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Football in Trouble?
April 27, 2013 at 8:59 pm
This column appeared a few days ago in the Chicago Tribune. I heard about it on Bill Maher. The word is spreading.
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2013-04-24/news/ct-met-kass-0424-20130424_1_future-football-players-nfl-draft-the-nfl
Quote: And yet every day, more American parents decide they're finished with football. Why? Because parents can no longer avoid the fact that football scrambles the human brain.
Quote: Eventually, lawsuits will overwhelm the high schools. And high school superintendents won't be able to increase property taxes to pay for the additional cost of subsidizing the game.
Quote:"The idea that five years ago I would have forbidden my kids to play football is hard to imagine," said Joseph Siprut, a lawyer representing former Eastern Illinois University player Adrian Arrington and other athletes in federal court over the long-term effects of head injuries.
"It never would have occurred to me. Now, given what I know about the concussion issue — first as a lawyer who has litigation, but also as someone who reads the papers — for me as a parent, I don't think I would ever let my kids set foot on a football field. Ever."
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RE: Football in Trouble?
April 27, 2013 at 9:04 pm
I have an idea. Let's have freakishly large humans run at each other and hit each other at maximum speed with maximum force, and make a sport out of it. What could possibly go wrong?
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RE: Football in Trouble?
April 27, 2013 at 9:14 pm
Yeah, the lawsuits aren't the problem for the NFL. It's the thought that more and more parents will steer their kids away from football. The NFL is trying to make the game "safer" but there's no way to make the game safe. Even now, they seem to be worried that de-emphasizing the brutal hits and tackles may turn away fans who tune in to watch guys get carted off every week. Hockey is dealing with similar issues, but the NHL dealt with that by killing the sport before player health became a problem.
"Well, evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts don't go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's in this century, but apples didn't suspend themselves in midair, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from ape- like ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other yet to be discovered."
-Stephen Jay Gould
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RE: Football in Trouble?
April 27, 2013 at 10:56 pm
I can't remember the podcast it was on - perhaps "Straight Dope" - but part of the discussion was that football got more dangerous as protection got better due to some sort of risk threshold.
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RE: Football in Trouble?
April 28, 2013 at 12:07 am
Bring back leather helmets...problem solved.
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RE: Football in Trouble?
April 28, 2013 at 12:51 am
(April 27, 2013 at 8:59 pm)Minimalist Wrote: This column appeared a few days ago in the Chicago Tribune. I heard about it on Bill Maher. The word is spreading.
Yeah I wonder why America has such a ridiculous code of football, with no global recognition, instead of playing a code of rugby like a normal civilized nation?
- All sports can be dangerous. They involve physical and spiritual risk. But football is different from other team sports. It is designed to slam body against body, and often, head slams against head. There is no way to alter this fact, no way to spin it.
Body against body? American football has so much padding there's no way you can accurately call it a "contact sport"! The contact of pad against pad?
For Religion & Health see:[/b][/size] Williams & Sternthal. (2007). Spirituality, religion and health: Evidence and research directions. Med. J. Aust., 186(10), S47-S50. -LINK
The WIN/Gallup End of Year Survey 2013 found the US was perceived to be the greatest threat to world peace by a huge margin, with 24% of respondents fearful of the US followed by: 8% for Pakistan, and 6% for China. This was followed by 5% each for: Afghanistan, Iran, Israel, North Korea. -LINK
"That's disgusting. There were clean athletes out there that have had their whole careers ruined by people like Lance Armstrong who just bended thoughts to fit their circumstances. He didn't look up cheating because he wanted to stop, he wanted to justify what he was doing and to keep that continuing on." - Nicole Cooke
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RE: Football in Trouble?
April 28, 2013 at 12:56 am
(April 28, 2013 at 12:51 am)Aractus Wrote: Yeah I wonder why America has such a ridiculous code of football, with no global recognition, instead of playing a code of rugby like a normal civilized nation?
When the fuck did Australian Rules Football become globally recognized?
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RE: Football in Trouble?
April 28, 2013 at 1:10 am
Never, and I don't watch the sport ... hence why I said "rugby".
For Religion & Health see:[/b][/size] Williams & Sternthal. (2007). Spirituality, religion and health: Evidence and research directions. Med. J. Aust., 186(10), S47-S50. -LINK
The WIN/Gallup End of Year Survey 2013 found the US was perceived to be the greatest threat to world peace by a huge margin, with 24% of respondents fearful of the US followed by: 8% for Pakistan, and 6% for China. This was followed by 5% each for: Afghanistan, Iran, Israel, North Korea. -LINK
"That's disgusting. There were clean athletes out there that have had their whole careers ruined by people like Lance Armstrong who just bended thoughts to fit their circumstances. He didn't look up cheating because he wanted to stop, he wanted to justify what he was doing and to keep that continuing on." - Nicole Cooke
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RE: Football in Trouble?
April 28, 2013 at 1:33 am
(April 28, 2013 at 1:10 am)Aractus Wrote: Never, and I don't watch the sport ... hence why I said "rugby".
Too bad, I would accept Australina Rules Football world domination.
Rugby? I'd rather go to a gay bar on mud wrestling night.
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RE: Football in Trouble?
April 28, 2013 at 1:35 am
(April 27, 2013 at 10:56 pm)thesummerqueen Wrote: I can't remember the podcast it was on - perhaps "Straight Dope" - but part of the discussion was that football got more dangerous as protection got better due to some sort of risk threshold.
The problem has nothing to do with padding or helmets or dirty hits. It has to do with CTE.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronic_tra...phalopathy
A helmet may stop a fractured skull but the impact of the blow can still cause brain damage. CTE is the build up of this damage from repetitive hits. In football, every player on every play generally hits or gets hit by someone and the damage is cumulative. The article above is dated, though. Recently MRIs were improved to the point where you don't have to be dead for the injury to be detected. Of course, they still can't fix it. I don't have too much sympathy for the professionals. They are adults who decide to risk their lives for money.
But high schools? Junior-varsity? That's where the problem is going to come from.
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