The world of football is walking on eggshells. We're seeing the monumental clash between the old notions of masculinity and the new enlightenment.
The latter tells us football is hazardous. The former has tons of sentiment attached to it. How can we say goodbye to football? It ought to be easy. One very helpful step needs to be taken: boys need another athletic option in fall.
We have cross country but that sport isn't suited for boys of substantial build. The wispy kids (i.e. built economically) excel in the distance running. I forget which gender swims in the fall months in Minnesota. Shows how long I've been out of media work. Swimming is a fine sport but I don't see it attracting a substantial number of new male participants.
There is an answer. Just as we have baseball for boys and softball for girls in spring, why not offer both boys and girls volleyball? The Minnesota State High School League and other like organizations should get to work on something like this immediately.
As things stand now, I'd prefer that a young man simply come home after school and get on the computer, over playing football.
Why did it take so long to wake up to football's perils? A fair amount of documentation has been available for a long time. We knew about smoking's dangers long before an outright ban was instituted in restaurants. Remember how futile those old "smoking sections" could be? Could you imagine walking into a place like DeToy's Restaurant today and seeing the air blue with cigarette smoke?
The idea in football is to run past or through guys who are trying to throw you to the ground. The danger is made obvious by the use of helmets. Head trauma comes about by the brain "rattling around" in the helmet. The risk is greater the younger you go.
Why subject any junior high-age kid to the risk of concussion? How can any parent live with the symptoms including nausea and vomiting for up to a week? For what purpose is your child doing this? He's not getting paid.
The August practices seem almost an exercise in torture. In the past this was masculine affirmation. But times have changed quickly in regard to this. Gender "traits" seem to have dissolved. You aren't impressing anyone by playing a physically dangerous game.
One concussion makes a second one more likely. Repeated head trauma seems to increase the likelihood you'll have health issues when older.
Even the non-head injuries associated with football should give you pause. "Morning Joe" on MSNBC this morning showed one highlight from the early-bird football game involving the Arizona Cardinals. That play had quarterback Kevin Kolb getting slammed to the ground. Watching it, I thought there might be head issues. There might in fact be, but the official word was bruised ribs.
It doesn't take an outright concussion to create head issues. Football players at all levels are regularly subjected to hard impact. Many former pro players are now suing. And don't think public schools aren't a little nervous about continuing to offer this sport. I think a lot of them would like to get out of the football business.
And if boys had an additional option in autumn, like volleyball, we could ease into a new model and perhaps phase out the "gladiator" sport of football with its helmets. Boys and girls volleyball would be a blast. Weather isn't a factor for these gymnasium sports. Girls certainly look graceful playing it. Boys might actually have some "catching up" to do. Poetic justice, I guess, to make up for the girls' learning steps with basketball in the 1970s.
Many boys and their parents would breathe a sigh of relief if volleyball offered a welcoming gesture for fall.
We are going to see a schism between sports journalists and the football establishment this fall. Journalists are going to want to broach the health subject from time to time. The establishment is going to try to coach them on how to talk about contact on the field. Without doubt, the phrase "getting his bell rung" is going to be excised. Broadcasters will shy away from the language associated with "hard-hitting."
This conspiracy with sports journalists will succeed only to a degree, because people simply aren't stupid. They have the Internet readily available as a resource for learning of football's scary dangers. Lawyers and insurance companies will be ever hovering.
There is a serious ethical question of whether coaches or upperclassmen in high school should engage in any overt "recruiting" of students. Let the boys play who really want to play, I guess.
But I feel bothered when I read about parents who say they'd prefer their sons not play football, "but we'll leave it to them."
Whatever happened to adult wisdom? I sense a little bit of denial in these parents. It's as if they're not prepared to accept the reality of physical hazards on the gridiron. A voice in the back of their head is trying to tell them something.
The pull of sentiment is hard to resist. We grew up loving the Minnesota Vikings and watching football on TV. We need to wipe the slate clean and it's not easy.
I notice that the Sunday Star Tribune had a quite extensive feature on the fears people are feeling about football. We should all be shaking our heads over some football spokespeople, like coaches, still trying to "talk up" football. This was predictable but it's still disappointing. Quotes in this vein were in the Star Tribune piece. A guy says "the danger of concussions is overblown." He should get a good Three Stooges eye-poke for saying that.
Back in my media career I'd hear coaches saying at end-of-season banquets that players should "lift weights in the off-season." Of course this is a horrible culprit in the problem we're seeing now. Players are getting ever bigger, faster and beefier, becoming like missiles. What good does it do to lift weights when your opponents are doing the same thing?
You'll just be getting up off the ground with stars in your eyes. And when you reach age 60 you might have regular headaches and memory issues. How profoundly foolish.
We should be shocked football had such a long and glorious history. Can we begin to separate ourselves from the pro game? I think I can. After reading about many of these sad cases of retired NFL players, I think closing the curtain can be accomplished.
For prepsters, we need to institute a new sport for boys in the fall, like volleyball, and move on. We have moved on from that "blue air" in restaurants. Change can be effected. Let's not be tentative. Our youth warrant such vigilance.
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com
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