08-20-2023, 08:58 AM
My two cents as to why the CTE connection to football doesn't raise more concern is the same reason why climate change doesn't: the causes feel so attenuated from the effects, and the causes are things we really like doing (driving cars, flying in airplanes, owning single family homes, watching Sunday NFL), so there's a strong desire to willfully ignore the effects.
By contrast, boxing's sudden demise was because time between the cause and the effect was nearly instantaneous, as well as visceral, in a way long-term, chronic degradation (CTE, warming climate) is not. But in the end, pardon my french, you'll be f*cked either way.
OF, as to why not all players end up with CTE, I suspect a lot of it has to do with susceptibility to receive concussive and sub-concussive hits. Part of that has to do with player position, etc., but some certainly seems arbitrarily related to physiognomy. For example, most women's sports have far fewer reported cases of CTE than football, and yet there are certain outliers who have had to medically retire from sports due to concussions (in terms of Stanford alums, think of WBB player Toni Kokenis or WVB Hayley Hodson.
And yes, their existence suggests every contact sport is risky to some degree. But the extent of the damage is so significant with football that it's just too hard to ignore. I have a distant family member who played football at U$C, suffered numerous concussions, and while he held down a job at a tech firm for a few years, started to have issues with memory, concentration, focus, and impulse control. Now, at the ripe old age of 30, he cannot concentrate for extended periods of time, manage his anger, or hold down a job, and he recently literally walked into a police station and started threatening officers because he knew it was the only way he would get helped and be detained from doing something dangerous to himself or someone else. And he's 30. Sorry, but I just can't look past this stuff anymore and willfully enjoy a sport that is generating such catastrophic byproducts.
By contrast, boxing's sudden demise was because time between the cause and the effect was nearly instantaneous, as well as visceral, in a way long-term, chronic degradation (CTE, warming climate) is not. But in the end, pardon my french, you'll be f*cked either way.
OF, as to why not all players end up with CTE, I suspect a lot of it has to do with susceptibility to receive concussive and sub-concussive hits. Part of that has to do with player position, etc., but some certainly seems arbitrarily related to physiognomy. For example, most women's sports have far fewer reported cases of CTE than football, and yet there are certain outliers who have had to medically retire from sports due to concussions (in terms of Stanford alums, think of WBB player Toni Kokenis or WVB Hayley Hodson.
And yes, their existence suggests every contact sport is risky to some degree. But the extent of the damage is so significant with football that it's just too hard to ignore. I have a distant family member who played football at U$C, suffered numerous concussions, and while he held down a job at a tech firm for a few years, started to have issues with memory, concentration, focus, and impulse control. Now, at the ripe old age of 30, he cannot concentrate for extended periods of time, manage his anger, or hold down a job, and he recently literally walked into a police station and started threatening officers because he knew it was the only way he would get helped and be detained from doing something dangerous to himself or someone else. And he's 30. Sorry, but I just can't look past this stuff anymore and willfully enjoy a sport that is generating such catastrophic byproducts.