The Catskill Chronicle

By Mort Malkin

Gadfly has always weighed in early on issues of consequence: war and peace, justice, the economy, crime and punishment, the environment and other such. The media generally hold back on each until it is politically propitious. Commentary on sports, however, is always safe for the corporate media. If sports are not supposed to be serious [except for the money], what is Gadfly doing talking about football?

Sports have not always been totally separated from matters that matter. Look at the First Olympiad in Ancient Greece in 776 BCE. At least a month’s truce was announced by heralds just before the beginning of the Games every four years. No weapons of war were permitted at Olympia. It was a celebration of peace, and politics took a back seat. In these modern times, of course, nothing interferes with war.

The sport of [American] football may not be important enough for headlines in a world where bloodless revolution takes place next door to where cruise missiles and gunship helicopters vie with roadside bombs and IEDs. Yet, one day football escaped from the sports pages of the NY Times to its front page.

It seems that football players do not sustain just incidental hamstring pulls and ACL tears, but real brain injury from the multiple small concussions that many players incur. The official name is very medical — chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) — not very conducive to holding the public’s attention. The symptoms may appear years later: depression, dementia, cognitive impairment, visual memory loss, even suicide.

This past season, there has been a sudden acceptance of the premise that football has become too dangerous. The game is supposed to be about scoring goals, not inflicting injury. The work of a few medical researchers documenting the sequelae of the trauma in the sport has finally reached the level of acute awareness among players, the NFL, and ESPN.

Dr. Ann McKee at Boston University and Dr. Bennet Omalu at West Virginia U have each examined the brain tissues of several now deceased former football players. They found areas of degenerative change in multiple brain centers of almost all the individuals studied. Many of the names of the players are well known to football fans: Terry Long, Mike Webster, Andre Waters, Justin Strzelczyk, Louis Creekmur, Wally Hilgerberg. Many players and ex-players still alive show symptoms of brain dysfunction — memory loss, confusion, staggering gait, speech impediment, depression, and signs of Alzheimer’s disease. MRI studies of players, taken pre-season and then in-season, add further confirmation that repetitive collisions, even if they don’t result in concussions, have the effect of wiping out most brain activity, especially in the prefrontal cortex, where we do much of our thinking.

Till now, the League and the players worried about only severe concussions and watched for the signs and symptoms — loss of consciousness, persistent dizziness, headache, and nausea — and admitted to 120 to 150 concussions per season. Oh, you think the number may be higher because after a concussion some players can’t think straight enough to know they have had a concussion? The culture of football fed into the minimalist interpretation of the problem. Commonly, a brain-rattling hit is spoken of in terms of the player having his bell rung or clock cleaned or that he was dinged, hardly enough reason to stay out of the game for more than a couple of plays.

Then, one weekend in October, now named Black & Blue Sunday, there occurred three hits worthy of the attention of NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell. The Commish answered the call to sanity. He fined Pittsburgh Steeler linebacker James Harrison $75,000, New England Patriot safety Brian Meriweather $50,000, and Atlanta Falcon cornerback Danta Robinson $50,000. It was a (slightly) major change in business as usual, not just a 15 yard penalty or just a $5,000 fine. But, for those who live in the universe of salaries in the millions, fines of five figures are no more than a cost of doing business.

In addition to the fines, there was a small call for making football less dangerous. It was answered by the argument that if football were made into a kinder, gentler game it would lose its status as the premier American sport. The fans love the violence, and if football is wussed down they will turn to cricket or badminton. The history of change the game has gone through says otherwise.

At the turn of the 20th century, football was essentially a running and blocking game. Well. maybe a little holding and hitting, too. The flying wedge, introduced in 1892 [actually, stolen from Philip II of Macedonia and Alexander III], was a principal means of advancing the ball. Football became military minus the guns and bombs. In 1905, 18 deaths occurred on the field, and President Teddy Roosevelt could no longer remain on the sidelines as a spectator. The following year the league introduced the forward pass to open up play. In more recent times, we instituted a rule to protect the kicker. You couldn’t even touch the kicker accidentally. Then, the quarterback was semi-protected — no roughing the passer. Tackling pile-ups were to be prevented by calling the play dead as soon as the ball carrier’s knee touched the ground. The punt receiver could call for a fair catch and avoid being being run over by the convergence of a half ton of determination. Blind side hits to the head or neck of a pass receiver are illegal. Progress with all deliberate speed! [key word = deliberate]

One further precaution that can offer brain protection doesn’t even require the cooperation of the opposing team. Current research has been demonstrating cumulative brain damage from repetitive but less than convulsion-producing head trauma. 75% of the trauma in football occurs during the full contact practice sessions. So…

A last answer to the culture of violence was proposed by an NFL player, Dave Meggyesy, in 1970 at the time of the Vietnam war (in Vietnam, it was the American war). He noted the parallels between US imperialism and the culture of violence in football. Since then, we have seen the damage to the brains of our young men, whether in terms of CTE in football players or in traumatic brain injury (TBI) of our soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan from blasts of roadside bombs and rocket propelled grenades. We need the rules of diplomacy in international affairs just as we need strict rules in football. In other words, the cultural evolution of Homo sapiens.