(09-13-2022, 01:28 PM)MV72018 Wrote: (09-12-2022, 03:50 PM)BostonCard Wrote: (09-12-2022, 03:47 PM)BobK Wrote: [tweet]https://twitter.com/bransonbragg/status/1569453278446112770[/tweet]
Very sad for him and Stanford
Hope he gets well. I am increasingly coming to believe that it’s not worth it for our entertainment.
BC
That's clearly the case. College football has now begun its final countdown. Matter of time. Wouldn't be surprised if Stanford is one of the first major universities to abandon football. A lot like smoking cigarettes was. Lots of denial for a long time, big money involved, but the evidence of smoking's lethality eventually trumped denial and delegitimized smoking cigarettes.
I think I have a different opinion on “the end of college football due to injuries” than many cardboarders and I guess now is as good a time as ever to opine.
I admit I’m not a doctor and haven’t looked at the CTE evidence closely, but I still enjoy watching football, and for my own viewing and enjoyment, I don’t feel it’s unethical at this time to watch/support college or pro football.
For one, many programs, and Stanford in particular, are trying to reduce head injuries. Players are practicing less, players practice differently (and some wear those ridiculous-looking helmets), kickoff returns are more rare, head to head collisions are much more rare due to targeting rules, quarterbacks are protected more. It’s a very different game than it was 20 years ago. I also find the situation of middle-aged former NFLers to be unacceptable, but it is possible today’s players won’t have the same outcomes.
Another major change is that many players are getting better, more honest advice. I was recently reading about a former Pac 12 player — not from Stanford — who had several head injuries, and the team’s medical staff advised him to retire. The head coach was supportive and did the right thing, and welcomed the player to stay on campus and finish his degree. Unfortunately, some other program in the US, I think in Florida — invited the player, had their medical staff evaluate him and told him he *could* continue to play, so the player transferred there and tried to continue playing (and he suffered more concussions and had to retire anyway).
The point is — that Pac 12 program had a medical staff that told the player the truth, and I expect that this is what Stanford’s doctors are doing as well. And if teams are doing this, then my hope is we can avoid the more serious injuries.
Sports can get better. I think of how lucid Mike Tyson still is and contrast that to Muhammad Ali late in life, who had difficulty speaking, but who came from an earlier era, with fewer protections.
And last, people can make their own decisions. My brother and I played only high school football, and I asked him one day whether he was glad he played high school football, and whether he would do it again. I asked him whether he thought he had CTE, and he said, I hope not. He said he does sometimes have brain fog, but he doesn’t know if it’s just middle age. But he seems very lucid, and he says the brain fog he has had since having Covid is worse, and frankly, the people I knew who smoked a large amount of marijuana in college (not a little or a moderate amount, a lot) are much foggier in the head than the former high school football players I know. Anyway, as a high school running back, my brother said he suffered several concussions, where he got hit so hard he blacked out. But his answer was, he would do it again. He says he was this pencil-necked, 90 pound weakling, and playing football (and all the training, year round preparations, weight lifting and conditioning) made him the person he became, and he wouldn’t trade that. Even knowing what we know now, he would make the same choice.
You can argue, these are just high school players with limited talent. But I would argue, these are also people facing risks who have no chance of playing in college, no chance of getting an NIL, no chance of getting a scholarship, and no chance of making millions in the NFL, yet they would still choose to play (high school), knowing there are risks.
So maybe as I learn more, maybe I change my mind and decide I can’t support football as a sport, but I don’t feel that way yet.
