I don't know if any of you have this problem watching football -- I watch it less and less as stories emerge about how the game's participants are maiming themselves for life and making themselves more likely for all sorts of debilitating and life-ending conditions. The NFL will downplay this, of course, as it is a multi-million dollar business, and the owners seem deaf and dumb to the problems. If they paid attention -- and had hearts -- they would pay the players more, guarantee more money and provide for them once these awful injuries manifest themselves. But they don't, and we read stories of broke and broken down players in all sorts of awful circumstances, stories that go beyond the poor souls that took their own lives or passed away from ALS or early-onset Alzheimer's and other dementia-like diseases. Those stories are crushing, and, absent a formal reporting system, it is difficult to discern the depth of the problem but relatively easy to believe that it is bigger than what gets reported.
How many more brain tissue samples must the group at Boston University test positive for chronic traumatic encephalopothy (CTE) before the game changes dramatically? There are too many sad cases, too many tough, rough stories, stories that are far in addition to the problems that players face immediately after leaving their sports -- depression, bankruptcy, divorce. First, the money, attention and adrenaline go, then the mind and the body.
Read this article in today's Philadelphia Inquirer by Bob Ford about the Philadelphia Eagles' All-Pro center Jason Kelce, he of the heroic play and the wonderful, heart-on-his-sleeve speech at the team's post-Super Bowl victory parade in the winter of 2018. If Kelce were a car, the insurance company would have considered him totaled, provided a check to the owner and sent him to the junkyard. He'd probably be worth more in parts than as a whole. As a football player, and someone undersized for his position, he puts himself through an inordinate amount of pain and physical damage to put himself out there every week, and it gets tougher as the years mount and the season progresses. My commentary is not a reflection of his character -- he is a leader, he says what is on his mind, and he produces at his job -- but a reflection on the game, on society, on decisions people make and to a degree on Kelce's sanity. Why put yourself through this? Kelce has skills and probably could make a considerable amount of money doing commentary in the studio, on games or on talk radio. None of those job descriptions require him to take painkillers, bang into people or go to work barely able to walk in order to earn a paycheck.
Not everyone, of course, is as fortunate. Kids get recruited out of high school, shunted to football factories where coaches make very good money and the primary reason the kids are there is to help the coaches keep their jobs, to help the university fill stadiums, earn money off television rights and also merchandise. They get scholarships, but they are renewable after one year, which means that if the coach has a change of heart or there is a new coach, the kid could be sent packing. As it is, many kids are channeled into easy majors, including those where they get credit for playing football, and come out of college having used up their eligibility without a degree or, if they graduate, who knows how meaningful the degree is. I get it that not everyone can master calculus or become a mechanical engineer, but our system should provide more support to these young men than it does now. Especially given how much attention football gets in our society and how much money is generated from it.
Our society is a reflection of the games we watch and cherish. There are many American "things" that have taken off in the world, among them medical innovations, smart phones, silicon computer chips, cars, basketball rap music. Baseball has not supplanted cricket, and neither basketball (which is very popular worldwide) or American football has replaced soccer as the world's most popular sport. Not even close. And a strong reflection of the uniqueness of American sport is that American football has not become popular anywhere else. Oh, sure, it draws crowds in England and there are minor attempts to play it in other countries, but let's face it -- it's violent, and most of the people who play it weigh a lot more than they should for their height (according to the National Institutes for Health, among others) and short-, mid- and long-term health. That those large people collide with one another creates major problems for them1950 , for their teams and for the league.
So let's circle back to Jason Kelce. There is little doubt that he is a warrior, and there seems to be little doubt that you have to be somewhat crazy to choose a job where you bang into people incessantly over several hours (even if practices are more tame than twenty years ago, there are rules to protect players more, there is concussion protocol, etc.). And then there is longstanding question of assumption of the risk and whether societal rules should protect people from each other (most would agree to that) or themselves (most would disagree, sometimes very strongly, on that). Should society step in or adopt a "survival of the fittest"/"let people do what they want" approach? President Teddy Roosevelt stepped in to reform the rules at the beginning of the 20th Century when young men were dying in games. Threatening legislation, the game reformed itself. I would submit, though, that the pace of reform has been slow and not all that much has changed since 1965 for the long-term health and welfare of the players.
Here are some somewhat random thoughts/factoids. Hall of Famer Ed Reed was quoted as saying that he played the game as a way out of poverty so that his sons would not have to. Go back fifty years, and that's what boxers said. Boxing was one of the five most popular sports fifty years ago -- it is not anymore. Fewer kids are playing the game, although HBO reported, sadly, that poor kids -- many of whom are kids of color, -- are still playing it at the same rate or even a higher rate. That is disturbing, too. That suggest that those who need their football fix -- the collisions, hard tackles -- are content to satisfy their needs with someone else's kids, but not their own. 80% of FBS (Division 1) schools have athletic departments that lose money. Many play to stadiums that are not full. Big-time college football in some parts (on Saturdays) and the NFL have become a big part of our culture. Many revolve their Saturdays and Sundays around football; it has become part of the ritual of tens of millions of people. And American football is an easy game to bet on -- there is a point spread (I confess I still have not figured out the difference between -150 and +430 for baseball games). It is the most popular spectator sport in the country.
But at what cost? To our national psyches, our national soul, our national caring, the quest to provide a good and decent society for all? Yes, there are many more significant problems in the United States and the world to solve for -- aging populations, rising healthcare costs, decaying infrastructure, staggering amounts of student loan debt, the absence of general practice medical doctors, income inequality, climate change among many others. Perhaps this issue even is a high-class problem, given all of the other problems facing us.
But watching people take this type of risk and clobbering each other? Is this a safer form of Christians versus lions or even watching lumberjacks beat the daylights out of each other in an empty box car in the train yard on the far side of down, with people throwing down money betting on who would prevail? Or are we kidding ourselves, and we really have not advance all that much over thousands of years?
Then ask yourself this question -- would you let your kid play this game? And if the answer is no, then why are you watching it? And why do Americans pay so much money to support it?
What does that say about you, us, our society?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment