has banned the 3 point stance in its youth leagues. Changes to the rules around kickoffs are bound to help reduce head injuries. Even then, violent and unneccessary hits still occur.
Stiff penalties, fines and ejections for unnecessary head to head contact haven't significantly changed behavior. As long as the youth see their idols on TV destroying each other, they'll continue to do the same.
I'm surprised that the NFLPA hasn't intervened and taken a stronger stance. All of the players in the NFL belong to the same organization that is supposed to look out for it's members' best interests. Why is the NFLPA not protecting its members from each other?
Instead of sending 3 or 4 appointed captains to midfield for a pregame coin toss, I recommend sending all players. Shake the hand of the opponent across from you. Say "I wish you and your team good luck today. I'm going to play hard, I will give my all to beat you, but I will not intentionally try to hurt you."
1
Though there are some benefits football brings, like camaraderie and hard work, it's an anachronism in the 21st century. It's primary role is keeping the old boy network intact and the glass ceiling for women in place, not to mention normalizing brutality.
We need new sports that allow all genders on the same playing field, so that we're actually tapping into the best that is human, not just male.
2
Finally an article that seems to suggest quite adamantly that the colleges and maybe high schools share some of the blame for the emotional and cognitive damege done to many former football players. The NFL has become the easy target, even as we are learning that more and more players did not play in the league or spent very little time in the NFL. When will high schools and colleges begin to accept some of the blame and responsibility.?
2
If people seriously wanted to make football MUCH less dangerous, the solution his right there in front of us. The first thing I'd do is eliminate the face mask, Women's lacrosse pondered helmets, but it was decided that they encouraged a more daring style of play. Secondly, through body fat measurements, get the weight of the linemen way down. Football was BIG in an earlier era, but films show normal sized men playing the line. Ironically protection for the body leads to increased danger to the head. But in football, violence sells, so long=term player protection is an afterthought.
1
Dear Ryan Miller,
Thank you for sharing your story.
You represent hard work, accomplishment, determination, and intelligence.
Now you are also a life saver.
Sincerely And With Gratitude,
A Mom
4
My neighbor played high school and college football. He "jokes" about the time he was concussed and kept going into the other team's huddle for several plays until he was whisked from the field. I'm concerned for him and his future given his lack of understanding as to the degree of brain damage he has incurred.
3
The ironic part of this sags is that many former NFL players, even those suffering from head trauma symptoms, have stated in interviews that they would do it (play) all over again, even knowing that their football activities will likely result with these symptoms.
2
I love College Football but think the days of full tackle football are numbered. In the meantime, there are things that can be done to lessen the liklihood of this kind of thing.
1- Artificial turf surfaces are laid over thin pads and below that is often concrete or asphalt. It is more like playing on pavement than on natural grass. Reverting to natural grass surfaces could help.
2- Introduce weight limits on player size. The massive bodies of the players are created by diet, supplement, and the weight room. The physics of getting hit by a 300 lb player are much different than getting hit by a 210 lb player just as getting hit by a huge truck is different than being hit by a Honda Civic. Shrinking the size of players can help lessen the impacts that are causing CTE and other injuries.
3- Rule changes can also discourage dangerous hits that are sometimes calculated gambles just like an intentional foul in the final minutes of a Basketball game. Maybe the penalty box of Hockey needs to be introduced into Football- a late hit not only means the player is ejected for the game, but the team has to play the rest of the series a player short. This will create a mismatch that will end a lot of dirty hits.
It's either stuff like this or Flag Football, people.
5
I read this in despair for the many young boys following the path of this young man in pursuit of a football career that can result in a fatal end. Life is beautiful and I despair when I hear young man whose life will inevitably be shortened by injuries that were preventable/avoidable.
The science is irrefutable that repeated blows to the head - the brain hitting against the skull several times - can result in CTE. There is no cure. Just the choice to not play the sport. We are no longer in the dark ages.
I hope the legislation catches up so that football is no longer a self regulated sport. We are not in the dark ages. We have science, vital information and first-hand accounts. What more do we need? I am not a proponent for banning the sport but I think that if the sport has life consequences then young boys should be well informed of the risks and become of the rightful age where they can make their own decision. Let's keep an eye out for our boys and men.
1
As I read this article, with the 600-800 hits accumulated in high school, I shuddered.
I live in Westfield, NJ where the school is building a multi-million dollar stadium, new Astro-turf and stands, and can't help but wonder how many Westfield boys will begin their brain injuries so close to their childhood homes.
A very scary article, for sure.
8
Some other countries and many of our colleges have serious rugby competiton. How is it that a contact sport without helmets can survive? Is the lack of padding enough to change players' behavior? It's a fun sport to watch, but I doubt it could never replace football. (Historical note: Teddy Roosevelt lobbied for the abolition of college football, after several deaths, but innovations in better padding made the sport safer and it survived.)
3
To me, American football is a modern day gladiator sport. It has no place in a university or anywhere else. There are plenty of other sports people can get exited about and bet on that don't do nearly the damage football does.
I understand that sports will always be with us (though virtual reality may replace live sports at some point) as it seems to be a part of the human psyche to test oneself (for the participants) and to live vicariously (for the audience.) But there is no reason to put young men in a position where they have to do lifelong damage to themselves. It's time for us to grow up.
3
I think more and more that football is an activity whose time has come and gone.
Then I think that no one is forcing anyone to participate...
2
All entities associated with football need to continue to strive to develop or employ the safest equipment possible to protect their players.
This being said, those who play football on a collegiate level and beyond, know full well the dangers of their sport.
Does this absolve colleges or the NFL etc? Certainly not.
But these players choose to play this violent sport. And unfortunately, many people watch the games especially to see big hits and tackles.
Regardless, I hope Ryan Miller's quality of life drastically improves (and hopefully, the NFL will compensate him on his injuries . - but probably not)
1
I'm now 73 but I remember my parents talking about this in the late 1950s and not wanting me to play football.
The NFL knew this was true 50 years ago, just as Big Tobacco knew smoking was deadly and addictive.
Purdue Pharma knew their Oxycotin was addictive and deadly.
The NRA knows there is no use for an assault rifle except for killing people.
You can bet Congress knew this but stayed silent while they took money from these groups.
18
What parent would let their child play tackle football today? It's not like there's competing "science" like climate change or the effects of tobacco. Pull the plug on Football. It's too dangerous.
10
Got to wonder why he kept playing after the hit and 5 minutes of unconsciousness in the Brown's photo. OK..he may not have know about all of the damage possibilities at 12 years old...but out of college and already indications of the damage probabilities, might be some personal responsibility that needs examining.
This does not absolve the football "industry" or the 10's of millions of people who literally fund the sport...but it is something we need to see as a reality.
My simplistic suggestion: Limit the number of people who can be changed up on offensive and defense to three...others play both ways and as someone else said, limit rooster ..maybe 22 per team. maybe not th final result but a good place to start revamping the sport so as to not eliminate it.
2
And yet he’s still not an abolitionist for college football. I know it is a huge money maker for the universities but they should get out of football. The pro’s can start a farm system to develop players. They can more than afford it.
7
As a young player I was taught to use my face as the weapon not the top of my head. This was in the days before plastic helmets. My first experience with football was as a freshman in high school and we had leather helmets, some with useless face bars others without. This is an exciting game and dangerous but needs to be changed dramatically the arouur of the modern era should be jettisoned. perhaps padded gloves that prevent forming a fist and different techniques taught. Limiting the time a an offensive play takes to evolve might also help. As in the quarterback cannot hold the ball longer than 6 seconds. There are many good suggestions but the game must change and dramatically particularly at the high school and college level.
I experienced mild concussions and spinal stingers where my arms felt warm and numb plus minor dizziness after a hit both in practice and in the game in high school and 2 years in junior college and in all those years I was never taught any defensive hand fighting only brutal face first or arm clubbing.
2
My dad played through school, including college.
I played in grammar school and HS.
My mom had to take me to the pediatrician to get me "cleared."
He advised my mom not to let me do it. But I wanted to please my dad, and I wanted to walk through the school halls on Friday with my jersey on. Football players got the dates for Homecoming.
I was knocked unconscious once. I was playing offensive left tackle (our normal guy was out for a reason I don't remember and I got put in), and I got leveled by a guy 25lbs bigger than me. I remember waking up on the sidelines wondering why I wasn't in bed in my room at home.
I was out for the game but allowed to practice the following Monday, and for the rest of the season.
But I didn't go out for football the following season, and that was that.
I still love watching the sport. It reminds me of sitting on the sofa with my dad watching Joe "Willy" Namath on a B&W TV.
I get it. I get the whole thing and I don't know how I can justify to myself and anyone else why we don't stop guys from destroying themselves in the name of our entertainment.
I have no clue if my young/brief football career caused me long term problems. It may have. I was knocked out only once, but had my "bell rung" several times per week.
It's what was. It just was.
If I had a son, I would not suggest he play football, and might even try to talk him out of it.
But I would watch in pride if he did.
And I know the consequences. My failing.
1
I grew up watching Penn State and the Philadelphia Eagles in the early-to-mid '90s, and played high school ball at Manheim Central and college ball at Bluffton College/University (name change halfway through). I even went so far as to coach in a middle school setting in 2010.
About three or four years later in 2012, I was done with the sport.
I was simply fed up with the outsized influence that college coaches and professional programs have on American life, and at the time, the harsh reality of football as a business had become apparent to me (I was looking at the sport objectively, and the lightbulb finally clicked on). This was before I had begun considering the physical, mental, and psychological tolls that the sport has on human beings seriously.
As stated in the article, American football is a brutal, 19th-century "sport". It's 2019. American society no longer requires football, and shouldn't.
7
One thing's for sure: the buffoons who show up for this sport, and who babble about it on a continuing basis, couldn't care less about Ryan Miller.
23
Here’s rooting for Ryan Miller’s recovery or, at least, significant improvement — and for Michael Powell for telling yet another important chapter in the ongoing saga of football-related brain damage.
If you have read this well-reported story and now have waded this far through the comments, I’d guess that, one way or another, you’re concerned about this issue. Do yourself a favor and watch “League of Denial”, PBS-Frontline’s riveting report. (I hope NYT’s rules allow this!)
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/league-of-denial/
6
Yesterday I started looking at dates for a family vacation next winter, momentarily considering "better check when SuperBowl Sunday is," and then even more quickly remembering that this family doesn't watch football anymore, not for about 5 years now. Junior Seau and Dave Duerson, both of whom committed suicide with a gunshot to the chest so as to preserve their brains for post-mortem examination, may be the best known players with CTE, but we all know there are scores of others. It is hard to imagine how anyone can justify watching or playing this game at any level as it is now constituted. Thinking that better helmets will solve the problem is a joke. I have hung on to all my team (Chicago Bears) gear against the day the game, somehow, becomes safe to play. When enough fans leave, the advertisers will, too, and when there is no money to be made, the game will either change drastically or wither and die altogether.
9
I love to watch football! The skill of these huge people is wonderful. At the same time I wonder are these guys ruining their lives for my entertainment? That is a quandary that I've yet to figure out.
3
It’s brute force - I don’t see lots of skill. It’s pretend gladiators, but the players still get hurt...give it up if you care at all about the brains of those players.
1
Glad some college administrators are finally rethinking football. I hope I live to see the day when young people are shocked that we used to allow adolescents and young men get their heads bashed repeatedly in football. And hockey. And boxing. And any other sport that permits or encourages head hits. I was a nurse on a brain injury unit. I know how devastating brain injuries are and how vulnerable the brain is.
9
i promise this will work: make the game touch football. minimal pads. the players will be lighter, faster and smaller. there will be lots of scoring. why will people watch? it will still be fun and they will still want to gamble on it. parents will let their kids play touch football because the risk of serious injury will be on par with other sports. lest you think this is too fanciful, just look at how they have changed the game already to reduce injury...the game now barely resembles the kind of sport it was in the last century. stop the piecemeal improvements and just go to touch.
3
Football has certainly caused a huge collective decline in I.Q. points in America. It can't be legally banned but the dangers should be made clear and present to all parents of young boys who are considering going down a path of intellect destruction.
6
@Gene Very well put. A great voluntary brain destroying machine! The guys who play this game are already deficient in brain matter.
1
A sad story.
He was expendable.
4
@John Briggs They all are expendable. I've never been to a game and never will.
2
NCAA and NFL are 100% complicit and have the deep pockets to pay. the american public should do the rest.
4
Football seems to be a sport fixated on a present orientation. Yardage is expertly measured to remarkably close estimates. Inelastic collisions are fostered in which forward progress is to be denied at all costs. Future orientations are discounted greatly.
The momentum conserved in such collisions is equal to (mv1+ mv2 + mvi) where i = the number of players involved in the stop, and m = the mass of the player and v = his velocity. The kinetic energy to be conserved in these inelastic collisions can be approximated as:
KE = (1/2)((mv^2)1 + (mv^2)2 + (mv^2)(i)).
So, I think, if 2 players collided who each weighed 220 pounds and were traveling at around 8.9 yards per second (the equivalent of each running 4.5 second 40s); then the total KE to be conserved would equal about 6560 joules. And, this would be equivalent to the gravitational potential energy of each falling from a height of about 11 feet; quite a jarring drop.
[4/17/2019 Wed 12:18pm Greenville NC]
4
Football has no place in education. Period. And tackle football is not a sport we should celebrate in the 21st century. It is brutal, pointless, and can lead to a lifetime of injuries. I notice Mr. Miller did not discuss how all of his plays were a comfort in these difficult times. We should no more allow children to play tackle football than we should give them a pack of Marlboros in their lunchbox. That educated people will argue otherwise is absurd.
16
@Johnson The money that goes to train young kids to play football in elementary and secondary schools is stolen from its real purpose, a decent education with a prospect for gainful employment that is meaningful and useful. If these young men want to show real prowess, they should volunteer they talents and muscle in inner-city neighborhoods. That would be priceless!
4
As long as parents are willing to sacrifice their boys for the entertainment value, selfish pride and short-sighted "benefits" of tackle football in elementary, high school and college, we're going to have a steady assembly line of human missiles ready for the final sacrifice in pro ball, which we still find a way to rationalize watching, driving the money involved.
We ought to know better. This lines up with other self-destructive "cultural values", like unchecked gun ownership and unhealthy lifestyles, which we know will kill us far too early and cruelly, then cry when it happens, and continue to do nothing different. What a bunch of hapless lemmings we are.
5
What will become of these billion dollar stadiums once football become extinct? Concert halls and used for baseball and soccer? Perhaps, they become too expensive to maintain and they become monoliths to our violent past, eventually bulldozed, may a few kept, like Rome's Colosseum -- for tourism, and such.
5
If the goal is to minimize the number of people damaged (or destroyed... ) by participating in football then remove the money.
Don't watch the games, and thereby starve the beast of revenue from advertising.
That, combined with declining to purchase related tickets and merchandise, would effectively end the damage.
Love the game? Fantastic! GO OUTSIDE, FIND SOME GRASS AND ACTUALLY PLAY THE GAME.
What's happening to our sons and brothers is NOT intrinsic to the game of football. It's a sick and twisted American add-on that will disappear the SECOND the cash stops changing hands.
6
I think one thing they could start on is lower the weights.It seems like the older football players had a higher quality of life or at least died later then the players today.
1
How do "Institutions of Higher Learning" justify paying football coaches millions and millions of dollars without providing any help for the young men who risk horrible brain injury?
And the NFL? It is closer to the battles in the arenas of the ancient Roman world. There the losers died immediately rather than the slow and torturous deaths modern football players face.
I cannot understand the mindset of the people who make so much money from football with seemingly no pangs of guilt or compassion for the players. I quit watching it years ago when I learned about Mike Webster and Junior Seau and wonder that a rational person can take pleasure in young men risking permanent disability and early death and call that 'entertainment'
7
"Some Colorado regents have begun to ask questions. “Football as played in America is a brutal 19th century sport that is highly destructive to the human brain,” Linda Shoemaker told fellow regents. “I don’t believe it has a place in the academic enterprise that is the University of Colorado.”"
I'm glad she is bringing this up. I would absolutely support getting rid of football at the college level. I think this is even more true at the high school and middle school level where you are talking about minors, who society has deemed incapable of providing consent on all sorts of life issues due to their age, playing a sport with proven long term health risks. Football has no place in schools.
7
The question you ask is the one so few people want to talk about is why if we know it hurts men's brains would we be doing it in places where the whole point is to improve your brain? Of course the answer is always the same when discussing these kind of incongruities - money. Nothing is more important than money. Not beautiful thoroughbreds euthanized on the track and not beautiful young men with athletic skills. Watching bits of March Madness I could not help but be struck by how CBS managed to monetize almost every second of those games and what a financial boon it was for them. I also couldn't help but note them talking about the wonderful young men playing the games and getting their degrees. Nobody ever mentions they are playing for free on top of a pile of money so high you can't see the top. Only 1% will gain financially from their efforts by going to the NBA. Only 2% go to the NFL so the money rarely touches those that sacrifice for it.
They are all just grist for the mill. So don't listen to the mill owners words because they are being disingenuous.
8
And there’s this: “He was denied disability benefits.”
6
@Barbara Ommerle Rightly so. It is a self inflicted disability which generated huge paychecks. The NFL should be forced to pay these players for the rest of them lives. What is good for the goose should be good for the gander.
Not only the owners of those teams dump the cost of building stadiums on the taxpayers, adding insult to injury they want the taxpayer to pay for there disability .Take a hike, get a real job. I am sorry to tell you that I feel no empathy for your pain-and-suffering. You chose it!
Absolutely heartbreaking.
He nails when he states how his health and future were sold to produce profits for the University and other corporate entities.
Someday, we'll look back upon contact football the same way we now look back upon Roman gladiators: barbaric verging on criminal.
6
There is no "recovery" from brain damage. Your mind is a wonderful thing and it tries to work around the damaged or dead issue caused by light or heavy shaking. This makes it appear that the person has "recovered" or is back to normal.
Meanwhile, the upset brain biochemistry continues a process of neurodegeneration that eventually over years or decades overwhelms the mind's efforts and you see symptoms of weird behavior (anger, forgetfulness, loss of impulse control, pedophilia, etc) or neurodegenerative diseases/conditions like epilepsy, MS, Parkinson's, ALS, dementia, and CTE.
If you know an older man who has any of these, ask them if they had any prior concussions. Or played football or hockey or boxed? Or had friendly "scraps" at the bar. Makes you wonder how prevalent these injuries are when we have a social stereotype called an angry old man. What about dirty old man? Where did that come from? Loss of impulse control means they reach out to grab women or kids when decades before they wouldn't have done that. When you see weird behaviors by people, you might question if they have some history of brain damage or brain disease.
One way forward is to use better language. We need to stop saying "recovery." There is no evidence that you can heal damaged brain cells. Once they're dead, they're gone. The word recovery has been used for decades to fool football players and soldiers into taking part in activities that will damage their brains and them permanently. No more.
8
I no longer watch football for the same reason that I no longer watch boxing. We should have abandoned these barbaric games long ago. We have long since outgrown the days of the Roman gladiators--I wish.
6
He was denied disability benefits by...whom? The State of Colorado? The Social Security Adminsitration? NFL insurers? A private disability insurer? It sounds as though he had no work history other than pro football. Do the players pay social security? I'm guessing he did not have the time in the NFL to be covered by the big settlement case.
2
Any sport done at the professional level is likely to lead to injury, why do we encourage this? Even "regular" people often take exercise and sport to the extreme. Why run a marathon? It must be awful for your body to run all those miles, including training, on asphalt and cement. Cross fit, how many injuries have occurred? I work out and love biking, hiking and cross country skiing. My first goal is not to get injured.
2
Football is a great sport. But science has caught up tp it, and found it far too dangerous. It will now slowly be extracted from American life. Emphasis on slowly.
Someday, injurious sports will be viewed the same way we now view asbestos or DDT. Whatever their merits, the cost rules out their use, or enjoyment.
No helmet can prevent the sloshing of a brain in a skull. In fact, one can make a good argument that it is the massive armor that players wear that give them a false sense of impunity.
I say before we give up, we try reducing padding. Players, owners, and coaches will think twice about training people to be human missiles if they resulted in the mere broken bones that should naturally result from such excessively fast and violent play.
Ironically, getting rid of helmets could save the sport. Back to leather?
113
@pjc Yes, helmets with face masks turned bad-for-TV broken noses and split lips into cartoon-style knockouts that have much worse long-term repercussions.
There is one other rule change that, combined with lighter pads and soft helmets, would (I believe) dramatically reduce injury. Only allow teams to suit 20 players.
Current rules allow teams to suit 53 players. This both allows coaches to treat each player as a replaceable cog and keeps players fresh the whole game, allowing them to run-and-hit at full speed on every play.
40
@pjc I'd rather watch rugby anyway, just by the way the games flow and also the lack of padding/helmets (and rules) that make players think twice before launching themselves into an opponent head first.
24
@pjc
Yes. I had a physician years ago who suggested to me that a return to leather helmets would greatly reduce the injury rate in football.
Also, I think weight restrictions might be a good idea. Nothing good can come from 300lb linemen launching themselves into anyone.
In any case, I hardly watch the game anymore, in part because of all the injuries that waste time and people.
33
I run a study looking at cognition across the lifespan. I have been surprised at the number of young men and women athletes who come in with a history of concussions. Last year I tested a young man from northern Colorado who experienced his 13th known concussion as a red-shirted quarterback at a Nebraska College. His cognitive scores were normal but his recovery from his latest concussion took months. His parents had him examined at the state Medical University and he was told no more football. He and his parents agreed with this advise. We gave him copies of his test results and told him to get evaluated by a licensed neuropsychologist and neurologist for any future symptoms or concerns. It is hard for me to imagine allowing young people to play football as it is played today, particularly in high schools and smaller colleges where players are less protected.
168
@hd Though this is a good comment, it contains enough information about this patient to violate HIPAA restrictions.
8
@TenToes Exactly how? Nowhere is there revealed his name, age, his college, what year he played, his hometown, or his doctors. To figure out his identity from the information given would be impossible.
12
@TenToes yeah, to him and his parents.
3
It's the emotional trauma that affects all of us who ever played the game, the quest for perfection both individually and as a team, the verbal violence coaches heap on their charges in attempts to motivate us. We linemen take a lot of brutality and shrug it off as part of the game, sometimes the best part of the game. Read Jerry Kramer's books about life as a Packer and the effects Lombardi had on all of them, especially after their football careers were over. The game is barely controlled aggression that sometimes crosses over into real violence. Football is a marvelous game and we're all diminished by the descent into simple violence and brutality, whether physical or emotional. I hope we can find a way to humanize the game rather than turning more and more of us into "better missiles."
53
@Bill
I agree. All competitive sports are more civilized stand-ins and healthy channels for the human impulse to war. Our society needs healthy sports that can divert more violent impulses. Football, especially the American variety, is perhaps the most militaristic team sport that we have, with its front lines and points of attack.
I think football is irresistible for many of us who grew up strongly drawn to martial figures and events. I also think it needs to be made more healthy. Short of major conflict, probably more people suffer lifelong consequences from playing football than do those who serve in the military. We can and must do better.
10
As a man who played sports from an early age (I'm 31 now), I can tell you I don't think I ever heard the word "concussion" until my college lacrosse days.
In grade school starting in 5th grade, I was a lineman and I remember distinctly trying to use my head as a weapon leading to hits that prompted dizziness/headaches and acute spinal/neck pain (called "stingers"). I even remember getting a concussion before in a pre-game drill! This was always just part of the game and I never knew it was supposed to be reported to coaches.
As you can imagine, I am quite appalled at this given all the information we know now. Although its hard to tell if it has affected me through the years (although, for the record I do think it has), I know for sure I've had to cut back on competitive lacrosse since college because my head has become way more sensitive.
I only played football through high school and head hits were limited in college lacrosse but I can feel for you, Ryan Miller. I hope you get the help you need and that the damage is manageable and somewhat reversible.
101
I’ve made this comment before but it needs repeating. When I was a 19 year old moron college student majoring in human physiology in 1973 I read an obscure article about football helmets and brain carriage. It made sense to me that the helmet provided no protection against concussions. I decided at that moment if I ever had a boy child he would not play football. I did indeed have a boy child and he was athletically talented. He begged to play football. No football. Today he has an degree in Kinesiology and MS in Physical Education and thanks me frequently. I promise you if a 19 year old moron knew this , the NFL did. There is no protection from repeated blows to the brain. If you have children or grandchildren who play football direct them to something else. Yes, most sports have issues but this is a sure thing. Hockey is next.
426
@marina. “Hockey is next.” Some truth to that comment. However hockey at least at the rec level is very fun to play without hitting. Take hitting out of football what do you have? Oh....and talented linemen? Sure. There are some, but mostly they are just tall and over weight. I believe American football is the only sport in the world you can start playing in high school and go pro.
12
@Marina Beirne
Yes. And additionally we should be honest about and aware of the head trauma inflicted during football practice. IMHO, that's either where the damage begins or where it is unsuspectedly made worse because it's "only practice."
25
@Marina Beirne, not sure if Hockey is next - less hits to the head per time played, and you could take all hard checking away from the game and it wouldn't really affect the game that much. There is no checking allowed in Minnesota until the bantam level (13-14 yrs old) and the level of play is fantastic.
14
I teach at a high school at the biggest school in Texas -- a school whose football program is one of the best in the country year after year. In my English class, we study editorials and use many that contain examples of the dangers of high school football.
I have many varsity football players that hear this information for the first time. Some of them begin to consider the dangers, some of them try to discredit the information or the author of the article/editorial. What is universal, however, is how many of them agree that head injuries will not keep them from playing the next game. They do not want their spot going to someone else, and that fuzziness that they feel after a big hit will "probably just go away in a day or two."
This whole subject is such a deep and complicated issue. How can I argue for taking away this sport when it has provided so much to so many that would have maybe never had the opportunity to attend college or have a career in sports? How can I justify the damage that same sport is doing to their bodies and their brains?
A student from my class last year is one of the best lineman prospects in the state. A bright, strong kid with unbelievable potential. He will be attending one of the best private schools in Texas and he deserves it. He chose that school because it will better his education and future. But football got him there and will keep him there. How do I argue with those results? How will I handle the brutal possibilities?
108
@Danny M.
Not a good argument for football. It has not "provided so much to so many." It has elevated a very few, of whom many have become disabled. For those who didn't get "the opportunity"," the sport cast aside without a thought for their future.
80
@Danny M.
What future. Based on this article I would say that the possibility of injury for this student is his future.
58
@Jean No argument that injury is in his future. But while it seems like a cut-and-dried decision for most of us outside of the sport, it is not the case for many that play or for the families of students who play. I would be lying if I didn't say football has taught many great lessons to these kids, but it comes with a price.
There is no doubt that the sport itself needs some serious transitioning and students need to begin looking at alternatives, but I'm optimistic that many parents and future parents are going to keep their children from playing the sport.
18
Our frail bodies, that we put into situations aided by evolved, large adrenal glands, and the promise of glory. A human life is only so long, and to live care free and do nothing for 80 years, versus doing it all physically and paying the price... it is the deal at the crossroads many of us make, not just footballers.
Bodies heal, but they also wear down. Martial Arts has made my body strong, but caused chronic impairments... I feel particularly bad for people that have been concussed to a point where this guy has... Concussions hurt and are scary (been there).
So what do we do? sanitize our lives? forbid anything that is dangerous? How about the middle ground? Stop making colleges a free farm system for the NFL and even other professional sports. Club sports are played on the amateur level and if a man wants to be a professional athlete, let him ply his trade and learn it completely.
The money generated in college sports is obscene. Little to none of it goes to protecting athletes who play dangerous games with the possibility of pursuing a career as professional athletes. At least we could change that inequality!
9
You always need to keep in mind that football is being played the way it is for its fans
I can't remember the exact year anymore, but it was sometime in the early fifties when I was about 15 years old, and I went with a couple of friends to see a Baltimore Colts football game. We had cheap seats behind the end zone and toward the end of the game a missed extra point or field goal kick came heading our way. There was no netting back in those days to prevent the ball from entering the stands and the ball went straight into the hands of a kid who made a clean catch of it and clearly had possession of it. But that was just for a moment because the next thing that happened was half-a-dozen older kids jumped him and started tearing the ball away from him. The kid, of course, lost the ball, but not before taking a terrific beating from his attackers.
I learned an important lesson that day. Stay away from football fans. A bright new shiny football is a nice thing to have. But there are easier ways to get one than by messing with them.
7
Wow, this is a powerful article. I have never thought about the "pre-pro" years as a place for possible such physical and personal damage. I felt Ryan Miller's suffering. This was a very thought provoking piece for me.
17
" How can universities,.....justify running multimillion-dollar football machines that put those brains at risk of lifelong damage?"
It's the "multimillion-dollar" part. That's all it takes.
There is no direct connection between that "machine" and the "higher learning" part, except, of course that the organ that should be receptive of that higher learning is being destroyed by the machine. One should note, also, the NFL will NOT accept designs for new, more brain protective helmet designs UNLESS they can receive a portion of the profits. Perhaps these college "sports programs", football specifically, should be ENTIRELY subsidized by the NFL
10
" How can universities,.....justify running multimillion-dollar football machines that put those brains at risk of lifelong damage?"
Did you miss the "multimillion-dollar" part? That's all it takes.
There is no direct connection between that "machine" and the "higher learning" part, except, of course that the organ that should be receptive of that higher learning is being destroyed by the machine. One should note, also, the NFL will NOT accept designs for new, more brain protective helmet designs UNLESS they can receive a portion of the profits. Perhaps these college "sports programs", football specifically, should be ENTIRELY subsidized by the NFL
6
Didn't West Point ban boxing for it's cadet? I think what will happen is a few schools will drop their football programs. Most won't. But I think the sport will undergo a very long slow fade.
12
The comments from parents and children who avoided brain injuries are eloquent in keeping young people away from dangerous sports like football.
After working a career with brain injured clients toward stable employment I’m amazed that so many parents still allow their children play tackle football.
14
. . . meanwhile, in Boston people actively protest the State's consideration of banning tackle football for kids under 12. Follow the science people! It shouldn't be about what parents want it should be about what science says is risky activity for children. It only took us decades for everyone to appreciate and accept the true dangers of smoking.
21
@Kevin
It didn't take people who could think for themselves decades to determine that smoking was dangerous. The 1964 surgeon general's report should have settled it for any rational person.
Of course, obfuscation by cigarette pushers such as denying the undeniable and making implausible claims such as "we're not trying to get young kids to smoke (Joe Camel), we're trying to get adults to switch brands!" did go on for decades if by that you mean "everyone".
5
I wonder if the rates of these concussions changed over time as equipment has progressed. I have heard that rugby is safer because they don't have helmets and the feeling of invincibility that you get with a helmet isn't there.
7
@Patricia
Bingo! Its the exact same principle why, as kids growing up in East Harlem, we managed to play tackle football with very little equipment and not get serious injuries... We knew our helmet mike break, so we took it easy and did not fly in like a human bullet. Tackles were done so you could bring a person down and not get trampled.
3
Insurance companies are beginning to refuse to insure pre- high school teams. If they start refusing to insure high school teams and above, football is over as a sport in the U.S.
28
My son played one year of high school football. He quit on his own and all he ever said was that he didn’t enjoy it. At the time I was a little disappointed but it was his decision. Now I’m glad he made that decision. He was on the OL by the way.
9
It's easy to focus on only the negatives and say well obviously, this needs to be BANNED. Every football player's ambitions aren't so singularly motivated and simple. Just like we can't make inferences based on nationality, gender, skin color, hobby preferences etc, we can't say that all football players are only interested in the sport to make boat loads of cash in the NFL. What about the benefits from working as a part of a team? What about learning about pushing yourself both mentally and physically? What about going to college tuition free? For many football players, the sport is a vehicle for betterment in a variety of ways and was never going to be this golden ticket scenario. Banning things is, in my opinion, giving up and saying you can't be bothered to look at both sides of an issue. Everybody wants things to be so simple, to have only one cause and one effect. It's a growing trend on both sides of the aisle that seems to find it's way into just about every topic. It leaves us extremely vulnerable to manipulation.
The dangers of CTE have been well documented, I say stay out of it and let parents and players make their own decisions.
3
The reason why the dangers of CTE are well documented is because of articles like this. Nowhere does the article call for banning football and neither does the subject of the article. But when a young man like this needs disability benefits, there are obviously better ways to learn about sportsmanship and the camaraderie of being on a team than putting your life at considerable risk.
17
@Paddy C
Part of the problem is the parents. They use their kids to fulfill dreams that they did not realize. I have been to Little League games, youth hockey games and football games and it is cruel, to say the least, to listen to these parents yelling at their own kids for missing a hit, a goal or a catch.
Regarding the Athletic Scholarships, these young people rarely get much of an education. They are there to bring glory and money to the Colleges and Universities that they play for. They get passed from class to class in most cases.
There is no good reason to allow your kids to be battered so you can bask in the reflected glory or have a College offer them a scholarship.
With all of the knowledge and technology you would think these Institutions of higher learning would have figured it out by now.
This young man needs a good lawyer who can sue all involved to at least get him an income. Because it does not sound as if he has a working future.
12
@Paddy C
No one mentioned banning it BUT, as you astutely recommend maybe what makes the sport slowly decline.
Parents won’t let their kids play it. Schools and football organizations will pay higher insurance rates which will also impact the sport. As fewer kids play, the talent pool will dwindle for colleges and professional.
5
This is a very complicated problem. We should absolutely ban tackle football from HS sports, but it is soccer players who show the greatest degree of cognitive impairment years after their playing days are over.
2
@John Terrell
There are now schools which ban head shots in soccer. None of the known dangers are rocket science. Common sense informs most parents that the constant use of the head to make a shot with a soccer ball is going to have some effect on the brain inside that head. Some kids use helmets in baseball now. This thread reminds me of arguing about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.
1
Homer’s Iliad said it well. Men as warriors, and most men had that obligation, have a choice. Either to risk death in order to gain everlasting glory, or to play it safe and live a long life with no repute. It didn’t hurt that the winners often took loot and women as spoils. Achilles was unusual in that he even bothered to ask the question. He ultimately chooses to fight and doesn’t die in Homer’s epic. But Greeks hearing the tale knew he was later killed by Paris before the Trojan war ended.
Our sports have become a proxy for tribal warfare. They offer the chance for glory, even riches (and the occasional prom queen), with less physical risk. Countless young men take the chance despite the bodily toll that now, increasing evidence shows, includes permanent brain damage. Some poor but talented people with limited life options will probably choose violent sports regardless. Just witness boxing and MMA.
The short term social benefits of sports participation remain. And broader long term participation in physical activity is a societal good. The question is whether science or the rules can make our most violent games safer. Or whether society needs to restrict or radically restructure those games in favor of long term safety.
9
@Michael Tyndall
That's a take i was thinking about when I was watching a documentary about the famed Irish-American boxer Jerry Quarry a few years back. As a very young man he was a golden gloves amateur who supported himself by hoisting 300 lb. wheels off of Greyhound buses in a maintenance yard and said to himself "this can't be what I was put on earth for".
As a professional he stayed in boxing far too long and never shied from fighting the best. A tragic post boxing life, but among fans he still remembered and admired for being a very good fighter and brave man. Perhaps, Jerry believed in fate and embraced his.
3
To even consider that football and boxing are safe is now beyond dispute. Given that the human brain is an organ of supreme complexity and wonder, it mystifies me that people would even consider suffering concussion-producing blows regularly. I guess the money is irresistible.
9
@Kevin
"I guess the money is irresistible"
The vast majority of HS football players will never make it to college ball.
The vast majority of college football players will never play in the NFL.
Money is no where near the driving factor to playing football.
The driving factor is that it's just fun to play.
IMHO.
@Keith Meredith
That is not the case. The players may not make the millions, but the institutions who host these teams often benefit from alumni dollars, advertising contracts and promotions. The administrators who lack the courage to stop this are an essential part of the problem.
7
@Keith Meredith
Money may not influence individual players as much, but it certain puts into place and enables a machinery that enables the sport's continued popularity and accessibility.
For individuals, I think we can look to societal values -- being a winner at a violent sport is a trophy of masculinity in our culture. It isn't surprising that young men would find that alluring.
7
I am glad my kids never were interested in American football. They all played other sports that were less violent. Any sport where the person is taking blows to the head will result in some injury to the brain. When it is repetitive then that damage becomes permanent. The research on the brains of ex-football players shows quite clearly that the injuries mount over time and brain function becomes impaired. What I found most concerning in this article is the lack of follow up care afforded to those that play the sport. The long and the short of it is that football is a dangerous sport and playing it professionally will put the player at risk for brain injury.
15
@Ferniez
How many insurers would extend coverage for expensive life time care for a head injury suffered in H.S. or college? How many extend that coverage for pro ball players? Insurance companies have departments whose responsibilities are risk management. If you want to know how much has been known about head injuries, ask insurers.
1
A sport in which very large men literally do nothing but bash into each other is not much of a sport. Would any of your favorite baseball or basketball or soccer players switch to be an NFL lineman? Think about it: why would they? Soccer is plenty rough enough. Beyond that it is something other than sport.
8
@Tom
Apparently, you've never felt the rush of a well-executed trap block.
It sure is fun.
...it might be worth restating that the real acronym for NFL is...not for long...
9
Football is like jumping off a building. It’s not the fall that that kills you, it’s the sudden stop.
10
Great job, Michael. This matter needs continuous attention. Football, as it's currently played, should be discontinued if we're serious about brain injuries. It's dangerous. Sometimes lethal. But we're addicted to the game and I don't think it's all about money, as huge as the treasure chest is. Discontinue a program like UAB tried to do and we get sad; the college seems different. Alum just can't live with it, not seeing their team on the field. And then to have a great comeback success story in the news, man, you can get high on that. And I've only lived here in the Birmingham area for 15 years. Before that, I was 20 yrs in Gainesville, Fla. And I can't tell you what a pleasure it was to see Fla beat Michigan on New Yrs Day. I'm addicted to the game. I try not to watch it but just can't help myself. PS: I got my clock rung twice, big time, in high school football. I got whacked in second game of my senior year. Missed the next four and then got whacked again. Season over. But had a scholarship. No chance I would ever be able to play at the next level. Real disappointment. I loved catching the football. paul in bessemer
2
Ryan Miller says, "You are there to make money for the university. You are a lesser priced whore". Thought-provoking comparison, but ultimately oranges and apples, and faulty.
It's past time to reevaluate the relationship between the university and NCAA. Clearly, the athletes are selling their labor at below market prices. And those who do not make a living in their sport professionally afterward have perhaps been most gypped.
Secondly, isn't it also time to legalize prostitution? (And more aggressively prosecute the horrific, violent and harmful trafficking of humans, which must be deterred as much as possible.)
5
Parents must protect their children. I suspect that over the long term football will decline as fewer take up the “sport.” By the way, Parker, CO is southeast (not southwest) of Denver and the front range of the Rocky Mountains.
1
Curious the posting demo here seem unconcerned with injuries resulting from off-road mountain biking, mountain climbing, squirrel suit jumping, etc.
@Glenn Baldwin You are jumping to an unwarranted conclusion. Those other things were not the subject of the article. (Perhaps there are not as many articles about their hazards as they are not major sports and entertainment industries.)
12
@carol goldstein
Actually Carol, I live in an area with literally several hundred miles of off-road bike trails, and I can tell you, there are a great many injuries, some catastrophic, each and every year. I am not even a football fan, but one doesn't have to be to recognize that this is a red-meat, click-bait article targeted to a demographic that dislikes this particular sport.
2
@Glenn Baldwin
Last I checked thise activities are not being presented under the guise of a university. Big difference.
1
If the NFL has denied his disability benefits what does this disabled young man live on? Where's his health insurance? Tragic.
17
Football is still very profitable, so we're probably still many years away from it being banned or meaningfully altered, but at least the steady stream of information from the ongoing BU CTE study and individual player stories such as this are making it more difficult for parents, players, coaches, and others involved in the game to ignore or downplay the risks. I expect the pool of players to steadily shrink in the future, and hope that fans start to turn away from the game as the number of former players they see struggling with severe disabilities before middle age continues to rise, so that eventually American football either disappears or evolves into something more like rugby.
4
Why are we still playing this sport when we know its harm and consequences?
11
@KB Simple. Greed. Money. And lots of both.
2
I believe this is the first time I've read a Times' story on football players and head trauma that he has even mention the word "seizure."
As a physician who trained under the people who pioneered the field of behavioral aspects of head trauma, it is very clear to me that many of the athletes described in the articles suffered from temporal lobe seizures, a common consequence of head trauma. These seizures do not look like what people think of as seizures, i.e., grand mal seizures, where the whole body convulses. Unfortunately there is no test to rule them out so unless docs recognized the symptoms, which they rarely do, it never get diagnosed.
While TBI itself is untreatable, the seizures are treatable.
I'm not sure what goes with Dr. Cantu and his colleagues at BU but I'm not even sure this has entered into their considerations
I hope included in Ryan Miller's "therapy" are appropriate anti-seizure medications.
18
All this attention is being given to football, but I have two sons, both of whom had to quit the sports they loved because of head trauma. One sustained 7 or 8 concussions in high school soccer during collisions with opposing players while going for headers. Another accumulated a several in soccer, a few in freestyle skiing and a few in skateboarding. We are all quite nervous about their chances of developing CTE later in life. I don't have an answer for what to do about football, but our young athletes need to better understand the risks they are taking before they choose to engage in sports that risk Traumatic Brain Injury. Parents should not be pushing them to sports that could cut their lives short in their 30's and 40's.
25
"How can universities, places of higher learning that are devoted to the development of young minds and that in some cases spend millions of dollars researching the ill effects of brain injuries, justify running multimillion-dollar football machines that put those brains at risk of lifelong damage?"
Simple. Athletics should be divorced from higher learning. Most of the players in college have little or no interest in academic pursuits; they are there to play and be wooed by a professional league
Leave the universities to real students, and create some type of junior league for prospective professional athletes.
48
It's not that simple. Football and other big time sports are the linchpin for alumni involvement. Without that involvement there is no national following and no media coverage, which equals no money flowing into the school. Big schools have come to depend on that money and would be unrecognizable, perhaps even unable to function, without it.
I agree: This is no excuse. But it is not going to change.
6
@Tony you're absolutely right. This is sadly how schools fund themselves, and what a perverse system it is. Put millions of young people into insurmountable debt, and then beg them for donations, enticing them with fancy stadiums and high performing teams, in order to keep the colleges afloat. To that I say, close a good chunk of the colleges in the US. The idea that everyone needs to go to college is at best a myth and at worst a blatant manipulation designed to enrich university administrators and banks.
Keep a smaller number of schools open, mostly public and some private. with tax dollars funding the public options.
2
Play the game with no helmets, or the soft leather helmets they wore a century ago. With nothing to protect the head from collision, the players will adjust their game accordingly. Rugby players and Australian footballers play with little or no head protection and their games are competitive and fierce! Perhaps we should consider a change?
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@Larry
100% agree. Australian Rules Football is fun to watch, and I imagine fun to play.
I wonder what the concussion statistics were back in the 1940s or so.
9
Two comments: Head trauma and all the resulting problems is not limited to football. Studies have shown almost as many high school athletes suffer concussions from other sports as they do football. In fact the largest cause of concussions for female high school athletes is soccer.
College football players are especially vulnerable to abuse by the "system." First they are physically traumatized by their own teams in an approach that can only be described as win at all costs. Example: The death of a U of Maryland player last year in an off season conditioning drill and the hospitalization of two U of Wisconsin players whose bodies were cannibalizing their own muscle tissue because of off season conditioning drills.
Second, college and universities have no accountability for the long term care of players suffering disabling injuries while participating in their athletic programs. Once you leave school you are on your own. The universities are absolved of all long term care responsibilities. Example: a player suffers a bad knee injury. The university health system pays for the surgery. If he isn't capable of returning to play he loses his scholarship. If he can't afford to pay his own tuition then he has to leave school. Any future problems he has with that knee - say it requires a knee replacement operation or other additional surgery - is now his responsibility.
My two cents. There but for the luck of the draw I would have been in the same situation as Ryan.
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@C.G. Heading the ball should be banned in soccer. Period. It will make a difference.
3
I see two solutions; Either they stop wearing helmets, or these universities/NFL teams pay lifetime disability for each player.
54
This is America...all that matters is the money (okay, and fame).
27
Discontinue college and pro football and the headlines will be that it affects African Americans and other minorities disproportionately and limits their educational opportunities and wealth. Also it will result in the end of college scholarships for African American women athletes and their varsity teams. If you are comfortable with this than I say discontinue football. But just do it with eyes wide open to all the consequences.
2
Let's face it - football is quickly becoming an anachronism considering it's a sport populated by massive, towering men such as Ryan Miller, prized largely due to their size. The sensibility behind that is medieval if not exploitative
26
I used to pity these soldiers, these gladiators. My empathy tank is empty. Many only care about their own selfish greed. No one really wants to stop this insanity of combat sports. I say give them swords and axes.
5
“You just become a better missile [with a better helmet].”
Exactly right. Makes me like golf all the more.
14
@MJ2G. I chose swimming and running.
1
This man clearly has a traumatic brain injury. That they would deny his disability claims is shocking.
104
It's far past time to ban the barbaric sport of football.
18
Ms. Shoemaker is a voice of reason. Stop this violence. It’s insane. Nothing educational about it, just harming young men, ruining their lives, for money and entertainment.
13
When I was 12, my father, a pediatrician, and my mother, a nurse, wouldn’t let me play tackle football. I was really mad. Anyway, thanks Mom and Dad . . .
191
Football has to be regarded in the same light and as having the same risks as other “sports” like professional boxing and the National Hockey League. (“I went to a fight and a hockey game broke out.”) Play at your own risk, in return for amounts of money that cannot be earned any other way. It is a fairly straightforward equation that makes sense for the few who may make those amounts. For everybody else, just as obviously not.
7
@Ernesto
Way to show compassion. By the way, if you think this doesn't affect you, you're wrong.
4
Without all the over the absurd over the top contact more strategy and skill has to be applied making the game of football much more fun for players and entertaining for real fans. Change the rules in high school and college, the pros will follow.
2
That Ryan Miller has been denied disability benefits chills me to the bone. Thank goodness for the Boston University Concussion Center. Parents weighing the dangers associated with football will become more knowledgeable due to the research coming out of this program. Unfortunately our healthcare system will ignore the results adding years until sports related concussions are addressed at every level of play as a true danger to those who participate.
Let the young athletes enter the Roman Colosseum for our pleasure and financial gain.
57
I fell one time on black ice, my head pounding against the sidewalk. I felt my brain go from side of my head to the other. It was a horrible feeling. i went to the emergency room. I was okay. Every time I read an article like this I remember, no I re experience the feeling of my brain bouncing from one side of my head to the other.
To read Ryan's story is more than distressing. The criminal negligence, the greed, the endless justification and rationalizations by the institutions of ever higher degrees of rationalizations and exploitation grow increasingly harder to stomach.
Hopefully the excitement and camaraderie he felt on the playing field will be rerouted into the struggle to resit and transform the world that has harmed him and others so badly. I wish him the best of luck for his recovery.
104
@Robert Roth
Hear, hear.
Good luck and take care of yourself, Ryan Miller. I believe the brain can heal, especially with a good dog by your side.
17
I detest football culture but the injured players have my sympathy and support because they are being used by an organization that cares more about making money than supporting its players.
Additionally, I suffered a concussion in a car accident about four years ago and I haven't been the same since. I've learned that even for someone far outside of Football World, there is little care and support given to those with this type of head injury.
69
I cannot fathom why ANYONE would want their sons to play this brutal game. For what? Glory? Money? Bragging? Are any of those reasons enough to expose your son to a life like this, at 29 years old? The groups that head up professional leagues, be they the NFL or the Wrestling only really care about how much money your son represents to THEM. Nothing is worth the health, or the very life of my grandson, nothing. If you took this young man when he was a child and showed him the future, he probably would not either. But here's the rub, the parents had to sign on to allow him to participate, because they are supposed to be older, wiser and hold their child's welfare above all else. So parents....is it worth it to achieve glory, money, or bragging rights?
66
I hope parents who send their kids off to play football are reading this. The game is not remotely in any way worth permanent brain injury.
141
There are many people in the world laid low by traumatic head injuries.
These men volunteered foolishly to a barbaric tradition loved by the masses.
7
@John It must be great to be you John, making perfect decisions at every turn. Unfortunately, your post wasn't one of them.
Ryan Miller started playing football when he was in grade school, as have millions of other boys. He was not at an age where brain development allows for informed and rational decision-making.
Spare your judgment and thank your lucky stars you did not end up on a football field before the age of 12.
1
This, very sadly, amounts to the slow murder or otherwise profound disablement of young men by the entertainment - educational industrial complex . . ..
43
I watch football less and less these days. I stopped watching boxing and the UFC as well because I just can't stand to watch people batter each other KNOWING the permanent damage that is done. This is despite the fact I loved watching them and understood, particularly MMA fighting, what was happening, the strategies and techniques....
But seeing young people like Ryan Miller, not only damaged, but cheated out of disability payments, is just too difficult. I remember watching NY Jets favorite over-achiever Wayne Chrebet take that last hit and concussion that ended his career and changed his life. The Jets didn't care. Like all the other teams they were too busy extorting "personal seat licenses" of several thousand dollars on season ticket holders. And they still are, while they've passed on Colin Kaepernick to sign far less gifted QBs. You can beat your wife in public, carry guns illegally and unsafely (remember the NY Giant who shot himself in the leg?), get your brains scrambled, but God Forbid you stand up for principle! (by kneeling).
Ryan Miller put it perfectly when he said a safer helmet just makes you a better missile. The rules have to be changed to prevent so much head contact. Image if a baseball player could be hit in the helmet legally by the pitcher every time he came to bat! All we have to do is remember Mike Piazza intentionally beaned by Roger Clemens in the last NY Subway Series. Helmets should protect against occasional hits, not constant ones.
114
@Dadof2 I was with you until you came to Kaepernick.
1
@Mrs. Proudie. Dadof2, I am with you especially when you came to Kaepernick.
17
is flag football a safe enough replacement?
1
How many times do we have to spell it out to these young men and the parents of boys? F-O-O-T-B-A-L-L C-A-U-S-E-S
I-R-R-E-P-A-R-A-B-L-E B-R-A-I-N D-A-M-A-G-E.
60
The laws of physics cannot be denied- F=ma. Players have at least 1/3 more mass since the days of modern football. They are at least 10% quicker if you measure acceleration through 40 yds. Double the F if you consider 2 players comming into contact from opposing directions. The modern helmet does not protect much better for concussion than the old leather one, but it does give players a sense of protection and invincibility that make them play without regard for anyone's safety. No sport is completely "safe" but football as presently played is stupid. Our culture celebrates machismo aver real manhood and this is what you get.
30
@John MD
Whether the kinetic energy of a body slam or the fulcrum action of an armbar, the sad reality is, sport in watching other people hurt each other takes a back seat to high school physics.
2
@John MD
You’re right about force, but the bigger concern here is energy. I’m not a physiologist, just looking at a football head collision from physics first principles.
Just before the moment of a helmet-to-helmet impact, the helmet, the cranium, and the brain inside all are traveling at some velocity. As explained in the article, at the moment of impact the brain slams against the inside of cranium. The kinetic energy of that impact — the damaging energy that the brain must absorb — basically is determined by the SQUARE of the velocity (mass of the brain times the velocity squared, divided by two).
If the opponent also is traveling at the same velocity the effective speed of the impact is doubled (as you observed) so the energy of that head-to-head impact will be FOUR times what it would be if, for example, the player hits his head falling to the ground. Of course, following a head-to-head collision, frequently the player will suffer a second impact when he hits the ground.
A better helmet, i.e., better cushioning, could absorb some of the impact energy, but that quadrupling effect means there’s a LOT of energy to be absorbed.
2
It starts with the parents. New Jersey is not a hotbed for football and the number of high school students competing in football is on the decline. If parents direct their kids toward safer alternative sports, especially as relates to head injuries, part of the problem is solved. As a former high school level soccer player, I see the youth programs are minimizing head balls which are part of soccer's concussion problem, though second by far to physical contact.
In the bigger picture, lawsuits will probably be the long term solution to this issue, as big time college football will fight to keep their programs. If you care about your kids, then you help them make decisions that give them a better chance for a long term quality of life (and you forget about your life being replayed through your kids).
22
@Harry F, Pennington,nj
I recently read that insurers are not willing to issue policies to the lower levels of football (childrens leagues), and that this will later affect high schools, then colleges perhaps. A different "solution", then, from lawsuits.
5
Excellent article on the effects of playing professional football on a person's nervous system, cognitive abilities, and overall state of being.
This story is a tragedy. I appreciate the great detail about Mr. Miller's symptoms. His experience must be very difficult.
I cannot make any grandiose statements about football.
But I can say that I have spent a significant amount of time in my life trying to promote the use of helmets by bicyclists. There is no question that helmets save lives. The only question is if how much of a helmet will save the brain and nervous system from further damage by a trauma.
I am sad for all football players. They all suffer.
19
Mr. Miller's situation is part of a bigger problem we find in growing up as young man in our society. Boys are often told that being manly is whats most important and prized. The imagery that goes into being a "man" in this country is often tied to power, strength, toughness, submission of others through feats of physical strength, and a willingness to follow blindly authority figures who "sell" this brand of masculinity. The high school, college or professional sports star is highly sought after in small towns across rural America, In urban centers, where rising above the pack of humanity is one of the only ways to "be" someone, sports is often times one of the only outlets to success. Commercials for the armed forces have often asked the question are you man enough to succeed? As of late the ads are changing as mostly young men and more women grow up in a technologically advanced world where they play lifelike video games. The latest ads look surprisingly like a video game where soldiers walk the streets of some far away town in another part of the globe shooting into buildings of people who cannot be seen. The same question is asked by whatever branch branch of military is sponsoring the firefight...are you up to this task of making the "other" submit through violence and force. My gut tells me this is all a part of the human condition that needs to evolve out of us. Will it ever happen? I have my doubts.
72
[[Boys are often told that being manly is whats most important and prized.]]
Being manly IS most important for males. But the actual definition of being a man is being able to take orders and do your job. "Yes, sir." "No, sir." Four little words, but until you can say them you're not really a man.
Most of the problems in society can be traced to young males who have problems with authority. They never had fathers or never had a coach who put them in their place.
[[The imagery that goes into being a "man" in this country is often tied to power, strength, toughness]]
That imagery applies in every country in the world and over all of human history. I don't understand what problem you would have with a man being powerful, strong and tough.
[[submission of others through feats of physical strength]]
Yes. Fighting, wrestling, football, rugby...again, in all countries and across human history men have challenged each other. I believe it's called natural selection.
[[and a willingness to follow blindly authority figures who "sell" this brand of masculinity.]]
There's the common concept that "[Fill in the blank] made a man out of a boy."
I don't know about "blindly" following rules, but at some point a boy has to learn to follow rules, respect authority and compete honorably.
Now, tell me what problems you have with that last paragraph.
1
@Third.Coast i taught my boys to think for themselves and to question authority. i taught kindness, compassion for others and the responsibility of doing the best you can at whatever task you take on. unquestioning "yes sir, no sir" does *not* make a man. it makes an automaton. i am still grateful neither of my boys had any interest in brutal sports == especially football. i wouldn't have stopped them, if they were in high school, but anything before that, no way. they are both kind, compassionate, thoughtful and free thinking, responsible young men. glad you weren't there to help raise them.
21
@bronxbee
[[unquestioning "yes sir, no sir" does *not* make a man.]]
Clearly you understood my point.
The reason boys/men get into trouble is usually because they don’t respond well to authority figures. Teachers, cops, employers...you get the idea. So when the boss at your first job tells you to mop the bathroom and take out the trash, “yes sir” gets you farther than ducking your teeth and complaining that you did those tasks yesterday and it’s not fair.
I don’t know why you read “unquestioning” into my comment.
Sports can instill discipline. Coaches can help shape young boys into young men.
[[glad you weren't there to help raise them]]
That makes two of us. Have a lovely day!
The response to CTE feels parallel to the response to climate change: we’ll make safer helmets, but still viscously hit each other repeatedly on the head; we’ll toss up a few wind turbines, but continue to subsidize fossil fuels. Each industry knows the harm they are doing to their constituent communities, neither can be warded off the profitability their business represents to them and their shareholders.
151
Are newer helmets really safer? Sure, they look more high tech and probably do better at protecting the skull than earlier models. But no helmet can prevent the movement of brain tissue inside the skull from the rapid deceleration involved in any hit, large or small. Multiply this by say, conservatively, a dozen hits in practice each day and on game days through four years of high school and four years of college - the damage is done before any player even makes it to the NFL.
22