I played soccer, hockey and baseball as a kid. I told my mom I wanted to play football when I was in middle school. She just flat said no. I get it now. She didn't want me to get hurt. And while I did play hockey, which is a full contacy sport, there are far fewer per capita injuries to hockey players than to football players.More bad news about football injuries after the jump.
Frontline just came out with a special about the true physical costs of playing football. The program is called Football High and you can watch it right on their website.
I know plenty of dads who grew up indoctrinated with the warrior mentality and kamikaze spirit that is demanded of football players from their first exposure as pre-teens. These guys fondly recall the agony and glory of playing, and smile as they tell stories of the physical and mental abuse they went through. Hockey has a similar culture of "toughening" which any panhellenic association would clearly label as hazing.
But I digress...
The Football High documentary is partially about the intensification of high school programs in the last 30 years and partially about the long term effects of playing football on the players themselves. In particular, the documentary is about the effects of football hits on the brain.
With increased concur for traumatic brain injury in both soldiers and professional athletes, it has become clear that concussions, and repeated concussions without complete recovery, can have profound, lasting effects on mental health and cognitive ability.
What the Frontline documentary revels is that it is not just about the intensity of hits. The most striking findings that this documentary shares are that:
1) simple cognitive ability and memory decline in high school football players over the course of a single season
2) signs of permanent brain damage are already apparent in high school football players
3) high school players that have never been diagnosed with a concussion show signs of permanent brain damage
It's going to be hard for me to get past these facts during this coming football season. I will have a hard time looking past the fact that during each collision of the line, each mid-air trainwreck, each time a player gets his bell wrung they are leaving behind more of themselves than they may think. Kind of puts the recent NFL lockout into perspective, doesn't it?
Tim -
ReplyDeleteOne of our relatives that just graduated from high school had to take a pre-entry test for college and failed misserably. He had at least 2 concussions during High School football and it is felt that his cognitive ability is in great deficit because of those. It is really sad. Not sure what his future will be now?
I have read several articles recently about past professional football players who have committed suicide and it is felt that their head injuries had resulted in long term depression. Studies show that head truama causes impared impulse control, congnitive decline, dementia, short term memory lose, and depression.In fact the NFL and Boston University are partnering a program for past athletes to donate their brains after death to study the effects of trauma and brain damage. Several players have allready pledged to do this.
Also, I went to high school with a girl who's son played for UW EC (Justin Greenwood) and he almost died because he had not healed from a previous concusion and played in another game because he didn't want to sit out. He got hit in the head and blood vessels in his brain ruptured. It has been 8 years now and he is going to schools and telling his story to kids so that they do not do the same thing. He was like a baby - in diapers and unable to eat and had to relearn e v e r y t h i n g. And lost all of his memories.
Hopefully the NFL will continue to listen to the players and trainers and try to do things to make it safer for players such as the new kick off rule and other concussion management protocols. And, hopefully the fans will still find football just as enjoyable to watc.