Paul Burke, our Bloguin colleagues at Ultimate NYG (Giants), wonders how football fans will be seen by future generations if we continue to tolerate the lasting damage the sport does to players. We know so much more about concussions now and hear stories about the health and life span of yesterday’s heroes.
Paul tells it better than I, so here’s an excerpt of his post from March, 15, 2011.
“Last week D’Allesandro of the Star-Ledger wrote a harsh and provoking article on the health of the NFL players.
“This, along with many recent articles that have surfaced in the last 2 weeks (in conjunction with the current CBA impasse), makes us seriously question morally whether we as fans should be demanding this product anymore. It’s not just football. The spotlight has been shown on hockey recently, with Probert and the recent dirty hit by Chara. The NHL has turned a blind eye to the physical abuse.
“The fact that the average NFL life expectancy is 53 is staggering, given the the average American male life expectancy is 75. Many former players live/d in basic isolation unable to express and communicate their severe debilitating mental condition. With the death of players like Mike Webster and the suicide of Dave Duerson, more and more information about player health after football is coming to light. They are/were conditioned to play with pain and sacrifice for the team for many years. They’re conditioned in life to shrug off and deal with whatever there ailment is. Many have turned to abusing pain killers prescribed during their playing years. In essence, this is analogous to the Roman Coliseum with gladiators fighting lions etc. We, as fans, are promoting and supporting a product that has severe consequences on the long term health of human beings.”
Read the rest of Losing The Fan at www.ultimatenyg.com.
I’ve wondered why pro football should emerge as America’s favorite sport over the last two decades. Round up the usual suspects. The game is paced for television, or rather for TV commercials, so it’s attuned to our video viewing habits. The NFL tunes the game to what fans want to see. If the fans want more passing, change the rules to encourage it, interpret the rules to favor quarterbacks and receivers. NFL Films cast the sport as an epic movie (Thank you, Steve Sabol, and get well soon.). Its stars are bigger than life.
There’s more to it than that. Pro football captures in sport How America sees itself–brawney, powerful, unified, militaristic, imposing of wills, overcoming all obsitcles to dominate in short attention span segments.
How different than baseball, that lazily paced, relaxing, activity on warm summer nights where the build-up is subtle and slow–like America of the 1950s. “Baseball is what we were. Football is what we are.” ~Mary McGrory, The Washington Post.
Two other traits may come to play: compassion and sue the b******s. We feel compassion for our fellow man when he’s in trouble, especially when the injury was in service to us. We want to see something done for him, more so when someone else’s money pays for it.
That brings us to the second trait. It’s one thing to tolerate damage to people when we didn’t know the risks. We clearly understand the risks of concussions now. Employers who endanger workers by ignoring the risks get sued, a lot and for big money. Everybody involved with the sport–teams, equipment manufacturers, insurance companies, players, sports organizations at every level–is alert to the cost of doing nothing.
Sorry, James Harrison (Steelers). You have to change your hits. The NFL won’t bend no matter how much you whine. The league can’t afford the cost. Eventually, compassionate fans will demand a change, even at the cost of all those jack-you-up videos.
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