Football and CTE

[C-Squared]

I just started teaching at a new school and two kids left in an ambulance before halftime. Both teams suited up 20-25 kids total. Big changes are coming, its just a matter of when.

[JayMac]

1 hour ago, Kaz said:

I'm really hoping the media doesn't try to paint Hernandez as a victim like they have been doing lately with OJ.

 

"He isn't a monster; he murdered those guys because he had CTE!"

I already feel as though it is somewhat happening.

[Gothamite]

It's not, really.  

 

Some are calling for a nuanced understanding, wondering how much CTE impacted his behavior starting in college.  But  that's not at all the same things, I haven't heard any reasonable source trying to excuse his actions. 

[OnWis97]

I'm almost seeing the opposite; accusations that any story about this is giving him a pass.  Driven as a deflection from those clinging to the sport and/or inability to think in nuance.

[Waffles]

On 9/23/2017 at 9:05 AM, HedleyLamarr said:

Well, this certainly would help the NFL in court, right? The league, one of the best at lawyering up, is simply going to deflect blame onto Hernandez's prior football providers, whether it's Irvin Myers (and/or the NCAA and/or University of Florida) or high school, etc.

 

I don't know if the alternative is any better, but it feels like it'd be a damaging long-term decision for the NFL to go on record in a court of law pinning a severe, high-profile, and tragic (for all parties involved) CTE case on its feeder system. The headline parents would see coming out of the trial, regardless of how the case itself is resolved, would be "NFL: Youth Football Causes CTE."

[OnWis97]

47 minutes ago, Waffles said:

 

I don't know if the alternative is any better, but it feels like it'd be a damaging long-term decision for the NFL to go on record in a court of law pinning a severe, high-profile, and tragic (for all parties involved) CTE case on its feeder system. The headline parents would see coming out of the trial, regardless of how the case itself is resolved, would be "NFL: Youth Football Causes CTE."

Yeah, the NFL is kind of between a rock and a hard place there.  Youth football is part of player development.  I suppose the NFL's ideal solution would be something like "youth football was the cause.  But we still (somehow int the face of everything) feel that it's not all that dangerous for older kids and adults.  Now, as a society, we'll keep kids from playing contact football until they are juniors in highschool.  That way the dangerous years (0-15) will be contact-free but college teams will still have a good recruiting basis from the high schools.  Everybody wins!"  (at least until we learn more)

[Lenny Dykstra]

My whole take on football is that I'm not concerned at all about the high school level and below. At those levels, it's just a ragtag group of kids that go to school during the week, do other activities during the offseason, it's just a thing on the side for them. At the college and pro level, they've just become too powerful. It sounds weird to say but theyve gotten too good. Gone are the days of players having to get in shape in the offseason, and needing a second job. When football is what these players focus on all year round and add in all the advanced training it makes being tackled practically the same as being hit by a car. 

 

I'm really into football history, and when I see clips from decades ago the players just look less athletic and sloppier but I feel that it's supposed to be that way. You never really had guys blowing out knees on non contact situations like you see now. 

 

What's the solution? I don't really have one but I think the only way for football to be saved is for it to die. By that I mean for the league to decline so much that  it stops becoming a gazillion dollar entity and football just becomes football again. Back to its roots.

[Gothamite]

4 hours ago, Lenny Dykstra said:

My whole take on football is that I'm not concerned at all about the high school level and below. At those levels, it's just a ragtag group of kids that go to school during the week, do other activities during the offseason, it's just a thing on the side for them. At the college and pro level, they've just become too powerful.

 

That sounds all well and good, until you learn that high school players have been found to have CTE.  

 

And what about this study, linked on the previous page? 

 

 

Quote

A new medical study has found that children who play football before age 12 suffer mood and behavior problems later in life at rates significantly higher than those who take up the sport later.

 

This really isn't about players being "too good". It's not about players being faster or heavier than in previous generations.  That may be contributing to the scope of the problem, but it's not the problem itself.

 

When you realize this is affecting kids younger than 12 years old, your ragtag kids with this on the side, it becomes clearer that football just might be a sport too inherently dangerous to play. 

[Lenny Dykstra]

There are literally millions of middle aged men that have played  high school football that are perfectly fine.

 

Concussions are serious and should be taken seriously, but there is not an epidemic of CTE from playing high school football. I think it might be getting blown out of proportion.

[OnWis97]

I think we're so early in our understanding that we don't really know what's "fine" and what's not.  

 

Youth: No speed or power, but developing brains.

 

College/Pro: Adults but car-crash-like impacts

 

High school: Brains still developing but further along than youth...impacts getting more intense.

 

I've said it before...at the "household level" the burden of proof is going to be on football.  You're going to have more and more people keeping their kids away even if it is a cloud of uncertainty.  Many parents will find it to not be worth the risk.

 

26 minutes ago, Lenny Dykstra said:

There are literally millions of middle aged men that have played  high school football that are perfectly fine.

 

Concussions are serious and should be taken seriously, but there is not an epidemic of CTE from playing high school football. I think it might be getting blown out of proportion.

That's true; though I don't know that the number that are not "perfectly fine" is totally known and reported.  We still have a long, long way to go to quantify the risk.  

 

As we learn more, that word, "concussion" is going to become a smaller and smaller part of this discussion.  Those following closely know that it's not really about concussions.  Those are the worst hits, but it's starting to look like the accumulation of years and years of sub-concussive impacts are the real culprit.  And I know I've said it before but the textbook "wrapping your arms around a guy's waist" tackles are maybe even a problem...there was one in an NFL game I was watching this weekend (Packers/Bengals?  Or else the Sunday Nighter).  It was shown in slow motion.  The defender wrapped the guy just how they taught in Pop Warner before ESPN even existed.  But the offensive player's head snapped to the point his neck looked curved...I have read that even that could be a contributor to CTE.

 

I hope we are blowing it out of proportion.  I tend to doubt it.  Either way, what we really need as as full of an understanding as possible.  We're not even close yet.  Hopefully we get there and people (and, I guess, parents) can weigh the risks.  In the meantime, my non-existent kid will be picking from a plethora of other sports.

 

[Lenny Dykstra]

Yeah I just think there isnt enough information for mass hysteria

[Waffles]

1 hour ago, Lenny Dykstra said:

Yeah I just think there isnt enough information for mass hysteria

 

Mass hysteria, no, but there's more than enough information out there about the effects of playing football at every level for people to act on it, from active NFL players to the parents of young athletes.

[IceCap]

13 hours ago, Lenny Dykstra said:

There are literally millions of middle aged men that have played  high school football that are perfectly fine.

 

Concussions are serious and should be taken seriously, but there is not an epidemic of CTE from playing high school football. I think it might be getting blown out of proportion.

To echo McCarthy from earlier...how much preventable brain damage is "acceptable"? I'm going with "no preventable brain damage is acceptable."

Schools shouldn't be paying for an activity that smashes developing brains to mush while also trying to teach them math, science, and history.

[Sport]

I hope that's the real Lenny Dykstra. 

 

I don't think this is mass hysteria. It's a dangerous activity, it always has been, but now we know more about the dangers associated with playing the game and we should strive to learn more so people can make informed decisions about letting their kids play football. And the more I hear the more I’m getting to the point where I think institutions of learning shouldn’t sponsor an activity that damages the very minds they’re trying to shape.

 

I’m not on some anti-football crusade. I know there’s benefits to playing football because I played high school football*. You learn teamwork, preparation, comradery, how to deal with stress, how to deal with criticism, how to manage your time, how to set goals, it keeps kids active and physically fit (if they don’t get injured), it takes kids off the street, you get to wear a jersey around school and girls think you’re better looking than you actually are, etc etc. There’s benefits. At the same time though, those benefits could be learned outside of the school with private teams. I mean, we don’t have school sponsored MMA teams**. And because most schools lose money on football then they could spend it on other things like books or computers.

 

*I probably have some CTE as a result.

**unless we’re talking about the Hillary Swank Karate Kid movie because that school for some reason had a karate team.  LOL.

[Magnus]

4 hours ago, McCarthy said:

I hope that's the real Lenny Dykstra. 

 

I don't think this is mass hysteria. It's a dangerous activity, it always has been, but now we know more about the dangers associated with playing the game and we should strive to learn more so people can make informed decisions about letting their kids play football. And the more I hear the more I’m getting to the point where I think institutions of learning shouldn’t sponsor an activity that damages the very minds they’re trying to shape.

 

I’m not on some anti-football crusade. I know there’s benefits to playing football because I played high school football*. You learn teamwork, preparation, comradery, how to deal with stress, how to deal with criticism, how to manage your time, how to set goals, it keeps kids active and physically fit (if they don’t get injured), it takes kids off the street, you get to wear a jersey around school and girls think you’re better looking than you actually are, etc etc. There’s benefits. At the same time though, those benefits could be learned outside of the school with private teams. I mean, we don’t have school sponsored MMA teams**. And because most schools lose money on football then they could spend it on other things like books or computers.

 

*I probably have some CTE as a result.

**unless we’re talking about the Hillary Swank Karate Kid movie because that school for some reason had a karate team.  LOL.

I'll agree with everything you said. But I'll add that there are certainly other less-contact sports that could achieve the same bonding, teamwork, goal-setting benchmarks that football could, as well. I didn't even play a "sport"; I was on the improv team all through high school. Strangely enough, though, I'm pretty sure one teammate of mine got a concussion after being held, and then dropped by another member of the team during a practice; and I'm sure we've all run into each other while acting out scenes at least once.
 

 

[kroywen]

Playing sports as a kid undoubtedly has some really significant benefits, but I think they can be just as well obtained through playing other sports. There's nothing inherently unique to football that teaches kids teamwork, camaraderie, fitness, etc. You can get all those things through any number of sports. Hell, you can get most of them (outside of fitness) through academic competitions.

 

Actually, I think a lot of those benefits may be better obtained through other sports, even outside of CTE concerns. High school football, at least in most parts of the country, is so big that it overshadows all other sports and academics. Between inflated egos, a sense of impermeability (Penn State is exhibit A), and subsuming the importance of academics, football can actually do quite a bit of damage to kids in more ways than one. Probably not to most HS players, but it definitely is an issue.

[OnWis97]

15 minutes ago, kroywen said:

Playing sports as a kid undoubtedly has some really significant benefits, but I think they can be just as well obtained through playing other sports. There's nothing inherently unique to football that teaches kids teamwork, camaraderie, fitness, etc. You can get all those things through any number of sports. Hell, you can get most of them (outside of fitness) through academic competitions.

 

Actually, I think a lot of those benefits may be better obtained through other sports, even outside of CTE concerns. High school football, at least in most parts of the country, is so big that it overshadows all other sports and academics. Between inflated egos, a sense of impermeability (Penn State is exhibit A), and subsuming the importance of academics, football can actually do quite a bit of damage to kids in more ways than one. Probably not to most HS players, but it definitely is an issue.

In my high school there was a bit of truth to the second part...but no worse than basketball and hockey.

 

But the first part is true...I think just about any benefit of football can be found in enough other sports that the aggregate well-being of high school boys would not be hurt one bit if football disappeared. (and, as it's starting to turn out, it would probably be improved).

 

I think it's worth acknowledging that most of the people who say things like I just said are not trying to kill football for any silly, wussy, or contrarian reason.  In fact, I think most of us like football. I personally wish that this was a non-issue.

[kroywen]

41 minutes ago, OnWis97 said:

In my high school there was a bit of truth to the second part...but no worse than basketball and hockey.

 

But the first part is true...I think just about any benefit of football can be found in enough other sports that the aggregate well-being of high school boys would not be hurt one bit if football disappeared. (and, as it's starting to turn out, it would probably be improved).

 

I think it's worth acknowledging that most of the people who say things like I just said are not trying to kill football for any silly, wussy, or contrarian reason.  In fact, I think most of us like football. I personally wish that this was a non-issue.

 

Funny thing is, I grew up in suburban Connecticut - not exactly a hotbed for high school football - and football definitely overshadowed the other sports. 10 years later, and I can't even tell you who was on our basketball or hockey teams, but I definitely remember a lot of the guys from the football team. We didn't have a gigantic "big man on campus" problem, but that was probably a function of going to a very large high school and the fact that our academic competition teams and marching band were immeasurably more successful than our athletic teams (and I had a lot more friends and acquaintances involved in the former than the latter, personally).

 

And yeah, I don't think anyone here has a visceral hatred of the sport of football. I know that I am a fan of it, personally. But it's an incredibly dangerous sport, unfortunately. We can't just turn a blind eye to that out of a love of the sport.

[The_Admiral]

5 hours ago, Magnus said:

I didn't even play a "sport"; I was on the improv team all through high school.

 

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[Gothamite]

16 hours ago, kroywen said:

I don't think anyone here has a visceral hatred of the sport of football. I know that I am a fan of it, personally. But it's an incredibly dangerous sport, unfortunately. We can't just turn a blind eye to that out of a love of the sport.

 

QFFT.  

 

Im a Packers shareholder. I published a Packers zine in the 1990s. I've run a Packers-themed website and blog for going on twenty years. I am incredibly invested in this sport. 

 

My outrage and insistence that

football must change doesn't come from a place of hating the sport. Quite the opposite - if I didn't care I'd have just walked away.