I confess I have only been vaguely aware of football's worrisome health consequences, up until recently.
Just as people once vaguely sensed smoking was bad for you - no vivid confirmation yet - people might have sensed football was a little barbaric. A sport that requires helmets?
Now we know it isn't just the obvious concussions that prompt concern. The routine hits that make up football life take a real toll.
Kids approach this sport innocently. They worship "the pros" on TV. Watching football is a little like playing pinball: there is a pane of glass between us and what's really going on.
Football as a badge of masculinity? Maybe that's like the old canard of smoking (or drinking) suggesting maturity. Take a look at a former gridder in his 60s (or even 50s) having regular headaches and memory issues. Doesn't seem very masculine to me.
We will learn more as the celebrated lawsuit by former NFL players progresses.
We will learn more as the celebrated lawsuit by former NFL players progresses.
"Oh, but the pros are different from high school," you might say.
Yes, I'd say it's different: adolescents' brains are more tender.
You might want to cringe the next time you see a kickoff return or punt return at our local field. Those players build up a head of steam before getting hit.
Our prep coach Jerry Witt used the expression "smash-mouth" in many interviews I conducted with him. He might say of an upcoming opponent "they play smash-mouth football."
You might want to cringe the next time you see a kickoff return or punt return at our local field. Those players build up a head of steam before getting hit.
Our prep coach Jerry Witt used the expression "smash-mouth" in many interviews I conducted with him. He might say of an upcoming opponent "they play smash-mouth football."
Can you imagine giving any sort of like quote in connection to girls sports? We can now truly see how far girls sports has come. Not only do they now have equal resources, they are spared the physical punishment that football dishes out.
Football increasingly looks anachronistic. A school board member in Pennsylvania sprang into celebrity status, probably unwittingly, by suggesting football be banned. Patty Sexton - leave it to a woman - talked about how school districts should not be "funding gladiators." It's an early harbinger.
The magazine National Review has seemed to give credence to this rallying cry.
The better educated people will not simply shrug and say "boys will be boys." They will examine the data and quickly separate themselves from any sentimental fondness they've developed for football. If they decide football isn't appropriate for their sons, their conscience will bother them when they feel tempted to watch NFL or major college football on TV.
Honestly, I don't think I can ever watch football the same way.
It will be hard to withdraw completely. But on second thought, only rarely do I watch a game from start to finish anyway. The barrage of commercials gets wearisome. I always have a few better things to do on Sunday anyway. I think most of us do.
Our family visits friends at West Wind Village on Sunday, right at around 2 p.m. I'll catch blips of the Vikings game there.
Many of us on the road listen on radio. If nothing else, at the end of the day we'll "tune in" and see what fascination the Vikings delivered. It must be fascinating if that corporate entity of a team can lead us all around by the nose and have stadium demands filled.
It will be hard to withdraw completely. But on second thought, only rarely do I watch a game from start to finish anyway. The barrage of commercials gets wearisome. I always have a few better things to do on Sunday anyway. I think most of us do.
Our family visits friends at West Wind Village on Sunday, right at around 2 p.m. I'll catch blips of the Vikings game there.
Many of us on the road listen on radio. If nothing else, at the end of the day we'll "tune in" and see what fascination the Vikings delivered. It must be fascinating if that corporate entity of a team can lead us all around by the nose and have stadium demands filled.
The new Vikings stadium won't be in use until 2016. A lot can happen between now and then in terms of football losing its stature. Have the state's news media asked hard questions about this?
We are a land of "creative destruction." Sports is entertainment, a realm in which predictions are difficult indeed to make.
In two months we'll all start salivating over the new football season. We're already being teased with headlines about Percy Harvin pouting and suggesting a trade in classic pro athlete fashion.
In two months we'll all start salivating over the new football season. We're already being teased with headlines about Percy Harvin pouting and suggesting a trade in classic pro athlete fashion.
I have had more than the average amount of interest in sports through my life. But when I gather up the house paper at McDonald's these days, I find myself not eager to grab sports. In fact, I glance at sports and immediately think all those topics are being weighted out of proportion. The headlines and photos are huge about topics that needn't demand such bombast.
The Star Tribune is disconnected. Newspapers are of course thrashing about in the water, trying to keep from drowning. They seem to behave as if sports coverage is a lifeblood, as if we're all waiting with baited breath. If I am not, it's a good bet that a wide swath of the population is not.
Harvin is a wide receiver with a history of prolonged headaches. Is it just a coincidence he plays football and has headaches? I frankly hope it is, and hope he doesn't become one of those sad handicapped stories (like Mike Webster) when he gets older.
I would certainly suggest that someone prone to serious headaches not play football. There are a couple thousand former NFL players involved in the lawsuit against the league. People so far seem to not want to trivialize. It seems there is pretty genuine awareness growing, just like our awareness grew by leaps and bounds in connection to smoking.
Honus Wagner didn't want his baseball card on a cigarette pack. He was expressing his gut instincts. We should have felt similar instincts about football but we have been too mesmerized by the game. We have been that proverbial pinball player.
We watch the young men smack into each other like missiles. I have been as guilty as anyone simply enjoying it. Last fall I relished going to DeToy's Restaurant every Saturday morning and exchanging football notes with waitress Felixia Rosales.
I couldn't approach such conversations the same now. The enlightenment has come fast. Also, it seems we're getting over any sense of denial pretty quickly. Parents cannot in good conscience deny the facts.
It will be interesting this August to see if there's a numbers drop-off with Tiger football, Cougar football and football as a whole across the U.S. Will those "Friday night lights" fade? If not, it could be a folly for our society.
But if nothing else, the consequences of football will get the attention of lawyers and the insurance industry. As one op-ed writer sagely pointed out, football will continue to exist, certainly at the pro level where the money dangles, but the sport will be "sick."
We have been through so many Minnesota Vikings seasons. It was Nirvana in my younger days when the Vikes made four Super Bowls. The Vikings were a relatively young institution then. Fewer games were on TV. We were transfixed by an entertainment product that was in the right place at the right time.
But that's all it was: an entertainment product - a game played by mortals with all the mortal problems of everyone else.
The goose that laid the golden egg did quite fine. Now we're realizing the price paid by all those gladiators.
"Smash-mouth?" I'll pass on such gestures of machismo.
The Jerry Sandusky mess
It sounds like all the king's horses and all the king's men won't save Jerry Sandusky. Sandusky stands as sort of a symbol - a deeply flawed human being who got cover because of how he helped elevate a major college football program.
Criminal? I'm not sure the criminal justice system addresses his particular problem. I think he was born with a certain kind of inclination. He has a sexual compulsion that non-sufferers would not understand.
I would suggest these individuals need to be confined in such a way they can't be predatory (of course). But to suggest it's "criminal?" I don't know.
Prison time would be a deterrent? A deterrent from engaging in a type of behavior that normal people would never consider? And would find abhorrent?
We need to reconsider prisons just like we reconsidered that old mental health facility in Fergus Falls. If people need confinement, fine, but it needs to be done with more discretion. I'm not sure someone like Bernie Madoff needs to be thrown in with violent criminals. Or Jerry Sandusky.
We as a society seem to be re-thinking all this just as we are re-thinking the sport of football.
What's with Bob Costas, NBC?
The media can act like a dunce through much of this. Why was the Bob Costas interview with Sandusky edited the way it was when it originally aired? This is a monumental question and hasn't gotten the proper attention in an investigative, inquisitive way.
You would think in this age of fragmented media, there would be more of a hue and cry. Fragmented media tend to be democratized media.
What was the thinking of NBC editors who omitted the most damning segment of the interview?
NBC gave an explanation that of course was insufficient. Simply saying the interview was long, insults our intelligence. Some sort of agenda was at work here. Did big media want the suspense of the story to continue? Sandusky's apparent confession to Costas would have been jaw-dropping. It might have made the trial seem academic.
NBC gave an explanation that of course was insufficient. Simply saying the interview was long, insults our intelligence. Some sort of agenda was at work here. Did big media want the suspense of the story to continue? Sandusky's apparent confession to Costas would have been jaw-dropping. It might have made the trial seem academic.
Did big media savor the drama of a trial? Did they want to have a little more doubt dangling out there? Did they want to see the vaunted defense attorney - celebrated cases always have Doberman-like defense attorneys - make the usual competitive inroads, creating shards of doubt that would have us on edge of seats?
Or were the big media being a little protective of big-time football? Would Sandusky's stomach-turning revelation to the somewhat pretentious Costas have brought too much instant embarrassment to the cash cow of football?
Are the networks helping wave the flag for big-time football a little longer? They make huge money selling advertising for the plethora of televised games.
But are we so hopelessly addicted to this sport? If we are, heaven help us all.
What will be the health of football in 2016 when the new Vikings stadium opens?
Click on the permalink below to read my reaction to State Senator Bill Ingebrigtsen's role in the new stadium. This post is on my companion website, "Morris of Course."
The Star Tribune was an annoying shill for big-time football through that whole process. Governor Mark Dayton behaved like he had hit his head pretty badly himself.
We had better start asking how we'll adjust, if the new stadium and our local Big Cat Stadium are rendered useless.
On the plus side, the health of future generations of young men will be appropriately guarded. Is this not the most noble course to take?
"Smash-mouth?" Forget it.
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com
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