Tackle football is the modern-day version of the lions and the gladiators. I cannot support a sport where we know the end result could be a vegetative state. Everyone speaks of the wonders of the human brain, pity to see "sport" render it to mush. Mothers will be the death of tackle football and it can't come a moment too soon.
Seven years ago while I was the principal at a small rural school in Vermont I was asked by students if I could help them start a football team. The school had never had a football program. I, having played high school and college ball, said, Of course! We embarked on a fund raising campaign that brought enough money in to put players on the field. We dug the holes for our own goalposts. I coached the team and watched how the players struggled to learn the rules and intricacies of the game. Some of these kids has never touched a football prior to this experience. We emphasized safety and our coaching staff were all “Heads Up” certified. Football changed the culture of the school. For the first time the players who were on the team had a sense of pride, self esteem and a connection to their school. We did grade checks every week and had team meetings before practice every day where we talked about life issues, respect for others, integrity, misogyny, respect for self, post secondary aspirations. Not a day went by where one or more players stood up, and disclosed a connection to the topic at hand. The magic of this incredible sport had found a home in the heart of this small, poverty stricken community and these players would never be the same again. In two years we won ten games and lost five. We had some injuries and several concussions. The scale still tilts in favor of this amazing learning opportunity. Concerned about safety? We all are. Kids in cars? Do the math.
2
I received a concussion in my last football game, decades ago. It was enough for me.
1
A lot of « virtue signaling » in the comments section. I love American football, not for the violence, but for the admirable cleverness of the game’s rules and strategies, which I find endlessly fascinating. And yes, it is a very tough sport. And, yes again, some of the players will be physically affected by their time in the NFL. Some, but not all of them. However, banning the sport will not change anything. Are we going to ban every single activity that has an element of danger in it? Some human beings want to engage in risky activities: boxing, mountain climbing, downhill skiing, motor racing, etc. No matter what, they will practice these sports. It’s their life and their responsibility.
If parents feel that football is too dangerous for the children, they should not let them play. But can we stop trying to rule over everybody’s lives by deciding for them what’s good and bad? I find it very condescending when people say that kids from poor neighborhoods feel obligated to play football as a way out of poverty. This implies that their parents are not responsible or knowledgeable enough to make an informed decision. That position of moral superiority is really annoying.
1
The analogy to alcohol consumption with which this article begins is quite apt. It begins in adolescence, often grows to excess in large part due to peer pressure and social forces that encourage abuse, and has well established adverse effects on the brain (as well as the liver) that are denied or ignored in large part due to the delusional belief that we are invulnerable in our youth. Public health educators have achieved only limited to success in combatting alcoholism in young adults, and I expect this will also be the case for minimizing the jncidence of CTE and other football-induced injuries.
The University of Chicago, in an effort to avoid the money pit of big time college sports, dropped football in 1939. Three year later, in 1942, under the bleachers of silenced Stagg Field, scientists initiated the first chain reaction of uranium. Shortly thereafter came Nagasaki, Hiroshima, the nuclear arms race and the inevitable prolifertion. Maybe they should have stuck with football.
People will always willingly face danger, push the envelope and test themselves, whether on a football or rugby field, rock face, steep dowhill ski run, racetrack or in an octagon, rodeo arena or halfpipe, and we will watch!
1
I have been a serious football fans since the 1960’s. Watching the almost complete denial of the now well demonstrated health effects of football by fans, parents, coaches and administrators at all levels in the state I live, I made the decision to disengage from this sport. Gave up my NFL season tickets and DirecTV Sunday Ticket package. No more direct $ from me to prop up this system. Still read articles and loosely follow the NFL, but ignore college and HS football. Don’t miss it and suspect over the next few years even this minimal level of interest will recede. I have no illusions, however, that this individual action will make any difference as the comments and reactions from fans in this article demonstrate. As I heard somebody say the other day, people want what they want-regardless of whether it’s a good idea or not-and will jump through a lot of mental hoops to self-justify their decisions.
Sadly enough in my younger days following the olympics where the US had a great boxing team, I started watching boxing. And then I was watching the bout where a Korean boxer died from a head injury sustained in the match. That was it no more boxing for me. Now, at times, I feel the same way about football. Should I be indirectly supporting a sport which, let's face it, is pretty brutal and will cause many former players to die prematurely from head injuries sustained in football. Because of somewhat submerged feelings of guilt, I definitely enjoy it less than I used to.
Football is a guilty pleasure for me. There is no other way to put it. If Russell Wilson were not so darn entertaining to watch, I would have much less interest. But I cringe every time I see helmet to helmet collisions, snapped bones, and joins bent in the wrong direction. For what it's worth, at least pros are paid a lot of money to play, and now at least, are aware of the risks.
College football on the other hand, is a complete abomination. The great majority of programs must be propped up by the colleges' general funds. For every Ohio State Buckeyes team, there are many dozens of Akron Zips (yes that is a real team). This drives up tuition for everyone. They will never send a player to the pros, will leave many players with life-long injuries, and will provide many scholarships to student-athletes that could be provided to students based on academic merit.
3
For athletes who come from underfunded school districts where the academics are lousy, getting into an NCAA football program is often your only ticket to an education.
For most of those players, the choice to risk poverty now for CTE later is no choice at all.
42
@Avenue B
good grief
4
@Avenue B But they have funding for football?
2
@Avenue B This is blatant stereotyping that I cannot believe the NYT would select as one of its picks because it is also a flat out lie. You made an assumption about the type of high schools that produce the most D1 football players. These kids mostly come from nice large suburban schools and private schools.
9
One of the comments in the article suggested equipping the participants similar to rugby players. That seems to me to be the correct response. Today's football players are all "armored up" and literally launch themselves at each other resulting in devastating impacts blowing up knees, shoulders and brains.
Because rugby players don't have all the armor, the impacts generally generate much less G force. Imagine NFL caliber athletes playing in shorts and tee shirts. The game would be beautiful.
I can't watch this game - pro or college - any longer. The cost in human beings is far too high, the game too brutal and the reality that older players - men much younger than me - have such terrible life and health issues in middle age is unbearable and horrible. Stop the madness, turn off your TV and hand in your tickets. The " sport " of football is only a business and when the money train stops the damage will stop with it.
4
I hate the take that these boys "know what they're getting into." We know that teenage and college aged boys actually aren't able to process risks accurately -- it's why car insurance premiums are so much higher for teenage men, why they're more prone to getting into trouble and why they do really stupid things. They think that they're going to be the exception or the one who isn't going to be hurt. And you're asking someone who is only seeing the fame and potential money to make a reasonable decision?
4
Given what we now know about football and brain injury, how can the people responsible for running schools, colleges, and universities allow this activity to continue as it is now player? Talk about abuse of vulnerable students, this situation should weigh very heavily on the consciousness of every school board, principal, couch, athletic director, president, reagent, and trustee of the institutions that allow tackle football to be played. Major changes in the rules, planned by disinterested experts, are needed to reduce the risk to the level of basketball. Once done, the game can continue to play its important social role that may cherish.
1
Cost / benefit ratio. Football is a completely unnecessary risk with a very high cost and for what benefit? Athleticism? Entertainment? There are other options.
The USA is a free country; do what you want. But, at what cost does society have to pick up the cost? It's like riding a motorcycle without a helmet. Not good choices.
I certainly will discourage my son from playing football.
It is your brain we are talking about. How human are you if you are a vegetable? kinda goes against the definition of being a human -- living the life of a vegetable, don't you think?
4
That college kids playing with a spheroid has anything to do with imparting values of teamwork and/or dedication is arguable. That such play generates millions of dollars for their respective schools is certain. That it distracts the kids from the true purposes of tertiary education (scholarship, study, & learning) is self-evident. That the football teachers (a/k/a coaches) are paid scandalous salaries (compared to the general faculty) is a perversion of values.
5
Football is a dying sport. I am a lifelong 49ers fan and have season tickets for college football. And I will continue to enjoy watching games. But nobody in their right mind is going to let their kids play football. The best athletes will slowly gravitate to other major sports. High school football will be the first to die and then the pipeline will dry up. Lawsuits will eventually wipe out the rest. It was fun while it lasted.
Do I feel bad for the players? Of course not. Everyone now knows that football causes CTE. If you choose to ignore the evidence you are no different than someone who smokes.
2
retired AMA attorney F/71
I quit all football when the American Academy of Pediatrics published its report warning that human brains are still developing to age 25. And after seeing Boston University's library of brain scans and preserved forever CTE brains postmortem. Many teens and twenty-somethings destroyed early in the NFL's pipeline of carnage.
Every time a head inside a so-called helmet hits the turf, the skull stops moving but the brain does not. It crashes against the skull. Brain. Concussed. Every. Hit.
"There's a certain comaraderie" in this brutality? Shame on all who believe ANY "precautions" can protect these kids.
In one poor family with a really good mother of three boys, including a big strong 14 year old, I offered to pay the costs of competitive shooting to get four high school football coaches to quit calling both the kid and his Mom about what a star he would be on their team. First high school sophomore to win the Southeast states competition followed by a four-year scholarship as an Olympic class shooter.
Intervene and point these kids and their parents to equally demanding sport without the carnage? All of us can do that.
3
This is a vicarious experience for many people, whether it is winning plays or witnessing a violent act. It is sad that whole communities are built around something so brutal. Bring on the gladiators!
3
The "deep thinkers" interviewed for this article cited family camaraderie, "Football is us." or cheering for the local teams for their love of football.
No one addressed CTE, except in the context of, "They know what they're getting into, don't they?" So the fault of CTE is pushed onto the players--even the 14-tear olds.
It's irresponsible to cheer each crushing tackle, and forget the delicate brain being wapped about, side to side, in the skull.
Getting people to change their views, given the basically thoughtless individuals in this article, and the massive revenue stream for universities and the national football leagues, won't be easy. They take no responsibility for supporting CTE.
Young, poor athletes need to be recruited into less dangerous sports. And spectators need to pay, big time, if they insist on cheering brain damage.
Add a large CTE admission fee ($5-$10) to all tackle games, even the free ones, and make sure the money goes to the victims.
1
George Romero had it right.
The last stop for civilization will be the malls and the football stadiums.
People will rise from their self induced coma’s and, guided by impulses from their brain stems alone, stumble mindlessly towards the places that held the most significance for them.
Their faces will still be painted but with anything that came to quickly to hand, mustard, axle grease, lipstick, spray paint…
There will be no sales, no game, just people aimlessly following the zombie like motions drilled into them for generations.
How sad.
How predictable.
4
Football does to players’ brains what puppies do to their chew toys.
In the latter case, it’s cute, and the destruction is immediate. In the former case, it’s tragic, and it can take years.
4
Block below the head, tackle below the waist.
College basketball is great for team spirit, building rivalries, and having fun.
And no CTEs.
1
The "deep thinkers" interviewed for this article cited family camaraderie, "Football is us." or cheering for the local teams for their love of football.
No one addressed CTE, except in the context of, "They know what they're getting into, don't they?" So the fault of CTE is pushed onto the players--even the 14-tear olds.
Hitting spectators in their wallets might help. Add a large CTE admission fee ($5-$10) to all tackle games, both the free ones and national league games. Make sure the money goes to the victims.
Spectators can be irresponsible and cheer each crushing tackle, forgetting the delicate brain being wapped about, side to side, in the skull.
The massive revenue stream for universities and the national football leagues can continue. They avoid responsibility for supporting CTE.
But at least spectators can have their consciousness raised about CTE -- with a fee.
In the meantime, young athletes, poor or not, need to be recruited into less dangerous sports.
Tackle football should be abolished. Touch football is a good game.
Not thinking sure sums it up.
1
I attended a webinar covering the topic of how student debt affects the health of those incurring it. During the question and answer period, I asked if the conducted study performed any comparison to the negative health consequences incurred by playing a college sport. The researchers thought it was a strange question, but isn't this really the ethical issue? For some, access to a college education is only possible through an athletic scholarship.
However, I still find it strange that parents would condone their sons playing a sport that is akin to self-harm. I am not sure it is justifiable even if it is the only path to college. Without an audience, these self-harming sports would slowly wither and die. As I follow these games, it is hard rationalizing how one is not part of the cause and effect of the injuries by supporting it.
2
Football is my favorite sport. As long as they'll play, I'll watch.
1
As a devout fan and former high school player, I often wonder if future generations will see U.S. football as we now view Roman gladiatorial combat: a manifestation of our society's celebration of violence.
Yet the highs U.S. football provides fans and players are intoxicating. It is a cultural addiction we are not yet ready to kick. The sad fact is that this brutal game is too deeply woven into our national fabric -- for the moment at least.
1
Multiple family members of mine were college and professional football players in the 80s and 90s, prior to the discovery of CTE. It was, and still is to a degree, a point of pride for my family to achieve great athletic excellence. That said, I find it incredibly hard today to be a fan of football and seeing the effects of CTE hit my family. My own future children will not be permitted to play.
4
Who am I, or anyone else, to tell someone what they can or cannot do with their body when their actions do not directly affect anyone else? It is purely a matter of choice. All sports have a certain amount of risk. Are we going to ban free soloing because the death rate is so high? What about mixed martial arts (MMA)?
It seems better that we simply acknowledge the risks, try to develop strategies to minimize the risk, and move on from there. We no not need a nanny state telling us what we can and cannot do with our bodies provided that our actions are legal and do not directly affect others.
1
But they do reflect their emotional roles with family and friends, future work and earnings capacity and dependency on private disability insurance or SSDI, legal services costs wrt liability, care required from the acute and chronic medical and psychiatric care systems, and from custodial care, etc ...
2
The older I get and the more I understand how many things can and will go wrong with our bodies, I find it dismaying to see people eagerly smashing their magnificently healthy bodies (even if CTE were not a risk), especially when there are so many other team and individual sports.
2
I love to watch football. It used to be my favorite sport and I followed it closely. After reading about the lifetime injuries, I cannot watch it anymore. Now I am a soccer fan. I hope it is safer for the participants.
@Janet Heading the soccer ball is certainly not good for the brain. I played one season in grade 8 and am glad I did not play more. When I first headed a ball I was shocked by the force I felt and I immediately thought it was something very un-natural and unhealthy to do. A young soccer player in Albuquerque, who loved to practice heading the ball died of CTE in his twenties. Heading the ball should be taken out of soccer.
3
@Roy thanks Roy for your comment. Sounds like a good idea to ban headers to make the sport safer.
3
I am 67 years old and have been a fan of football all my life. My Town had no organized football when I was growing up because during the Depression years 2 student athletes died from football injuries. As a consequence I played pick-up tackle football with no safety equipment. Of course we were all cognizant of head safety. I think part of causation of CTE is the current culture of football. Think about the Professional Football players from the 50's, 60's, and 70's that have died in the past 10 years living relatively healthy lives with no symptoms of CTE. The difference between then and now? Back then there was no celebration of violent hits on TV and very little usage of PEDS. Has Boston University studied the correlation between CTE and PED usage?
4
I’m looking forward to the end of football. I applaud parents who steer their children into less dangerous sports.
4
My family has a history of being Packer fans. I have been a fan of Michigan State for years. My daughter and I have decided to not watch football which supports a financial system that undermines the long term health of its players. I have switched to the British Premier League, shown on NBC sports networks. It has become hugely popular. The game lasts a little over 90 minutes. The players are normal sized people who have to be very healthy to run miles and miles during a game. The fans cheer without cheerleaders, singing songs even. The commentators talk about the game, not trivia. After a game the players and staff linger on the field, shaking the hands of the opposition and refs and each other. Fans linger, applauding. It is a totally different atmosphere.
5
I can't help but think how much better we have become as we ponder these ethical questions. Who ever thought that empathy would be the center of political debate?
Is a thumbs up for having fought valiantly worth the unrealised years of healthy productive life?
We can't protect our children from everything but what are our obligations in protecting them from things that are under our purview?
3
Charlie Doering, University of Michigan professor.
“I’m thinking that this is the last generation that’s going to see the game played this way. Perhaps maybe it’s time to take the helmets off, because you see games like rugby or something where they don’t have all the padding on and somehow they don’t seem to hurt each other as much.”
Professor Doering, as a professor, your job is to think critically.
In fact, now that CTE has been so well documented in football, researchers are looking at other high contact sports, like Rugby, and, no surprise, they are finding it. Of course, rapid cognitive loss has been well documented in boxing.
Football is a social game, so it no wonder that people rationalize their continued enjoyment watching football, no matter the cost. But already there is a decline in the number of people playing it, especially children.
Pop Warner football is in real trouble recruiting kids to play in their leagues. Middle School football will disappear in much of the country in the next few years. High School football won't be far behind as new data paints a fuller picture of the costs.
I no longer watch football. The costs are just too high and the game is all image. But I remember the beautiful game the San Francisco 49ers played under Bill Walsh's West Coast Offense.
5
One perspective not presented here is of a non-fan. Someone who doesn't go to games, never watches football on TV, doesn't follow who's beating who. I realize you're not going to find such people at a college football game, but I'm such a person, so here's a representative comment.
Football was created when people had no idea what kind of damage it did to people. Everyone that says players know the risk, has no skin in the game. Players are reducing their lifespans and risking their brains in this pointless, stupid game. There is nothing heroic about the game, nothing meaningful, it is a colossal waste of resources and lives. If we were a wise, advanced society, we would be done with it. But we are a violent, ignorant society, so we keep throwing away lives on this worthless sport.
10
We haven’t progressed much since Roman times, are you not entertained? Meechigan fans, oh boy.
5
"Football is not going anywhere."? Oh yes, it is. It is on it's way out, not immediately but definitely.
5
"“When you sign up to play, you know what you’re getting into, right?"
I wonder would he say that to a fireman injured while trying to save his house. A policeman hurt while answering a call at his workplace. No one really thinks they're going to have a life altering injury while doing his job, even when the job carries risks. So as long as the participants know what the risks are, no one should be surprised if gets hurt or worse on a football field. Nuts, what a cop out answer and attitude.
3
We used to accept pollution by large corporations, that would result in cancer and death for kids. Lawyers would settle.
We used to accept sexual-harassment and abuse, that would destroy people’s lives. Lawyers would settle.
We used to accept institutional racism and violence, that would destroy whole neighborhoods and communities. Lawyers would settle.
We won’t accept any of this anymore, and we shouldn’t accept organized violence posing as a game. We shouldn’t accept dementia at age 40. We shouldn’t accept former athletes unable to walk at age 50. We shouldn’t accept suicides, fatherless children, and broken families.
It’s time to stop supporting football teams. It’s time to stop supporting football altogether.
4
As I am not a football fan, the following observation may not be true. Whenever I see any type of film of a football game played in the 1930's and 1940's, it appears as if the player carrying the ball is grabbed by his legs to bring him down. Now it looks as if the object is to separate the ball from the ball handler by any means necessary.
3
My god, what willful ignorance. And from college folks, no less.
The simple facts are grounded in immutable laws of physics. When a human body moving forward at 10-20 mph is stopped cold, the brain -- suspended in fluid -- continues that forward trajectory until it collides with the front of the skull. The best helmets imaginable aren't going to change that fact.
Repeat that battering 20, 30 or 40 times a game for even one season, and scientists are beginning to understand the gravity of CTE and the increasingly unacceptable risks inherent in the modern game.
As a lifelong pro football junkie, everything about the game was great, until a post-mortem exam at Boston U. showed a relative -- an 11-year NFL lineman -- died with Stage 4 CTE two years ago.
With his death, I was moved to read details of the demise of Mike Webster, Junior Seau and a host of other NFL greats, and I could no longer pretend.
8
I am sorry for your loss
1
There are many things about the sport of football that is appealing: the teamwork, the athleticism, the strategy and the passion displayed on the field. Unfortunately football is not limited to the field of play and like many of the other institutions in this country they are rotting from within with all the greed, corruption and disregard for people on display. It has become a sport that is willing to sacrifice the participants in the name of profit and spectacle while tolerant of all levels of malfeasance in that pursuit. Hypocrisy permeates every discussion as so many of the advocates pretzel what remains of their conscience and honor to justify its continuance. If football was a product it would be recalled and if it was food it would have a FDA/CDC warning!!
3
Unsafe sports never die.
They just fade away.
Look at boxing, NASCAR, Thoroughbred Racing, Jousting, Duels
Motorcycles.
If they can not solve the health issues football will be the next to gradually fade away.
$ wise this may be pretty close to Peak NFL.
3
CTE is a difficult disease for neuroscientists to fully assess, at this point in our scientific understanding. And yet, to hear these fans, the average football player "understands the risks."
5
As a life long player and fan my wife wanted to know how I felt about our two young boys playing. I said I would not encourage them to play and if they decided by HS that they were interested I would not object. She said by then they would not have learned the skills they needed. I said exactly.
5
I was a high school football player who turned to track and field in college because my father, whom I resented at the time but for whom I am now grateful, gave me such a hard time about continuing to play football because of the risk of head injuries. This was a long time ago, so the phrase he used was "punch-drunk" which is now sort of archaic. I am a former football fan. Sometimes I will be somewhere where a screen with a game on will catch my eye, but no longer attend games because the understanding of the brain injuries spoils if tor me. This is an evolution from passionately loving the game as a youth. But no game, even one as beautiful in many ways as football, is worth losing one#s mind for.
10
I can not watch the game anymore. It is watching in slow motion as players degrade their futures. Look at the highlight reels and it is the most crushing hits that thrill the crowd.
CTE is not the only health issue as 50 year olds knees, backs etc are the scars of playing this game.
Also todays players are bigger and stronger. They are bred to do damage.
7
I am a physician and a member of the Michigan faculty. Many of us are deeply concerned about the impact of football on the health of young people. I hope that one day our great educational institutions will come to the conclusion that participation in this sport is unethical and not in the best interests of our students.
John C Schotland MD, PhD
Professor of Mathematics
23
Stop the taxpayer subsidies at all levels, scholarships, equipment, free venues, monopoly waivers, TV packages, and let the chips fall where they may. It is like the goose in foie gras. Governments at all levels force money down the throats football players for the benefit of parasitic spectators.
If football is any good it should survive without subsidies.
4
Until about the late 1800s, football was a minor part of American culture. It can go away. Soccer is better and generally safer, though long walks with family and playing musical instruments make for a better life.
7
Football is going away, just not quickly. It seems unlikely it can be fixed. Many places especially the coasts, schools are closing their programs or reducing them. It is very expensive, it's hard to see how the cost to school districts or public colleges is justified. Don't claim they make money, they are government funded programs, AKA socialism. Kids brains are important, there are safer ways to learn the lessons football teaches.
5
Americans have been sending their sons off to needless foreign Wars without much thought. So why be surprised thousand and tens of thousands of youngsters and young men are incapacitated playing football - a “War Game”. Thoughtful parents will put their foot down when their kids seek to play school football. Look how many thousands of coaches see their livelihoods enhanced with kids “going to War” playing football. For most of us who played football was “bittersweet”. Rest of the world does much better with soccer.
3
Football is so much a part of America? What part? The worst part of America, I'd say: the violent part. t's time to stop watching this so-called sport. I did years ago.
5
I see a lot of excuses here.
Helmet technology doesn't help.
Once the player gets the concussion, it's too late.
Surely, you can find another way to come together with your family or have camaraderie.
US culture is cruel, violent, self-absorbed, and runs on excuses for it all. Is it any wonder we ended up where we are?
I know that sounds harsh, but think about it: football fans are merrily bonding with each other while young men get brain injuries that cause early and severe dementia. How can a person with a conscience even stomach that, let alone cheer it on?
7
Statistics from Notre Dame:
8617 undergraduates, 3.8% are Black
173 football players, 68% are Black.
Hmm.
13
This is just our Circus Maximus--2019 release.
Gladiators are not fighting to an immediate death. So we are making progress, I guess?
6
Pretty soon they won't have a brain with which to think! I cannot see how anyone can support football and not feel guilty. Why? Because they are guilty!
4
Football should be banned in the US. Period. At this point, it is essentially a money-making machine that exploits the athletic prowess of poor, mostly black and brown young men, then abandons them when they have serious health and emotional problems down the line. Like the prison system is a continuation of plantation slavery, football is a continuation of the minstrel show.
8
Cognitive dissonance 101.
8
1. I've smoked cigarettes for 30 years and haven't gotten lung cancer.
2. We used leaded gasoline for decades and nothing happened to me.
3. My house is covered in leaded paint and yet I'm OK.
4. I work in a building insulated with asbestos. I feel fine.
5. I drive a monstrous vehicle that gets terrible mileage and spews mass quantities of CO2, and yet my beach house has not gone underwater.
6. I voted for and continue to support Trump. Has anything gone wrong?
7. I am a Republican.
8. Football doesn't result in CTE, and if it does, who cares?
All of the above are lies. The people quoted in this article disgust me. We all take risks every day just leaving the house. But these fools believe that if they find a game to be entertaining despite the injuries inflicted on the players, they're ultimately fine with it.
Facts are stubborn things.
8
Nice NYT-- interview a prominently white sample size about their feelings regarding CTE and football (a professional sport that is played by people who are prominently not white).
What's next? Interviewing NCAA executives about their feelings regarding paying college athletes? I can't wait to see how those individuals feel about the topic.
3
It’s a free country—no one is forcing you to play. Same with smoking—-if a seven year old wants to light up, so what? Free country. ..................................Brilliant!
2
I grew up more enthralled with the water polo team than with the football team (better physiques, lol!)
A number of years ago, I realized that football culture especially, contributes to and encourages, a demeaning attitude towards females. It encourages a very toxic masculinity. Not to mention god complexes among players. Not a good combo.
Less number of years ago, I heard about CTE from a friend whose father played pro football.
And then I read an article about how football programs in colleges ARE the most important thing on a major football campus - how funds are mandatorily collected from every student to support a program many of them don't care about or even wish to so tangibly support; how football has somehow taken precedence over education at some colleges - the actual business of colleges - resulting in the taking away of funds from education, and a culture where star football players accused of abuse are coddled by schools over victims.
In an age where we have an idiot/liar as president, which so clearly evidences a complete lack of critical thinking among a considerable chunk of the American populace, any critically thinking human really has to wonder about the wisdom of continuing down this path.
In an age where we now know about CTE, it is nothing less than immoral to support an activity which results in brain damage for the players, not to mention an impinged on education for students, and a supportive atmosphere for misogyny.
5
The President should have banned football when he had a chance.
https://www.history.com/news/how-teddy-roosevelt-saved-football
1
"Do unto others as you would have them do unto you[r brain]" or unto your children or grandchildren
3
Has anyone noticed that this season in the NFL whenever someone is hit helmet-to-helmet, the announcers rarely even comment on that this season? Last week a receiver who was already on his knees, therefore "down", was hit helmet-to-Face Mask, with no consequences, or even commentary, regarding the late hit or how it was accomplished. Methinks the wealthy owners are covering their proverbial rear ends. Young kids may not realize the inherent danger in their sport, but by now their parents should be painfully aware of the CTE consequences.
4
Can't fix stupid. Please. Feel free to bang yourselves into a coma followed by permanent brain damage. Don't expect any sympathy. If you want to play, you pay. You should be required to have a special health insurance policy. The burden of your ignorance shouldn't be anyone else's problem.
4
I am neutral about football. Really. There is a level of violence that, it seems, some need, and as a society we are willing to pay to participate and/or watch. Football has rules, and there is a known risk. If we ban football, what do we say about Rugby, Ice hockey, Basketball and Soccer? How about traumatic brain injury of Bicycling, Horseback riding and the Playground? And let’s not forget the human cock fighting of the world of MMA which allows submission with unconsciousness.
There are some great aspects of sports including team work, sportsmanship, and the life lesson that sometimes even when you work as hard as you can sometimes that is not enough and you will still lose.
We need to make all of our sports as safe as possible, and we need to get over the shake it off mentality of working through injuries, but at least some human animals will need and seek a physical outlet. I’d rather it be supervised in as controlled as setting as possible.
Sports start to die with the ruling class will no longer let their children take the risk – even if they still want to watch – e.g. boxing and likely football in the future. In the perfect world undeserved minorities would not have to risk their life (the armed forces) or their health (professional sports) to have a chance to make generational wealth changes to their family trees but right now without transformational public education, sports continues to be one of the few options these groups have.
2
I am a physician, and I grew up as a football fan.
One of my physician colleagues, a neuropathologist, has examined the brains of some of the deceased NFL players who had CTE. She said that the damage is profound.
While I am still in awe of the athleticism of football, I can no more support the way the game is played than I can support Big Tobacco. It is against everything I believe and swore to uphold as a physician.
8
As a physician, I find this all so sad and depressing. We are allowing and encouraging the destruction of young, healthy brains for sport.
It would be great if some of these "fans" had a chance to meet the disabled and demented individuals whose lives have been so negatively impacted from this "great" sport.
Sigh...
6
Would you watch your kid hit his head against a stone wall, over and over, without stopping him?? That's football, plain and simple.
88
I share the conflict many people have expressed, I played the game as a kid, and I enjoy it as an adult, there is much that is amazing about it, as brutal as it can be. However, it bothers me when people flippantly say (about the players) "they know the risks, and are playing", as if that absolves the whole issue. When people go into combat, they know the risks, they know that the risk of being wounded or killed is significant, and they even can know by how much, because it has been quantified. They understand the risks and take it on willingly.
On the other hand, compare that to agent orange in Vietnam. Soldiers who went there voluntarily didn't know about that, it was an unknown factor.
With football, we don't know the risks, and that is the point. We know that CTE is tied to playing football and repetitive hits, but we don't know how much of a risk. We are almost as blind as agent orange, because the only test is post mortem. Some players play for years and seemingly have no issues, others end up tragically. Is there a 1 in ten change they end up feeling the effects of CTE? 2 in 10? 8 in 10? What level of CTE is associated with being disabled? When people work with dangerous chemicals, there are safety limits based on research, with football, we just don't know..so how can you accept unknown risks? Then, too, how many kids play football trying to get out of horrible circumstances, where they almost don't have a chance any other way.....can they even accept risks?
1
As a Michigan alumnus (class of '76), I try to follow Michigan football games from afar. I like the game and I enjoy it. But, after reading about the perils of playing the game, the answer should be an easy one: change the rules to make it safer. As someone pointed out, rugby is as physical as football, yet there are less injuries during games without all the paraphernalia. What I see watching college and profesional football games, is an intentional desire to hit and harm the opponent (quarterbacks sacks, for example). Again, rules need to be change to make the sport more a sport and less a war.
2
Beyond the very troubling ethical issues here, there is an economic solution. My medical insurance payments should not rise to pay the medical bills for football players who suffer brain damage. Those bills should be paid by the high schools, colleges, and/or professional teams that field the teams. They too, know what the players signed up for. And if they are going to make money from the player's performance, they need to pay for their suffering.
4
The comments by the people who were interviewed indicate some common misunderstandings. "Better" or "safer" helmets will NOT prevent the brain from sloshing around and impacting the skull after a hit. And good aftercare after a concussion and a return to the playing field "when ready" or "when healthy" will not prevent the accumulation of brain damage wrought by repeated head hits. The damage is done.
Football and its rules need to change dramatically if we are to stop the damage to players' brains.
4
As a former student at U of M, I get that it's a blast when they crush Notre Dame. But when people say "the players know what they signed up for", that's ridiculous: kids start playing when they're, well, kids. That's not moral to put the onus all on them. So, I have two modest proposals which will solve the problems of long-term damage from football:
1. Only allow people 18 or 21 to make the decision to play tackle football, and
2. Force colleges to pay extended workman's compensation, so that when damages from CTE, or arthritis, show up at, say, 40, there's some remedy to the damage that has occurred.
Football wouldn't survive either of these common sense and fair rules.
And as a side benefit, there'd be improved health of the population as many would get their butts off their couches for several Saturday hours.
61
@Carlos Fiancé
Not bad thinking.
I would also include life long VA type medical benefits for all college athletes. CTE isn't the only medical problem young people can face later in life as a result of their collegiate sports careers. Disabled athletes have been part of collegiate athletics since the beginning of collegiate athletics. Rather than argue about what ailment is a result of sport while at University, just cover everything.
One more thing. The schools should pay into an escrow fund to provide income support for athletes while in treatment or permanently disabled.
This would be the right thing to do, but like many in positions of authority, doing the right thing too often isn't part of the job description.
6
Bullfighting and cock fighting are illegal and banned because they are bad for the animals. So how is it that football, which harms humans, especially high school and middle school football, is OK?
Bring on the gladiators!
2
Growing up a family member started smoking at 12,his father gave him hell and this was the 50’s.Why in the 21st century would you be derelict to a 12 year old,let him play a game which could jeopardize his prime years with neurological problems.
2
It is the guilty pleasure of so many Americans and yet, as much as I have loved it I would get by if it just went the way. And it should if there is no reasonable way to make it safer. It's a gem on a relatively few campuses and a drain on most. High school boys certainly "do not" know what they are getting themselves into and only learn years later in depression, lingering injuries and memories that they are having a tough time remembering. Big-time boxing went the way in America. Horse racing is going that way too. When the day arrives that the college game is something that only the poorest of inner-city kids play, (convinced that there is no other way onto a college campus and no other path to the pro's) we as Americans will probably find a way to move on to whatever sport our little darlings deem important and trendy--probably something involving a video game controller. College football is one beautiful spectacle, but then--some used to say the same about bear-baiting and some still do about bullfighting.
1
I don't know if there's any way (rule changes, better headgear) that can minimize head injuries. The people who play are not doctors, and even if they make the decision to play, it is rarely an informed decision. Football is not worth CTE and dementia, period. It needs to go.
1
We are with football now where we were with smoking in 1960. It will be 2 generations before there is meaningful changes in attitudes...
2
I personally have seen and expeerienced the detriments of concussions and CTE. I speak for the guys on my team in that we know that football is detrimental to our health. But at the same time, I have seen division 1 football save lives. Football pulls kids out of neighborhoods and takes them away from the streets or getting into trouble. I have seen football teach young men lessons that changed their family trajectory. To us, football isn't just a game that we get to be on TV for and have a chance to make it to the league. For many of us, football is the only chance to be anything in life. Regardless of how dangerous or harmful the game is, it's our only shot. Regardless of how wrong that is, it's the truth. There are lessons that are taught on the football field that couldn't be taught anywhere else in society. As long as major TV deals are bringing huge amounts of revenue into colleges and universities, football isn't going to go anywhere.
4
On some level, the only difference between football and boxing/martial arts is popularity.
There is an artistry to both, but as with any bloodsport some find it too brutal to appreciate. In both, a lucky few can find a lottery ticket out of poverty -- while others are exploited chasing that dream. Even for those without pro talent, both can be a saving grace for high-risk youths who may learn discipline and work ethic they were unable to connect to elsewhere. And both also leave behind a significant trail of people with serious, life-altering injuries.
I agree with those who point out that "they knew what they were getting into" is pretty disingenuous when discussing the foresight of 20 year-olds who cannot even picture 40 (though to be fair, this is just as true for more traditional paths like taking on educational debt), and I do wish that the people funneled into contact sports were not so disproportionately without better apparent options (be it educational or other choices of sport). Yet, ultimately, at the societal level, the game is a series of trade-offs: some come out ahead, others draw the short-straw, and however horrific the fate of gladiators discarded by the arena, the Colosseum still entertains.
1
We should be looking at ice hockey and soccer the same way. Watching the women’s World Cup, I saw many hard hits to the head and know people who have suffered greatly due to concussions from the game. The same people who eschew football fully support other sports that pose equal risk. If the scope of research of sports injury is broadened, it might have some effect. Also, football is played in short spurts of play so it’s easy to suspend concern over the player’s health.
5
@Jennie there is a fundamental difference between some of the sports you mention and football. The point of football is to hit someone, to knock them to the ground and render them unable to move the ball forward. Contact and collision are a method to the point of the game. In soccer this is not the case at all. While a contact sport, the purpose is not to hit somebody, but to put the ball into a goal. Heading the ball is a part of the sport but the entire purpose of it and it can easily be taken away without disrupting the game much. Kids today do not play heading soccer until after the age of 11. That should probably be extended through high school but with that modification the fundamental nature of the game is kept--with football you can't do that without making it into flag or touch football.
@Jennie
When I lived in Europe in the 1970's, I learned from friends in medicine that soccer players' brains are severely damaged by the constant headers. Only now, many years later, is the problem being addressed by some leagues.
2
The sudden rise in popularity of UFC, which is several times more dangerous, tells me that people watch these sports BECAUSE of the violence, not in spite of it.
1
I gave up watching football or supporting it at any level last year. I do not know that it can be made safe, and that was a major factor. Other factors included the corruption of colleges by the money involved; the culture of impunity that players are dropped into; and the NFL holding cities hostage for unaffordable sports palaces. Problem elements extend extend down to at least the high school level. I see no reason why my time or dollars need to go into this mess.
I'm not a sports fan, so I have no investment in this question, other than as a taxpayer, I probably help foot some of the CTE medical bills. But if I had a young son I would steer him away from football, and make sure he got plenty of exposure to football players with CTE telling their stories.
My dad, who told me of concussions he suffered while playing high school football in the 1940's, had dementia in the last year or so of his life. I suspect it might have been caused by his old injuries. The only upside was that he seemingly did not know he was dying of brain cancer and was a happy warrior to the end.
1
What a shock that millions of Americans might not be acting in their best interest in support of a destructive activity. Boy, this has to be a first, am I right?
4
All the benefits of football these people list can be gained in other ways without addicting male teenage brains to an adrenaline rush that could lead to their premature death. I encourage anyone interested in this topic to read Steve Almond's excellent book "Against Football: One Fan's Reluctant Manifesto." There's a lot more than just concussions that make football a toxic addiction to the American public. At least educate yourself instead of putting your head in the sand with specious justifications for not wanting to give up the personal pleasure you get from being a football fan.
The subject was irrelevant to me until I had a mild traumatic brain injury. I wouldn't wish this on anyone, least of all young people. Personal experience contributes a lot to one's opinions.
1
These same people that ignore the science and fact of the impact of CTE injuries are the ones who dismiss and degrade as elitist the contributions of educated specialists in medicine, science and government.
When your heroes can barely string together a sentence or remember what happened yesterday, it is unsurprising so many football fans are MAGA types or anti-vaxxers or QAnon believers.
6
Misnamed, boring (with an average of less than 20 minutes of ‘action’ in a typical 3.5-4 hour televised game), militaristic, and corruptive of the real purpose of universities - the debilitating impact of playing this game is only one of the many reasons why I no longer waste my time following this so-called sport.
3
The US loves it’s gladiator sport, if not its gladiators.
Football, smoking, motorcycles, and gun ownership are Darwinian - regrettably thinning the herd of people who prize immediate gratification over the long-term.
The truly sad part is the intentional marketing of these products to kids who feel indestructible and immortal - only to learn that we are neither.
Let's face it. Like most things human/animal, football is simply sexual posturing, in this case on steroids. We are talking fundamental animal instincts. Logic holds no sway over this. Chess makes far more intellectual sense but tight jeans and décolletage cheerleaders seldom show up for the matches.
3
Football is big money, big money at every level. From the outsized stadiums and ridiculous budgets of high school programs to the NFL farm league also known as the NCAA and lastly to professional football this is a multi billion dollar industry. If anyone things the folks making money all along that value chain are not going to put up a fight and wrap this entertainment into mom, apple pie and the flag to keep it from going the extinct you are a fool.
Football is not a sport, it is entertainment and the public is being "played" from players to spectators. Players are disposable tires who get replaced when they wear out.
Football is the American equivalent of gladiatorial contests, only the deaths are slower and more horrible. It should be illegal.
Why didn't you talk to people like me?
3
Better equipment won't solve the simple physics involved when a human skull slams into something unyielding. The brain inside that skull keeps moving. Do that enough times and there will be damage. If you're willing to accept that, then by all means enjoy the game.
2
Some of these comments are ridiculous. The U of M professor that states that they don't have injury and concussion problems in rugby? Do some research. The comment "no one is forcing you to play." As parents, we know and understand the risks. Letting ones child play this sport today is almost equal to child abuse and endangerment. We are the parents. We know better. I am so glad that my sons never played. I wonder how many of those commenting about the positives of the sport of football saw the PBS documentary "League of Denial". The stats are in front of you. How you can support this sport is beyond comprehension.
3
All I think about when reading this articles is 'How long until they come for hockey and wrestling?'
2
@Morgan
"They" don't come for anything. They are pointing out the consequences of repeated severe blows to the head. It's a free country, you choose to play football, injuries and all, it's your choice. The question is, should you? Or your children?
2
We know now. Conclusively. This is why I don’t watch. Violence as sport with absolutely known consequences. Rather like knowing you can get HIV if you don’t use a condom, and ignoring it. Willful ignorance. In our sports, our politics, our impending climate catastrophe, our guns, out freedom to choose to be stupid.
My grandson plays football and it is I who was excoriated and excommunicated for several months when I panicked and said to his mother not to come crying to me if he gets hurt because we know how dangerous it is.
He’s playing really well and loves it. I hope and pray he doesn’t get hit in the head.
A simple fix would make professional football sportier, far less hazardous to the players, and much more enjoyable for the spectators!
Ban the preposterous armored football costume! Dress the men like rugby players, in shorts and T-shirts, with sneakers or barefoot!
Rugby is similar to American football, but rougher, yet the short-term and long-term injuries are far fewer. The reasons are readily surmised. Football armor and spiked shoes impede the mobility of the player, cause direct injury in a collision or fall, and give the egotistical players a false sense of invulnerability.
Spectators would get a better view of the game if the players looked like real men instead of puffed-up Stars Wars warriors.
And, we women would enjoy the game more if we were rewarded glimpses of muscular thighs and corrugated abs!
1
Rugby is not a rougher sport. The running speeds are lower. They aren’t jumping and catching passes. NFL football would have to change the rules to play without pads. A quick Google shows that concussions are the most common rugby injury. So really the only solution would be to phase out both sports. Also, rugby may have more nonstop action but the action is very repetitious and boring.
1
This helps explain why Trump is president.
4
The sooner the drunken tailgates are over the better. Grown adults drinking themselves blackout drunk to go cheer a violent and potentially life threatening game is beyond intelligent behaviour. Good riddance!
2
I like how the "No one is forcing you to play." types always look they've haven't played a down since their Pop Warner days. Not one of them could take a hit on the field with professionals, yet find the need to question/mock the resilience of others.
2
As a pediatrician and father of high school football players, I have seen chronic traumatic encephalopathy play itself out to tragic ends.
What of the local hotshot who, it turns out, really isn't good enough to make the college team? I've witnessed that situation evolve into depression, failing grades, drug use and suicide.
When we suffer closed head trauma, our skulls may come to a sudden, jerking stop, but our delicate brains do not - they only stop by impacting our skulls and that's where and how the injury takes place.
Frankly, there is no practical way to prevent that, unless you want to encase standard helmets in a two-foot radius of bubble wrap to lessen the decelerating g-forces.
There is no known treatment that will undo the damage and restore the brain to status quo ante the repeated trauma.
America, fall in love with wrestling. It's typically low-impact on the brain (and other stuff you will want to use through adulthood) and kids are matched by body weight, so any kid can wrestle. It's a warrior sport, which is what many kids crave as a right of passage. If you cheer your kids on and their peers do the same, they will love wrestling even more than football.
60
@Hugo Furst I agree about wrestling I guess, but warrior sport, come on, really. How about frisbee? Tennis? Hiking?
6
@Hugo Furst
And why do your children play football?
13
@Hugo Furst will---ABSOLUTELY---not believe you are a doctor :(
2
As I've learned more about CTE issue, it's become increasingly difficult to continue being a football fan. How can I pull for the players and wish them well and at the same time encourage them to perform an activity that is likely to give them dementia? I wish there was a way to fix the game and make it safer, but it looks like all the sub-concussive hits have terrible effects, too. I felt bad about the "routine" injuries before (knees, bones, ligaments), but brain injuries are just too serious. So it's become a moral issue for me, and I know that at some point I'll have to let it go.
53
People in this article keep saying the players know what they're signing up for. Really? Does a college-aged boy/man really understand or care about what his brain is going to be like when he's 40? If kids have grown up in a football family they are not going to listen to a few lectures about brain health. This is American culture at its worst - live in the now and don't worry about the future.
234
@figure8
In a Capitalistic nation that worships money, football and the likes of Donald Trump, perhaps it is ridiculous to assume we would aspire to higher levels in our society.
25
@figure8
The same reason why the foot soldiers are made up of teenagers and young men - they believe they are invincible.
13
@Joe
Think about what any of us knew at 13. Make a life or death decision? Really?
9
Its very easy to call this an American tradition and be unwilling to change it when the stakes do not have any direct effect on your life. But that is not what is happening in the lives of the players. Damage is happening that will affect the lives of the players days, months and decades later. Knowing this should be enough to step in and make it safer but "traditionalists" who don't know or understand the aftermath of their wishes and selfish desires really shouldn't have anything to say about it.
Money is what causes this sport remain foolishly unsafe. Keeping the status quo and its harmful effects has worked well for the oil industry, food manufacturers and plastic producers even in the face of evidence that makes their actions inexcusable. Corporations and their sponsorship, coaches and their scholarships, fans and their overly avid enthusiasm make it difficult for sports medicine experts to make an impact. How can anyone expect an 18 year old to make good long term decisions when sponsors and alumni wave shiny hypnotic inducements in front of their naive and unrealistic faces.
The game is rigged in favor of the money makers and does not consider the longterm effects on the players. Is that really sportsmanship?
1
At some point, youth and school leagues will not be able to afford the liability insurance premiums. That will effectively kill tackle football for 18 & under and reduce the number colleges playing as well. It will happen, no question.
Football is too ingrained in our culture for it to ever stop. But it should stop, at least for kids. The question to me isn't whether people are choosing to put themselves at risk. It's that parents are letting kids be put at risk. The same parents who won't let their kids walk to the corner store alone are letting them bash their head in on a football field. If people had ever met some of these players with severe CTE problems they might change their minds. It's not just former pros. College and even high school players are having problems later on. There's no reason kids can't play touch football or football without helmets or pads, more like rugby where there are far fewer injuries, in high school and younger. If they want to choose to play tackle when they are 18, let them. But children shouldn't be allowed to endanger their futures because of a game their parents love to watch.
In the 1990s we knew nothing of CTE. The first hints of a problem had to do with something called "second injury syndrome". I requested that my son not play in a game three days after he had been knocked unconscious in a previous game. The coach was disdainful and miffed. "Whatever you want". The trauma and damage continued and John is now gone from us.
3
I had a close relative who we believe had CTE. He played high school football back in the day, and then college football. He had a couple serious concussions - one landed him in the hospital for weeks. I believe he struggled all his life with the effects. He had mood swings, depression, anxiety, and eruptions of rage. He ended up losing all his words by the end. He could no longer talk or think straight. I don't think this game should be played by the young. They are in no position to understand 'the disclaimer.' Kids think things won't happen to them because that is how their young brains work. We should not take advantage of their youth. Lots of adults play as a career choice because other things are not available to them. That's another issue. But at least adults can understand a little better what they are signing up for. I think we should encourage kids into soccer or baseball or other sports - the team joy is there too.
9
Baseball and basketball are much better games. You can play them at whatever level you are capable of, then eventually step away with improved fitness, on balance. Not so in football, for many.
5
As with many bad habits, we can encourage people to quit if we make it expensive enough. Perhaps football, at all levels, needs a hefty CTE surcharge, levied on every spectator and set aside for the care and treatment of the physically and mentally damaged athletes. Even (perhaps, especially) at the high school level.
(And while we're talking about putting the burden where it belongs, when are we going to stop making taxpayers foot the bill for those gigantic stadiums? Any billionaire who can afford to buy a team can afford to build his own facility.)
7
It takes a while for brain damage to develop so they won't be in football then. So they won't be the fans' problem.
Look, it could be worse. Look at the gladiators in ancient Rome. No one worried about them.
5
Thank goodness my 15-year old son never wanted to play football.
3
"We know that by watching these games we are supporting a system that may carry dire consequences. Research has shown, and even the N.F.L. has acknowledged, a connection between concussions, repeated hits to the head and chronic traumatic encephalopathy, the brain disease known as C.T.E., whose symptoms include dementia and brain damage."
. . . and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, confusion, disorientation, dizziness, headaches, memory loss, social instability, impulsive behavior, poor judgment, dementia, movement disorders, hypomimia, speech impediments, sensory processing disorder, tremors, vertigo, deafness, depression, suicidality, dysarthria, dysphagia, cognitive disorders, amnesia, ocular abnormalities, ptosis, dementia, declining mental ability, problems with memory, dizzy spells, lack of balance to the point of not being able to walk under one's own power, Parkinsonism, tremors, lack of coordination, speech problems, unsteady gait, prone to inappropriate or explosive behavior and may display pathological jealousy or paranoia . . .
Otherwise, it's all so much FUN!!
5
What really upsets me are the parents who knowingly encourage their young children to play. That seems like a form of child abuse although I know those parents live their kids and bizarrely think they are helping rather than harming them. Those kids are not only being damaged, they are also being taught to ignore or discount the dangers of the sport. They will not be able to make fully informed decisions about the sport when they are older. They are being brainwashed into playing by those who love and ought to protect them.
2
I'd like to see the mother of a 14-year-old boy whose brain will quite likely be permanently damaged while playing football be charged with child abuse. "I am all in it. I love it," indeed.
4
I work in physical rehabilitation, and I think that these players are absolutely putting their brains at risk. And to suggest that they know what they are getting into? No, they have no clue! The NFL and the colleges do everything they can to downplay the long-term consequences of the "sport", while they roll in the dough. But I see it in the community, and it's truly tragic. The golden boy of high school and college self-medicates in the rest of their life, totally dysfunctional, can't hold a job, peaked at 21, and everybody says they just couldn't handle the transition to the real world - it's absolutely tragic. And it's not just football - women's basketball, soccer, and so on. If the NFL and colleges paid for the long-term supports these players need? That'd be one thing. But once they've fallen through the system, we are all paying through public health care and support programs to try to keep them afloat, minimize damage, or pay for incarceration. While the colleges and the NFL spend the dollars they made on these players on nice locker rooms and new uniforms. Disgusting.
10
@2much2do can you please explain how 5 billion people play soccer
In 10 years, probably the majority of players will be inner city and poor kids, with college scholarship and pro ball dreams. Maybe this is already true. And we will still watch just like the Romans watch the gladiators kill each other. Most parents don't want their kid's developing brain rattled in it's skull.
7
Football needs to go away. It's a destructive force in terms of physical injuries and in terms of money shenanigans -- sponsorships, salaries, diversion of resources from other needs, bribery etc. Football is immoral and at the bottom line a primitive pastime.
4
Do people who play football get CTE, or are people with deficient brain wiring (i.e. not everything is present upstairs and prone to CTE) play football? Some food for thought..........
1
The Elephant in the room isn’t CTE, nor is it Big Money for major universities coffers, nor is it Super Alum Identity Syndrome, nor is it American fascination with themes of violence like guns and football though all of these elements are scary in their own right.
The Elephant is the use, abuse, and disposal of young, black athletes. Who cares if they pay the price of early death via CTE or physical pain throughout their lives? We white people want our fill of Saturday and Sunday (NFL) mayhem. It’s beyond sad: we’re killing our planet and our own species.
Recorded history tells us that Homo Sapiens is one strange and crazy creation.
5
@Ron Blair Humans are the scourge of this planet. The human race should institute a 0-Child policy ASAP if it wants the planet to survive and flourish.
1
I used to love college footbal. The personal stories of players' lives made it an easy choice to give it up. Daniel Te'o Nesheim's is a powerful example: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/09/27/sports/football/nfl-cte-daniel-teo-nesheim.html
6
Did the spectators in Ancient Rome worry about the fate of gladiators?? On the other hand (just in case anyone was wondering), it’s not a perfect world. Some people will continue to CHOOSE to ignore or disregard the damage of football, just like some people will CHOOSE to overdose on fentanyl. Choices have consequences.
3
@stevevelo Odd comment, as the vast majority of overdoses are accidental. Very few people choose to overdose on an opioid (many people die from drug lacing). The person may have chosen to take Fentanyl, or they were prescribed an opioid and became addicted, but they didn't choose to overdose.
2
@j - sorry, I probably should have said: Many people CHOOSE to take opioids, even though they don’t need them. Occasionally this CHOICE results in their death.
1
Parents who allow a child to do something everyone knows is dangerous because it's "part of who their family is", or because the child "really wants to do it" are deluding themselves. The truth is out there. If you refuse to accept it, you will pay the price.
8
I left football behind over twenty years ago, especially the NFL where the outcome of most games seems to be pre-determined. The revelations regarding CTE have convinced me that I made a correct choice. I can't watch.
4
There are those who say players know what they're getting into and therefore football is not a problem. The actual question is not that, but concerns those who choose entertainment from watching other people sustain routine brain damage.
8
"Football is not going anywhere."
Sounds like part of our epitaph. The Romans were probably saying the same thing about the gladiators and the Coliseum on their way out the door. This is just one of many scary articles I read about John/Jane Q. USPublic frequently. Kind of getting old hat now. Well, football may not be going anyway and climate change is happening and a million other bad things are gong down, but we will be leaving the scene in relatively short order regardless. It has happened before with other species and the Earth will lumber on without us. Until then, "do you want to see some football?"
4
CTE would keep me from letting my boys play football, but so would the fact that on a beautiful fall day years ago, as I watched my brother at quarterback, a boy on the opposing team went back in with a concussion and suffered a brain injury that killed him a few weeks later. He never woke up.
66
after a lifetime of watching football, both college and pro, attending games at all levels, and even running a fantasy football league for years, i gave up being a fan this year. i love the game but can't watch anymore. i simply can't enjoy it knowing the risk players are taking. and i must say, it has been much easier than i thought to stop watching any of it. i miss it and having that point of connection with friends and family but i don't miss the dissonance i had been wrestling with the last few years.
11
@LPR
Good for you. Played it for many years and also have an older brther who played colege ball now suffreing from CTE. I gave it up many years ago. I missed it initially (I live in the South half the year where drinking and football is a religion) and can honestly say I now feel much better for it. You will too.
11
It would be fairly easily to change the rules in order to prevent ruthless defensive actions and bring common sense about players' safety that also improve the football game's style and vision. For example, no full speed knock down of the ball's carrier. A rugby kind of tackle below the belt would have the same effect of stopping the runner and would be a smoother jolt for his body.
1
The argument that players know what they risk is invalid. The reporting on the consequences is relatively new and most young players would probably need to actually see the effects to really understand the dangers. And many fans interviewed here are just saying that players should have great medical care and be protected without understanding that right now no one has the ability to reverse the damage or protect very well against it except by dramatically altering the game. The fans are just mouthing meaningless platitudes and excuses and the players are too hyped on the adrenaline, glory and money of the sport to make good decisions.
15
After I saw "Concussion" I just totally stopped watching football - which I loved - and quit my Fantasy league, which I have been part of with my friends for 35 years. And reality is its not just the concussions but repeated impacts that also cause brain damage. See @MC in these comments.
I figured I was not any better than the Romans paying to watch gladiators if I continued.
17
The entire society bears some of the cost. CTE patients require care, commit suicide and neither the schools nor the NFL pays the portion of these costs that the families can often not cover. The society pays some educational costs but it is denied the benefits of the education not used.
Two hundred years from now do you think this sport will exist?
We no longer joust.
6
This recent interest in American tackle football by the Gray Lady would be far better journalism if you acknowledged many sports have risk factors, even Olympic ones (Platform diving, hammer throw, ice hockey, sleds flying down banked courses).
Then we have recreational activities. Skydiving, cliff climbing,off road racing with bicycles or motorized versions. The list goes on. Life is risk. No one should be pressured to play tackle football and especially at small high schools. However for most it is a freely chosen activity (the particular socio-economic pressure on black players needs a separate article).
Even the "safe" sports, such as "soccer" (as we call world football) has risks. Players use their unprotected heads to jump high and pass the ball or to shoot for the net. In other instances the defensive players form a wall of bodies a few yards from a fixed spot kicker to block a shot risking the full force off their skull. Don't even look at what this American sees as organized mayhem in Australian Rules football.
No sport is worth potential brain damage. If I had a son, I would hand him a golf club or a tennis racket. The danger of football is firmly established, but parents appear to be oblivious to the risk and enroll their children at an early age in football programs. Why risk your child's health for a game?
2
Football is at least a step forward from the Roman gladiator contests wherein the combatants rarely lived through their 20's. Maybe we can take another step over this next 2000 years.
1
So, watching legitimized violence, even to the point of inspiring assault; paying money to see athletes abuse their bodies and those of others, money that goes to paying coaches exorbitant salaries, while the players receive a pittance, and buying out contracts for many millions of dollars when a coach loses a couple of games in a season; ignoring that collegiate football today undermines the rhetoric and values of academic institutions; participating in a mock patriotism that ostracizes players who express dissent, etc. brings your family together? Might be time to evaluate your family values and to consider other less violent and more socially constructive activities to strengthen familial bonds.
8
My wife, daughter and I said goodbye to my 39 year old lawyer son this week. He drowned himself in the lake in front of our cabin leaving a young wife, a ten year old son and a five year old daughter who worshiped him and don't understand any of this. The pain is indescribable and will never go away. Needless to say, no one in our family will ever play football again. Regarding CTE, the odds are good but the stakes unimaginable until you have been through it. I want to die, but I can't. Don't delude yourself, the parents make the choice for the child, and it mostly has to do with ego.
25
@DavidH
I am so sorry. Please take care.
1
@DavidH I am sorry for your loss but you did mention how much and how far you son went in football.
@DavidH I am so very sorry for the loss of your son. How devastating for you and your family, including your son's wife and children. As the family member of someone who died by suicide, all I can say is draw strength from those around you, try to remember the happy times, and know that over time, the sharpness of the grief dulls a tiny bit.
2
The people interviewed are in denial. They are not much different than those who watched gladiators fight to the death in Roman coliseums for the enjoyment of the fans, the difference - the players/gladiators they watch die more slowly from their injuries. Knowing the risks, they are even willing to volunteer their children to suffer the horrible fate of CTE and other debilitating injury. The NFL's solution? Wrap the game in the American Flag and declare all football fans patriots.
4
I do love watching football, but I can't anymore. The injuries have ruined it for me. Maybe if they can change the rules to make the game safer they can keep playing. No amount of community bonding is worth the sacrifice of somebody's brain.
4
The NFL needs to consider reducing pads instead of increasing them. It has been proven that rugby is far safer than Amerian football. Because there are no shoulder pads or helmets players are forced to tackle properly. However, when there are injuries in the sport of rugby, although they are few and far between, they tend to be more gruesome.
Helmets do little to prevent concussions. A concussion is a result of your brain hitting the inside of your skull. When this happens repeatedly brain damage can occur. A helmet doesn't tether one's brain to a 'safe spot' per se or keep it from rattling against the inside of your skull. What helmets tend to do is convince a player that they are safer than they actually are. Often this is why players lead with their heads instead of using their shoulders to tackle.
Helmets provide a false sense of security. In boxing, fighters wear headgear to prevent cuts and facial damage. While headgear does help mitigate the power of shots, like football helmets, it won't prevent someone from getting a concussion if they take a good shot.
On another note, it's quite hard for me to understand how we can even begin to have a discussion on safety in sports when still to this day we can't seem to prevent school shootings. How can you discuss the dangers of a sport when there is the possibility that a man walks into a High School and riddles the halls with bullets? Maybe we should give our children kevlar helmets to wear in class.
5
Football is 3.5 hours of commercials and brain-numbing commentary with about 20 minutes of actual game action. No thanks.
8
@ADM If you use a stopwatch, it'd actually be closer to 12 minutes of action (ball in the air or being carried). So if the offense/defense was split 50-50, and a player was involved in every play, he'd be in actual 'action' for about 6 minutes.
2
My kid played football on both sides of the line for a middle school in our home town in New Orleans then for a boarding school in Chattanooga.
We were given substantial financial aid which enabled us to afford to send him there.
His sophomore year he twanged his back and an orthopaedic surgeon friend of ours at Tulane did an MRI after the season and our boy had a bulging disk at L4-5.
The doc said our kid could still play, but if it were his kid, not so much.
That was it for football at the school, and by sheer coincidence of course, the financial aid was substantially reduced.
He was already a nationally ranked fencer so he concentrated on that his remaining years at the school.
He ended up at Duke and got a Ph.D in mechanical engineering.
“All’s well that ends well” I guess but it’s a shame that the ethic of some schools is that if you’re not willing to have your kid risk substantial injury playing football financial aid is not warranted despite the fact that academically he’s one of the top students in the nation.
7
As a Big Ten retired faculty member, I have seen the hypocrisy and tribalism up close. The NCAA and the NFL should be seen as criminal conspiracies to be prosecuted under the RICO statutes.
9
@arp With you. And the 'education' many of these young men receive is a sham.
1
We no longer watch football in my family, because I lost my dad to CTE.
He was a multi-sport athlete. Football, wrestling, rugby... he continued to coach and compete until his 50's, which was when the damage became really clear. Fortunately for us, he went down the narcissistic path rather than the violent path of CTE.
And when I say I lost my dad, I want to be clear that he is still alive. He's just no longer my dad. I ended up cutting contact with him several years ago when I realized how bad it would be for my kids to be near him. How do you explain that grandpa is sick and no longer knows how to be nice or kind? It wasn't hard to cut contact - he lives 15 minutes away and hadn't contacted us in over a year, because he puts zero effort into maintaining relationships.
-Lisa (wife of Claire)
7
Denial ain't just a river! Parents who let their sons play football, with all that we now know about CTE, are putting their kids in harms way. Hard stop.
5
Between CTE and Colin Kaepernick, I’m done with NFL football.
I’m not a football fan. The games are often boring and go on forever thanks to the clock stoping for almost anything. However, I will watch Saints v Falcons this week, as some guy in an Atlanta airport last summer gave me a hard time for wearing a Saints jersey (a gift). As to safety, there are health risks in many sports. I like to watch skiing, especially downhill. But the skiers know what they’re getting into. However, they don’t have that stupid macho veneer of football. All that’s good for is creating more OJ Simpsons.
“Nobody forced them to play” and “ they know what they are getting into!” REALLY!!
How many young kids get into Pop Warner” football. Kids who DEPEND on their parents and grandparents to look out for their welfare and protection in the present and the future because at a child’s age, they simply can’t do it for themselves!!
CTE is a CUMULATIVE disease! The potential for it starts with very first “hit” to the head. The longer a person plays, the greater the risk of clinical disease. And even sub clinically, how many kids have their academic capability impaired somewhat by cumulative hits from when they were little kids.
I just don’t know how a parent would knowingly put their kid in harms way season after season full of weekly game days and daily practices, considering what’s at stake here. Countless hits to the head over all that time!
But that’s just me!
6
A perfectly concise illustration of "it ain't my problem, now please go away".
Public executions or gladiatorial games would sell out every venue they could use.
2
Like a lot of other things that we do which we know are problematic , such as excessive drinking, smoking, etc., at first we try to overcome our cognitive dissonance [which is when there are contradictions between thoughts, or between certain thoughts and certain actions we do] by justifying the behavior with excuses, e.g., it's fun to do with friends, etc. Only when we admit to ourselves that the behaviour has become an addiction can we start putting aside the excuses. I have been watching football for fifty years. I am addicted to it. I know I should not be supporting it. I am cutting back but it is hard to go cold turkey.
1
@peter cobrin i went cold turkey this year after being an avid fan my whole life. it's much easier than i thought it would be. be the change you want to see.
3
Football hierarchy, The NFL particularly, pride themselves on having adopted a "concussion protocol", theoretically designed to protect the players who they lied to for years regarding head trauma. The problem is that concussion awareness is not nearly enough. A simple internet search provides volumes of data regarding traumatic brain injury and sub-concussive contact (which occurs on every NFL play) having similar long term consequences to those of concussions, including CTE. Additionally, several studies demonstrate thatTBI may very well contribute to the criminal violence we see increasing both on and off the field. Although it appears players are far better informed these days, knowing the risks of repeated concussions on the human brain but I'll wager against the spread that next to nothing has been done to enlighten them on sub-concussive contact and TBI, particularly related to maladaptive behavior. As many have with CTE, they'll likely find out when it's far too late.
4
First children playing don't know and can't except the future risk. That is right from the beginning. This also includes High School They are under 18 and parents have to make decisions about their safety and long term health. Pre 15 is the most dangerous time for head injuries to a growing brain. There should be no full contact football fro children under the age of 15.
College is a different matter. You are dealing with adults. But the system needs to change the rules to reduce the types of head collisions that there are now. They need to get rid of head banging practices.
One good lawsuit and there won't be much tackle football for youth. It will be too expensive to insure. So get rid of it now.
1
@Ralph Durhan
We all sell ourselves for money to some degree, yes, but selling off your very cognition is like selling your organs and should raise very serious ethical questions. That some athletes are willing to do it I get; that others delight in watching I do not.
1
I probably should not comment on this article because I would rather have my teeth pulled than watch college sports. Fortunately for me, I went to a college in Europe where games were no big deal and I managed to avoid most of them. Nor did my kids play anything more strenuous than a bit of basketball. However, the entire discussion has an ominous cultural ring to it in its insistence that we have to keep people “safe” despite themselves. Why? People make decisions, and if these decisions involve serious risk to themselves, they still have the right to make them. We are all going to die; so why shouldn’t people have the right to choose the length of their lives and the manner of their death? If we outlaw football, what’s next? Driving? Alcohol? Sex? And how about speech? After all, words can wound. I was horrified when one of the protesters against Coulter’s visit to Berkeley declared that she made him feel “unsafe”. My response was: why do you think that you should be safe?
@Mor
So you are for poor people selling their organs to a richer person if they choose?
The mission of high schools and colleges is to educate young people. The resources allocated to football are ridiculous. Our local schools have spent funds intended to modernize classroom buildings to upgrade football fields and grandstands. Most players will not use their football skills after they graduate, some will suffer permanent injuries. For the most part any benefit accrues to young men and excludes young women. There are other ways to learn sportsmanship, discipline, leadership and teamwork.
7
@JF Beautiful point!
Some high schools in Maine are fielding 8-man football teams because they don't have enough players. Personally, I would like to see football eliminated from high school. Let private football clubs replace the HS teams. Eliminate the cost and risk of football from the public coffers. High schools should promote sports that enhance health and well-being and which may be played for decades to come. Peace.
7
I played football in high school. My two boys chose not to and I supported and encouraged that decision. Although I still watch games every now and then, mostly when invited to by friends as part of socializing, I don't enjoy them like I used to. I can't justify watching children and young men literally bashing each other senseless for entertainment. Football has no other redeeming value. I can't really justify enjoying something that I don't want my own children to do.
9
If drinking beer and going to the games is the main way you connect to your old school, I would say there's really not much of a connection.
Are you going to reminisce fondly someday about your team with a 7 million $ HC winning the big game in a highly commercialised, non-academic, environment?--even if you know that some of the "students" will suffer life long injuries?
6
Wow, I used to love to smoke 2 packs of cigarettes a day, accompanied by a half gallon of wine, and 3 or 4 large, straight bourbons. I spent most of my time doing this. For years, I decided to ignore that fact that these things were going to kill me. When I didn't kill myself, drunk in the morning, after falling 10 feet, out of my attic, I decided that I had been given a second chance. That was 8 years ago.
12
@ChesBay Smart move.
A lot of these people are in denial. I love college football too and will be watching the Big Game Saturday. But there is no doubt that football as it is played today is on its deathbed and rightfully so. It's always been this way with the sport--once upon a time players died from football by bashing their heads open. Today, we see degenerate brain disease. The question we need to ask is why are we supporting a sport through public dollars on children whose brains we are trying to develop? Tackle football should be a thing of the past in all high schools. All. Post high school, people can assume the risks they take in life including playing college football. It would help. Some players start playing tackle football at 10 years old--by the time they reach college they've already had a career.
5
This article includes the sentence "The brain is amazing." There is much information now available about neuroplasticity: the brain's way of healing and rewiring itself. Much of this amazement with the brain obscures the reality that brains can take decades to heal from one early and single injury to its tissue. Multiple little blows to the head over time can impair the cognition that enables anyone: athlete, abused child, woman or man, to think clearly about the choices they are making - especially health related choices, including the choice to subject the cranium to further risk. One person interviewed for the article suggested eliminating helmets, as in the game of rugby, in order to reduce skull to skull contact. It does seem that however much cushioning or padding a helmet provides, not much can be done, other than avoiding contact, to stop the forward momentum, on impact, within the skull, of brain tissue, including delicate neurons. It wasn't until fairly recently that biologists and neuroscientists came to understand that glial tissue, previously thought as unused matter, is actually provides cushioning and energy for neural function. Yes, the brain is amazing...all the more reason to protect it and its ongoing functioning.
4
Give people the information they need and let them make their own choices.
But then place limits on society's role in sharing the responsibility.
2
The human brain is hard wired to have many thoughts and emotions that may conflict with each other. Managing those is most likely learned behavior and not hard wired, which is why different individuals manage the conflict differently.
In any case, American tackle football is a collision sport, not merely a contact sport that can be modified slightly to decrease the possibility of short and long-term brain damage. Or, to safeguard young players from serious neck, shoulder, arm, hip, knee, leg, and ankle injuries. It is typically American. On the surface, a glorious display of athleticism, teamwork, and pageantry. Below, the surface, something violent and dark.
Just like Thanksgiving itself, when we tell the story of the feast shared peacefully and in friendship between English colonists and indigenous people and then gloss over the systematic expulsion and extermination of those indigenous people over the next two centuries.
7
Football has no redeeming value and now that CTE is established science OSHA should step in and put and end to the dangerous work practices for all football players from the peewee league to the NFL.
Make No Mistake about it football on every level is not about sport it is plainly and Simply about money. On the so called amateur level it the player are even cheated out of their share of the take. On the professional level on field worker (the players) have a legal right to a safe work environment.
High schools colleges and universities should all immediately suspend all football including practices until safe rules can be devised to prevent CTE and other preventable injuries. The days of Teddy Roosevelt are over, are the days when it can be claimed there is anything manly about being irreparably harmed playing a sport.
10
Whatever the merits of the argument that student-athletes knowingly accept the risks of football, they do seem to risk much and pay a lot for our pleasure.
6
"Most people have generally accepted that playing football, in addition to teaching life lessons about teamwork and dedication, can lead to long-term brain damage."
1. "Can lead to long-term brain damage." A fact backed by scientific evidence.
2. "Teaches life lessons about teamwork and dedication." A pious myth backed by no evidence whatsoever.
22
@Ed there is plenty of evidence that team sports participation is good for youth development. Better grades, lower dropout rates, lower rates of substance use, suicide, truancy, expulsion, suspension, and criminality. Not everyone can play tennis. Because teams need dozens of players to field a competitive team, football has the most participants of any sport beyond perhaps the running sports. It's a critical link to school for many students and their families.
2
@Ed You can teach team work and dedication without creating terminal brain damage and a potential early death.
Football is all about male bonding, competition and sports betting. There's got to be another way to do all three without the physical damageband early graves.
14
@rob Assertion is not evidence.
2
It's hard to feel pity for people who suffer the consequences of taking dangerous risks, especially when they are fully aware of what they are doing but stubbornly insist it won't happen to them.
1
If they think it won’t happen to them then they are NOT fully aware of the risks. That argument only works if they accept the reality that they really might wind up with serious brain damage and play anyway.
1
A few years ago I had decided to discontinue football season tickets to my alma mater mostly because of the thought of “enjoying” watching young men risk CTE. Then they hired a ‘should have been disgraced’ former assistant from Baylor. Didn’t even look back at that point.
16
I love the game (Go Blue)! And I watch with the comfort that beyond all the rule changes, increased awareness, increased monitoring and better protection; Anybody in the last 10 years at any level (parents included) is well aware of the CTE/Concussion risks so that they have all made very well informed and educated choices about what they are doing. To be playing football in 2019 and not be aware of the risks is to have stuck your head in a hole and ignored everything happening around you.
While teaching at a Big 10 university, I have had student athletes in my classroom multiple times. Depending on the sport, they must spend a certain number of hours per week in the gym and on the field in practice, juggle studies, and attend promotional events. They are frequently traveling for games which means they miss classes.
One young woman on the swimming team ripped a muscle in practice, which ended her competitive career. Her coaches and teammates pressured her to put aside her athletic scholarship "for the good of the team", which meant she didn't graduate.
More than once, I have been pressured to allow athletes to pass my class, despite poor exam scores, missing assignments, and missed classes. Most are smart, but the pressure on them in sports is insane.
Add to that the risk of permanent injury, and that universities don't allow students to claim damages that would pay future medical injuries, and we have far too many students without career prospects in pro sports, permanent injuries, and jobs that won't support their care.
It's a broken system. I won't ever watch football, not college level and not professional.
72
@Hroswitha
No school takes away a scholarship due to career ending injury. It doesn’t count against the scholarship limit.
1
@Hroswitha
What Shamrock said.
Plus no torn muscle ends a competitive swimmer's career if they're amenable to surgery. As an all-American swimmer in high school who decided to hang up my cap and goggles and just be a college student without the hyphenated athlete part, I've never even heard of such a thing.
Plus swimmers are rarely awarded full scholarships in the first place, and most come from fairly affluent suburban families. Not exactly an inner city sport, although some high schools who decided to prioritize swimming have had remarkable success. Despite twenty plus hours of practice every week, the swim team tends to have the highest GPA on campus.
As an orthopedic surgeon specializing in sports injuries I'm struggling to come up recollections of swimmers suffering injuries like you've described, other than muscle strains that heal with rest. I'm basically coming up blank.
Basically I think you're making up the whole thing to embellish the point you want to make.
It's interesting that despite countless reports on CTE, many people don't seem to understand that the main issue for players is not the risk of sustaining concussions--it's the risk of sustaining repeated subconcussive hits over time. Perhaps for some, it's willful ignorance: If you accept the latter, then the very nature of the game--the game that Americans so love--is not only tainted but also a clear target for reform.
I love football--the athleticism, the spectacle, the teamwork, even a good hit. But the science is there, and there'll come a time when we can no longer ignore it.
16
The glory and rewards are immediate, and the risks, or potential risks, are far off in the future.
THAT'S why the sport continues without truly addressing the problem. That and the league and its enablers minimizing and deflecting the data.
Similar to suicide, you only regret it when you experience the actual event (confusion, memory loss, anger, irritation, etc). Until then it's all just distant possibility and probability.
There isno way to have tackle football and remove the risk of CTE, concussions, and other injuries, especially with the amount of money involved in the sport.
It's thrilling to watch, sport-based warfare, as long as you don't dwell on the consequences or know someone that's suffering from them.
There are no easy answers. Ask a current pro player making $10M+ a year, or a high-level college player on his way to the NFL, if it's worth it and you'll get 99.9% yes.
Ask a retired player on their way to CTE and exhibiting symptoms if it was worth it, and you'll get 99.% no.
How to reconcile those two things is the question.
7
@Bruce I doubt your statistics. I have worked with ex NFL players (I'm a psychiatrist), and I have yet to meet one who says football was not worth it, even those with CTE.
Reading this made me reflect on what *I personally* am really emotionally invested in that I ought to walk away from based on the data and my professed values.
It's so easy to tell yourself stories to make you feel better about what you're doing and supporting. And it's so hard not to. It's human nature and I can't see why I should be exempt.
2
The article could serve as a demonstration of how the human brain is wired to respond to compeditive, tribal situations by picking sides, then rationalizing that choice. Would someone living with a victim of CTE, fully aware of what it means still choose to play the game regardless of the consequences?
6
Thank you for coming to Ann Arbor to report on the ethical issues facing individuals attending the University of Michigan and other college football games. However, the article did not include photos of many former fans, some who live less than a mile from the stadium, who were sitting home because of the data on head injuries.
I loved football and it was painful to give it up. I understand why other fans are hesitating to do so. I hope the University of Michigan will become a leader in research on making this and other games safer for young athletes. If the game cannot be made substantially safer, I hope the University will lead the way in giving up the program. As always, “Go Blue!”
13
We're like the ancient Romans watching gladiators slaughter each other for their entertainment.
And while knowledge about CTE may be relatively recent, we have long known that most college football players end up having chronic pain for the rest of their lives. We just haven't really cared.
14
@Steve I thought the same thing. This is not the same as driving gas guzzling cars or smoking cigarettes. This game is the players sacrificing themselves for the fans. Maybe the men play with the hope that they will be drafted by the NFL, maybe not. However, the sport and the fans are contributing to the injury and potential brain damage of the players.
We used to watch every Saturday and Sunday; it was a big part of each weekend. We started to wean off, and now we’ve stopped watching completely. Once you’re outside of it, the culture of football is pretty gross. Like the larger American culture that supports it, it demands a whole-hearted sacrifice from many that only benefits a select few at the top. When the few show true concern and support for the many that “made them great,” we’ll watch again. But I’m not holding my breath; whether it’s the ACC or at Amazon, greed has debased everyone involved.
10
@Frances "Once you’re outside of it, the culture of football is pretty gross."
...exact same trajectory/feeling for me.
As an academic, I find it dismaying that academic institutions are actively promoting an activity that could have life altering consequences for their students. Even more dismaying is that these institution are rewarded financially by putting their students' health at risk.
11
We're going to look back on this article, these justifications, and cringe. When I read Chris Borland's account of his college and pro days, and the reasons he walked away, I walked away, too.
I miss the camaraderie of game day; my days watching the Green Bay Packers at Lambeau were so much fun. But I can't support this game anymore.
7
I can certainly understand being upset about youth playing football and potential harm. But why don't we start with teenage driving which kills about 2,300 teenagers every year? No one in this country would even think about banning teenage driving yet more teens will die this year from driving than the total number of all of the NFL players combined. As many teens will die this year driving as all U.S. soldiers killed in Afghanistan since the war began.
Think about that the next time you hand your kid the keys and a cell phone.
@tom harrison We can focus on a million other risks out there. But the point is that no one goes out in a car to play bumper cars; when a collision happens, whatever the root cause, it's an accident and not intended.
With football, the collisions ARE the point. You can't separate the game from the collisions and the damage to player's brains.
Also, why deflect and distract? Is this country not capable of working on teen driving injuries and football at the same time?
13
@tom harrison
There's nothing saying that these two public health issues present an either/or situation. We (as Americans) should deal with the safety issues involving both.
4
@Bruce - My intention is not to deflect or distract. But folks love to get upset about what the neighbor is doing while ignoring what is going on in their own backyard. At least make a teen wear a helmet while driving. :)
There is an issue of public policy here. The numerous injuries which are an unavoidable consequence of football have to be paid. Who pays? At least some of the cost is borne by many who are not fans. In short, there is a hidden subsidy extracted from the non- or anti-football fans. If this cost were more widely understood, football might not be so popular.
3
I played football at a Division I college. That was forty years ago when "shake it off" was the "man up" exhortation of yesteryear.
When our son wanted to play football my wife and grudgingly agreed. It's Ohio and the kid is 6' 3" and 220 lbs. Lot of peer and cultural pressure to play. But after three concussions he made the decision on his own to say "Enough."
A part of me was heartbroken. I loved watching him play. But I hated more watching him in lengthy rehabs from the headaches, the mood swings, and the inability to concentrate that comes with the concussion territory.
We live in Columbus; this coming weekend is THE weekend for college football hereabouts. We'll watch, and I'll wince a bit with every kid I see take a hit to the head, and I'll be wistful that might have been my kid out there, and we'll be conflicted, as so many are, when watching the game.
14
No reason to be conflicted. Protect your son while the central Ohio news turns a blind eye to the damage of football. I await the day when high schools, universities, and the press (listen up Channels 4, 6, and 10) are sued for their promotion of football and the damages it causes.
1
I think it is possible to retain the athletic elements of the game while making it more safe for the participants.
Most sports have some level of physical contact. Some that don't are affected negatively from participants taking performance enhancing drugs. The trick is to mandate/regulate the unsafe elements so that the sport can survive and evolve. I don't think anybody wants to see certain types of sporting activities become so unsafe that we banish them from our midst.
Sporting activity has a unique appeal because it allows its best talent to rise to the top. We all love watching Sports because, at some level, we desire to be as good at our own engagement as the athletes are at theirs. So the objective must be to protect that ecosystem. Lets figure out a way.
I was knocked unconscious in football practice once in high school (Brooklyn Tech 1959 season) and once in college (Indiana University 1962 varsity spring practice). In both cases, I was back in action the next day. I am 76, and so far so good, but the many other injuries perhaps keep me from thinking about the head hits. I was a running back in high school and quarterback and running back in college who also played defense.
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I grew up watching football and enjoying the game, and attended ND. In the early 2000's I became aware of statistics: 30% increase in chances of getting into an Ivy League school as a football player, college coaches' salaries exceeding college presidents' and faculty salaries, and the often less than 50% graduation rates, fake courses, etc. Then I learned about the institutional cover ups for sexual misconduct/violence by star football players (and sometimes coaches). In addition there were the repeated issues of performance enhancing drugs with concomitant health risks. When I watched football, I was comfortable with the horrendous physical damage done to players' bodies. Finally, the stories of the brain damage and the NFL response very reminiscent of the cigarette companies' response to proof of cancer. By 2007, I concluded football at all levels was corrupt, corrupting, and cruel. In summary, football is fundamentally immoral and I no longer watch or follow the game anymore. I also repeatedly challenge ND's moral underpinnings due to its continued support of football.
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@Craig W And this doesn't even touch the racial aspects of the game, namely who plays the sport and who controls the revenue. It really is black and white.
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I am a neuropsychologist and I test people with cognitive problems. I used to see middle aged men who played contact sports in their younger years and who, now in their 40's and trying to support a family, were finding it difficult to get through the day due to cognitive "fogginess" or forgetfulness or the loss of the ability to figure things out. I'm now seeing more and more high school girls with a history of sports-related concussions showing the same symptoms. Sometimes they get better, sometimes they don't. When your brain doesn't work, your life doesn't work. Why take the chance?
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It is my opinion that film should be made of every football player who has CTE and this film should be shown to ALL parents of young football players. Then it should be shown to all college players. I don't think parents and players understand the risks. Surely the game could be changed in ways that still keep the excitement, but minimize the risks to players.
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I thought the University of Michigan was a smart school ... maybe I am mistaken. Ann Arbor is one of the most beautiful college towns in the country and anybody who visits would love to go to the university but football is part of the culture there like the art, food and architecture.
The University of Michigan is a great institution, unfortunately nobody leaves this university without football ingrained in their DNA after 4 years there. That’s just the consequence of going there as it is at most large state universities around the country.
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I wonder if these fans also think these kids should be paid ? Or at least have the athletic departments provide prepaid long term disability insurance should they need it!
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Absolutely be paid!
Yes! Absolutely be paid
Full contact football should be treated and documented in a person's medical file similar to smoking. If you played contact football for x amount of time and level then, just like smoking, you should be required to pay higher insurance premiums as a result.
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@Casual Observer really? That’s your take?
Football may teach life lessons; but, are they the lessons we should be teaching? Other team sports also teach lessons without the violence and life changing injuries. There is life after football, it is disillusioning to see so much emphasis on the sport at primary, secondary and collegiate levels at the expense of other curricular activities. No it doesn't pay for itself. The money spent could be earmarked for academic activities. Why should our school systems be a farm system for a pro sport? There are plenty of other fulfilling activities to occupy your time on precious fall days.
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@John Warnock-Completely agree. As an aside, there is a real reason why football players are often known as being bullies in High School, and it is precisely because of the values the teams instill in them.
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Another example of willful ignorance.
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Given what we now know about when young men's judgment and ability to think through long-term ramifications of their decision, it is questionable whether even an 18-year-old is truly competent to make such a decision.
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@Ann Johnson similar to driving a car. 50K deaths annually, but we all do it anyway.
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@bx
How exactly do you propose a country with over 300 million people get from point A to point B?
You do realize that plenty of folks died when horses and carriages were the primary mode of transportation too? Can you imagine 300 million folks traveling on horseback? Manure everywhere, people dead from getting kicked, falling off, collisions, carriages overturning?
Permitting minors to play organized tackle football should be considered child abuse, much as sex with a 14 year old is legally rape. Children cannot evaluation the risks.
As for the sense of community the fans feel, other spectator sports can provide that.
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"...you know what you’re getting into, right?"
No, actually players do not. The fact is that brain damage is part and parcel of football.There is no safe way to take repeated blows to the head.
The reality of CTE is diminished or just plain ol' ignored for what? And parents are all in, at least those in this piece. Sad.
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@uwteacher
As you said "There is no safe way to take repeated blows to the head".
That's what many interviewed for this article fail to understand (or are filling themselves about) — talking about taking players out of the remainder of a game or getting care after a concussion.
Evidence shows that it is the repeated blows — including those that don't result in concussions — that do the damage.
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@uwteacher
"...you know what you’re getting into, right?"
Along with what you said - you don't when you're a child or a young person. And maybe when you're no longer those things your opportunities are such that even if you do, it's the way out that has been put in front of you.
Boston University's School of Medicine CTE Center has found evidence of CTE in deceased High School Football players. These children made a choice they didn't understand. And because CTE is only able to be diagnosed after death, nobody can make an informed decision about their future.
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@uwteacher I showed a mom a human skull, pointing out all the sharp processes on the interior surfaces. I said imagine the human brain bouncing around inside this shell. She is so proud of her son playing HS football. Gladiators , we salute you.
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"...it’s a deadly sport. It really is."
He says as he walks into the game.
If you were teaching people about cognitive dissonance and the ability people have to compartmentalize their beliefs, this would be example #1.
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Wow... it's clear most of these folks have no idea what a brain injury can do to derail a life and the lives of those who love the person injured. The comparison of being injured playing football to riding a roller coaster is far from apt, even woefully ignorant. Brain injuries, and progressive terminal brain disease (CTE) due to brain injury are real, destroy lives, and can happen after 1 or 10 blows. Is it really worth it?
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A high school friend posted on facebook, "I'm lost without the Vikes this weekend. I'm bored."
Football brings many Americans together and allows people to share a common language. Just like other professional sports. My kids' teachers use professional sport teams to create reading groups or teams in PE. My coworkers talk about "the game" in the idle chit chat before a meeting.
And that is why people can rationalize and are unable to see football for the barbaric game that it is and why they put the onus on the player to assess the risks for himself.
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@Kelly
The fans of football, and the dozens of other "contact" sports, are exactly like the fans of the ancient Roman Circus. Gladiators clawing, crushing, ripping, pounding and smashing. Beasts tearing beasts apart. Nothing has changed.
I am becoming increasing convinced that we are the most culturally unsophisticated developed nation in the world. But that's not really surprising since we're so young compared to other advanced countries. Yes, we are specially diverse but we're not at all good at it. And we have the movies and music and money and muscle, which are rather shallow things. But we also insist on shooting each other to death with wild abandon, we play football, we drive pick-up trucks as personal vehicles, many of us can't access health care, etc. and we think this is great. We are 5% of the world's population and we consider ourselves exceptional. More like odd. No one else does these stupid things but We're No. 1.
God bless America.
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@A. jubatus
Bravo!!!!!
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@A. jubatus haven't yet had your finally proud to be an American yet, like Michelle Obama? This self (America) hatred of the left morphs into hatred of flyover country - first guns and religion, now football and pick up trucks. Voters know this is what coastal liberals really think of America, which is why independent moderates like me will not vote for at least half the Democrats currently running for President. I'll never vote for Trump but plenty of people like me will. Meanwhile New Yorkers will continue to tell us how stupid we are and what we should be driving. Talk about arrogance! Talk about cognitive dissonance!
@A. jubatus Every culture, no matter how ancient and "sophisticated" seems to have dangerous blood sports as part of its heritage. Whether it is football, boxing, bullfighting, rugby, even soccer sometimes, the US is not unique in this regard, and it has nothing to do with the newness of the nation.
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I gave up on football years ago. Before CTE became understood. Why? Because division 1 NCAA football exploits talented inner city youth who think they’re going to play for the NFL. Very few make it and very few graduate with a useful degree. They experience a kind of indentured servitude to their universities that is truly shameful.
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@David Smith Let's talk about this:
1) The best players typically don't come from the inner-city, they typically come from wealthy suburbs. The best players from inner-city high schools typically receive scholarships to fancy private schools in town (much better option than attending an inner-city public school). A look at the state rankings from various states would reflect this.
2) One of the biggest problems facing young people is the overwhelming cost of college, yet, a way to go to college for free is indentured servitude? The quality of life of a college football or basketball player far exceeds that of a minor league baseball player. D1 athletes are paid cash stipends and have all of their food prepared for them by professional chefs and nutritionists.
3) Football isn't the reason some people don't take school/life seriously enough, it's just an excuse.
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@David Smith My father, a community college president, enjoyed watching football decades ago but was passionately against having it being the tail that wagged the academic dog. To the argument that it brings in much-needed dollars to academic institutions, he always replied "if houses of prostitution could bring in money to community colleges, should we open them on campus?" Now that the health fallout is increasingly clear, it's time for colleges and universities to wean themselves from this blood sport.
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Actually, the inner city youth you speak of are more likely to be exploited by NCAA basketball which, though without the physical risk of football, is arguably worse in that it rarely results in 3 or 4 years of college due 1 and done, with coaches at even elite schools willing to play that game.
Underprivileged rural youth, both largely black though while too, provide the football talent pipeline.
Modern solution would be no tackle football until age 18 when player is an adult.
1
Another assault on men and their “violent ways”
If we are sooooo concerned with concussions as a nation, look no further than Women’s Soccer.
I love the people who are so concerned with other people’s health and lack of proper decision making that they are willing to put themselves out there to ban a sport...
Thanks for the help all of you!
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@Paul women suffer disproportionate concussion injury in soccer due apparently to lesser neck muscle strength and going head to head for a ball. But that is not the nature of the game. Soccer could modify its game to exclude heading and keep the essential of the game, using your feet and legs to kick a ball, but football can not. Tackling and hitting someone is the purpose of the game.
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@Paul take the heading out of soccer.
When one has a sport that has the ability create health problems such as brain damage, you must compare that to broken bones, wrecked knees, and a general wear and tear on one’s skeleton that could physically cripple you down the road. The skeleton issues are acceptable. Brain damage is not. I may not walk well and be in pain, but I also want to be mentally able and aware to make decisions for myself without confusion.
8
I know a man in his late 60s who played football in high school and was a football coach to high schoolers. He earned a masters degree and held significant positions in the schools of his city. Now he has aphasia. He makes no sense when he speaks and cannot have a conversation because he does not understand what is said to him.
7
This is a culture issue as much as it is a safety issue.
Football thrives in rural areas and at Catholic schools. Football is not a thing in prosperous areas. No parent would let their kid play, not only for brain safety but because football has had a corrupting influence on higher ed, and because many consider it to be racist.
University of Michigan and Notre Dame are well known for football. In fact, that is what they are best known for. I had no idea that either school was considered academically reputable until recently.
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@Cousy you know nothing if you think the University of Michigan, one of the top public universities in the nation has not been considered academically excellent for decades. Get out of New England sometime. Jeez.
3
@North Carolina
Michigan floats in the top rank globally. Take your pick of surveys https://record.umich.edu/tags/rankings/
Michigan's national academic image suffers directly due to the all time supreme success of the football team (total wins and winning percentage) while Berkeley, in my opinion, enjoys an academic image advantage because who talks about Golden Bears football?
@North Carolina
I have never met anyone who has even considered the University of Michigan, including my relatives from Michigan. Guess we're not much of a football family.
I stopped watching football many years ago. Even in college play, it is no longer a game - it is a business, about nothing but making money. The fiction of student athletes is just that: fiction. They are recruited and paid to go to school in order to drive ticket sales and TV deals.
In a significant fraction of games at both college and professional levels, at least one player suffers a life-altering injury. Sometimes physical, sometimes cognitive. It is quite simply a blood sport. My mind refuses to forget a favorite cheer from my high school days: "Blood makes the grass grow."
How can there be any satisfaction in watching humans injure one another, physically and mentally? It is gruesome and barbaric.
23
I was one of these fans. I no longer watch because I felt like one of the fans in the Coliseum cheering on the slaves versus the lions. If the sport is too dangerous for me to consider playing myself, I'm no longer going to watch it.
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Although many believe concussions are responsible for CTE, ”the best available evidence suggests that subconcussive impacts, not concussions, are the driving force behind CTE.”
I believe the powers that be hope this evidence remains largely unknown.
26
These people are deluding themselves, but I suppose that is what the article is about.
We are amazing animals. We can diagnose CTE and figure out what is causing the condition, and then we can, as a culture, continue supporting those causes for our own pleasure and for money.
Where are the college endowment accounts for the cost of covering these down-the-road medical costs?
No, the state and my taxes will end up paying for this, even though I don’t support football, and haven’t since my 20s when I first understood this CTE epidemic in American Football.
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@Matthew
I agree with you but I don’t think I’d use the word amazing to describe humans. That’s too kind.
1
It's "just part of who we are" is the same sentiment that keeps AR-15s in our lives, with disastrous results.
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@Dave,
Way to bring guns into the conversation.
It’s a sport and whether you choice to play or not is up to the individual...enough said.
Best we can do is present the case, be transparent and if a kid decides to play it’s on them
Let’s stop looking to ban everything.
5
“Let’s stop looking to ban everything” that kills people and ends up costing society tremendous amounts of money (without productivity) and integrity.
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Football is a tremendous burden socially and economically on society?
How so?
1
As someone who did enjoy watching football -- somewhat -- years ago, when it was FUN - particularly Monday Night Football. NOW, IF I occasionally watch - (either the Packers or the Jets) - it is for a SHORT period of time. Because I am bored - for openers. Between the Instant Replays, the analyzing of every play, the magic markers on the screen to further explain to us what has happened - is a ridiculous waste of my time. NOW, when we are made aware of the head injuries football can inflict -- as a nation -- we should be ashamed of ourselves. HOW could a parent allow his/her child participate in such a sport? It is apparent that mental health is NOT a first priority for their children. I can hear my dad saying, "I don't care what the other kids are doing!" I had a very good Social Studies teacher in high school, who was also the tennis coach. He was encouraging students to take up tennis as a sport, because, as he said," it is awfully difficult to get 22 guys on a football field on a Saturday morning for a game" -- later in life.
19
I am deeply troubled by two comments: "no one forces them to play" and "it brings the family together". The first one is naive because the culture and industry of football, which is solely interested in profit and gain, lures young men and their parents into a promise of fame and fortune from an early age. Under a guise of promising a college education, bodies are recruited like cannon fodder. The second comment brings to mind how the same thinking probably prevailed during the height of the Roman Coliseum. Families back then probably thought the same thing as they gathered to see men brutalize each other. It is a wonderful Hallmark moment.
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@Luis Carbajal - I grew up hearing everyone say that church brought families together. Or a road trip to the grandparents in Florida. Or a dog adopted from a shelter.
6
@Luis Carbajal CTE did not bring my family together. It tore my family apart. I often say that I lost my dad to CTE. He's still alive. He's just not my dad anymore.
7
Nothing shows how out of touch certain pockets of the country are like the comments on any NYT article where football is discussed. The reason that people still let their kids play football and enjoy watching it is because they know scores of people who played football in high school that are perfectly fine as adults and in older age. These articles always focus on high level college football and the NFL. Those players represent a microscopic percentage of people that ever play football. Studies on former high school players have found no cognitive difference between football players and non-football players. Meanwhile, girls high school soccer remains the largest concussion producing sport on Earth.
24
@Kohl I am a neuroscientist. Unfortunately, this is not quite correct. More and more evidence is accumulating about brain damage in high school football. I work with someone who has shown brain white matter damage in high school players. The cognitive and emotional effects may be subtle and not observable with the simplest cognitive tests. But when more extensive batteries of tests are used that require more complex thought then there are differences.
It is a choice that we make, like many others that can affect our lives later. We need to have as many facts as possible - so that we make the most educated choices.
And oh yes- I live in ACC country. So I am not so out of touch.
13
@Kohl
As Linda indicated, earlier exposure to tackle football increases the risk of later life brain damage. It is useful to look at other sports to determine if they, too, predispose to long term brain damage. If so, those sports should be looked at for the risk-benefit balance. There is a fundamental difference between American football and the football played by most of the world, i.e., soccer. In soccer, head to head or head to ground contact is incidental. In American football, collisions are inherent in the play. But, as we say, two wrongs don't make a right and if it is determined that soccer is as dangerous as football that needs to be addressed, too, not excused. There are plenty of other sports that are safer.
7
@linda There are many conflicting studies on this topic. At the end of the day over 20mm people played high school football between 1950 and 2000. It seems like there would be a lot more evidence of what these studies claim if they were in fact true.
1
My sister's grandson plays high school football. I asked her what she thinks about the long term impact on the boy's brain. "I don't think about it," she said.
41
Would the world be any different without football? No.
All I remember of my high school football days is being tortured by running through blocking pads and getting my bell rung.
This so called "tradition" has brainwashed us. Football players have become throw away figures only meant to entertain as they sacrifice their bodies. No matter the glory, human beings like seeing the gory at the expense of other humans.
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@Kevin
Women college sports would not exist without college football.
As far as I am concerned, the ugly stadiums, the crazy fans, the commercial bonanza that accrues to people who contribute nothing valuable to society.
Football is a weird exercise and an apparently successful method of mind control practiced against people who are amenable to mental and ethical manipulation.
Rome had the games and the Coliseum.
How well did that work for them?
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@interested party
Very well put!!
4
Why not just admit that we are a nation steeped in violence. From a Commander-in-Chief that sanctions murder by the military to a popular sport that is played like a military campaign, we just seem to like seeing humans do damage to each other. This manifests in our criminal "justice" system based upon revenge, not rehabilitation and in our politics where winning beats collaboration.
Let's face it, we are a nation of killers.
100
@Vink - Please allow me to amend that to "we are a species of killers." Mammals are the most violent animals, primates are most violent mammals, humans are the most violent primates. It's what we do…
3
I totally gave up on football specifically because it causes CTE.
The was I see it, if derive any benefit from football then I am complicit in the harm it causes.
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