Written for an argumentation class at Washington University in St. Louis:
Football is America’s most popular game, the Super Bowl, its biggest media event; even in recession, stadiums are filled and $20 billion flow into the league coffers annually. Football runs deep in our culture, touching everything from the drink and advertising industry to the West Wing where President Barack Obama has involved himself in the college football playoff debate. For our nation, this game is truly a big deal; Friday nights means cities shut down across the country as premier high school teams face off. Saturday afternoons are full of tailgates and revelry in support of colorful college teams, and Sundays are reserved for the big stars of the National Football League. But hidden in the fans’ partying and the efforts of the players on the field is that the culture of our country’s game has struggled to keep up with the increasingly revealed truths about the consequences of what can be an extremely violent game. The health and lives of football players of all ages are at stake in regard to the dangers of concussions and head injuries, and there needs to be change at every level of the sport to better protect the well-being of our country’s most popular athletes.
However, why should we care, including those of us who are not sports fans? After all, these are athletes who make millions of dollars to do what they do and they know the risks. Surely sport as entertainment is not something to be morally concerned about as a society. But not only is there a significant trickledown effect from professional to Pee Wee leagues on the safety and health of players, this belief belies the lack of awareness related to the unseen damages caused by violent collisions to a helmeted head, injuries that can be far more detrimental than a more visually stunning broken leg or torn ligament that usually heals and leaves the player little to no worse off than before. Concussions are simply on a whole different level.
A concussion is defined as a mild traumatic brain injury, but the term “mild” is a misnomer. There are no brain injuries that can be deemed “mild” because of the long-term repercussions. In a concussion, the brain is jarred against the skull by the rapid acceleration and deceleration caused by strong external impacts. These injuries to the brain and spinal cord can lead to temporary amnesia, confusion, disorientation; loss of consciousness can occur and physical symptoms include dizziness, lack of motor coordination and vision problems. And this is just in the short term. The long terms effects are altered neuronal and brain function, leading to affected mental states and the possibility of permanent damage. The true danger lies in that this kind of injury can go unnoticed or ignored for months and years until it is too late.
This April, Owen Thomas, a player at the University of Pennsylvania committed suicide after what his friends described as a sudden emotional collapse. An autopsy of his brain revealed chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a disease condition of the brain that is a direct result of repeated head injury and multiple concussions, a brain state found in the autopsies of many NFL players. CTE has been linked with depression, dementia, and changed, abnormal personalities. But the sinister fact in Thomas’ history is that in his football career, he had no recorded concussions. Thus, a series of sub-concussive blows accumulated over the years can lead to the same condition that clinically diagnosed concussions can, and it is possible that Thomas was eventually pushed over the edge in April, the month where college football teams traditionally hold spring training camps. In addition, CTE can only be ascertained post-mortem; a player could be completely ignorant of his condition and still be active on the gridiron. An autopsy of Andre Waters, a former defensive back for the Philadelphia Eagles known for his big hits, revealed a brain afflicted by CTE that was in a state befitting of an 80 year old man with dementia. Waters committed suicide in 2006 at the age of 43. Head injuries, regardless of visibility, matter.
But not all players are sentenced to shortened lives; there are methods and equipment to minimize the damages caused by the game of football. Concussed players can minimize long term issues by withdrawing from play and not getting hit until they pass mental tests given by team physicians. Properly fitted helmets designed with the latest technology can cushion blows to the head and tackling technique is taught to minimize the possibility of injury. The problem lies in their implementation and the perception of football players by the media and popular culture.
For example, two years ago, Anquan Boldin, a wide receiver known for his toughness and willingness to take big hits received a blow from another player’s helmet to his facemask so hard that he required surgery; forty titanium screws and seven metal plates were inserted into his face, and both players involved in the collision had Grade III, the highest level, concussions. The ESPN announcers, high profile media types, two weeks later when Boldin was back on the field despite the incredible trauma his brain took, praised him for taking “one of the great hits of all time” and being an “NFL tough guy.”[2] The primary issue with these statements is that rather than worrying about Boldin’s long term health is that these announcers glorified the incident, reflecting a culture that wants to see the big hit and lends incentive for players to hit as hard as they can. But as documented, such collisions have serious consequences down the road.
Furthermore, the trickledown effect to the lower levels of the game in college, high school, and even younger is pronounced. Kids look up to professional players and when their heroes are praised for laying down the wood, as the metaphor goes, kids in football leagues across the nation will seek to emulate their role models’ actions. Particularly with the proliferation of pro football on television to Thursday and Monday nights on top of Sundays and college football to every night Wednesday through Saturday, those actively interested in the game will be bombarded with messages from the media about how the bigger the hit, the more glory and fame the player receives. As a result, the number of concussions and frequency of head trauma will increase among youth and high school leagues.
Also consider that in college and professional games, helmets often come flying off and mouth guards are not always worn by players. If the stars of the sport are not wearing properly fitted equipment and gear designed to absorb impact and minimize trauma to the body’s soft tissue, such as the brain, then how do we expect those growing up in the sport to do the same? In an example of youth emulating a football star, many kids in Michigan have taken to keeping their shoelaces untied when they step onto the playing field. University of Michigan’s star quarterback, Denard Robinson, is infamously known as “Shoelace” because he runs and plays (and wins games) without tying his shoelaces. Never mind that Robinson uses Velcro to secure his footwear, members of youth leagues are endangering their still developing ankles and feet by not properly wearing key football gear. Football celebrities need to understand that their actions are going to be scrutinized by impressionable kids in a nation obsessed with their sport.
Coaches and staff also need to understand their roles in safeguarding the players they are responsible for, but there is little incentive for coaches to protect their players from long term harm, particularly with concussions. Mistreatment of a player in the short term, i.e. by putting a player back into the game after a significant hit and minor symptoms of head trauma, may lead to a win, the standard of success by which all coaches are measured. There will be no punishment for a coaching staff as long as wins are piled up and boosters are made happy with a winning football program. If a key player were to sit and the game was lost, the coach would take a fair amount of criticism and while players will always ask to be sent back to the field, and applauded for it as a sign of their “toughness,” coaches have the final say as to whether or not they are allowed to continue playing. Consider that at any level below high school, coaches are in charge of minors and that if these children suffer invisible brain injury, coaches are given a free pass. And in levels at college and above, coaches are held to extremely high standards of winning; thus they have near zero incentive to keep their players off the field long enough to properly heal.
Because healing is possible with proper evaluation and time spent away from the gridiron. But if not enough time is allotted for rest, then concussive effects are compounded and brain damage becomes exponentially greater with successive incidents. On top of that, comprehensive nutrition and weight lifting plans as players get older through high school, college, and the NFL means that players become stronger and faster and the force of each impact becomes greater through a career and concussions require more time to heal from. At the same time, the margin of error for coaches gets smaller and there becomes an immediate urgency to play the best players for a coach to keep his job regardless of the enduring consequences of such decisions. This inverse relationship demands more attention as it is a large negative influence on the health of those we watch on weekend nights.
And how we perceive abnormal mental health should be drastically altered. The culture of toughing it out, manning up, and not being a baby, all in drastically less polite terms, leads to players not seeking help when they feel something is not right. Ricky Williams, the running back for the Miami Dolphins, used to struggle with social anxiety disorder, a psychological condition that severely incapacitates an individual from interacting with others. After mustering the courage to tell his coach, he was told to “stop being a baby.” Williams happened to break his ankle at the same time and without pause, trainers and staff were hovering over him, watching out for any progress in the healing of his joint, the extreme contrast a reflection of the sport’s priorities. He later said that in football “a broken soul...is like a weakness." This macho culture of football denigrates the mere mentioning of problems in the head despite their relatively more important status compared to more physically visible ailments. If professional athletes are not going to seek help, then by what means do athletes at lower levels learn to humble themselves enough to get the proper care for their problems that are frequently common among the general population?
Ultimately, the health of our athletes is important and our culture has an imperative to ensure their safety. Physical activity in sports is essential to a healthy lifestyle and in a cultural phenomenon as large as it is in this country, football is an avenue through which people can exert themselves and have fun. But we cannot be endangering the long term health of those who play our most watched and followed sport by fostering a culture that encourages extremely risky long term behavior. All players need to understand that concussions and head trauma are serious issues. Coaches have to be given incentive to properly take care of their players and let them heal. The media cannot continue to lionize vicious hits and the dangerous tough guy mentality at the expense of safety. And most of all, college and professional football stars must understand that they are setting examples for the rest of the country and football’s fanatic fans. Because at its core, football is a beautiful game of strategy and tactics, performance under pressure, and intensely trained athleticism. But all this will be lost if the suicides and stories of brain injuries continue to mount and more kids and college students, who are the future of the game, are injured at a young age or kept away from the game by concerned parents. Football is truly America’s game; let’s protect a significant part of our culture by protecting those who love and play it.
Works consulted:
Easterbrook, Gregg. "Concussion hazards must be addressed." ESPN Page 2. September 21, 2010. http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=easterbrook/100921_tuesday_morning_quarterback (accessed September 21, 2010).
Wertheim, Jon. "McKinley's apparent suicide casts light on athletes' risk of depression." Sports Illustrated. September 21, 2010. http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2010/writers/jon_wertheim/09/21/depression/index.html?eref=sihp (accessed September 22, 2010).