Football is a great, seemingly all-American sport. It promotes teamwork and physical fitness, and unites high schools behind a spirited but harmless rivalry.
Harmless? Apparently not. For the second time this year, a high school football player has died on the field as a result of head injuries:
Football has revealed itself to be one of the most dangerous major sports in America. Besides the broken bones (etc.) lasting trauma and damage to the brain have proven deadly for players. Concussions range in effects, from the extremes–like the unfortunate Charles Youvella (from the article above) who died just hours after his concussion–to more subtle but no less deadly effects, like Chronic Traumatic Encephelopathy which has been linked to depression and suicide in 4 NFL players.
Approximately 120 American football players have died playing football in the past decade alone. By contrast, the last time a cross country runner, tennis player, badminton player, or swimmer died from his/her sport was, well, never.
Football is engrained in American culture. But everything changes eventually. Should the youth in America make a concerted effort to shift our focus away from this needlessly harmful sport? Or is the contribution to our lives and culture enough to make up for the 12 Americans who die each year on the football field? I suppose the argument could be made that people die in everything–car crashes, earthquakes, war... yet the two high schoolers just buried might or might not change your perspective.
4 comments:
Like Travis mentioned, football is deeply rooted in the American culture and I do not see it going away anytime soon. On a personal level, watching football is a weekly tradition in my house, so my family would definitely not want to see it go away. However, like Travis noted, horrible injuries are a common effect of this rough sport. Realistically, whether people like it or not, football is never going to go away, so I think the only way to prevent future injuries is to improve the equipment and rules of the game. For example, the NFL has already tried to make improvements by fining players who tackle their opponent "head to head." Although, this does not necessarily stop players from doing things like this, I think "head to head" tackling will eventually fade out of the sport. Also, I think that there can always be improvements on helmets, pads, etc, which can ultimately prevent future injuries as well.
What great timing, Travis! The Outlook published a great piece on HS sports concussions in our November issue—which came out today!
Check it out here: http://aragonoutlook.org/2013/11/concussions-high-school-sports/
Be sure to also check out Spencer's account of a high school sports (baseball, not football, concussion here:
http://aragonoutlook.org/2013/11/outlook-sports-writers-experience-sustaining-concussion/
I have no idea until reading this post and reading the article/hearing about it in journalism class that this was such a large issue. It's crazy to hear the stats about how many football related head injuries there are at the HS level.
I think, like Paige, that football is here to stay. The injuries at a professional level are a different story in my books, but to think about high school students... it does seem wrong to me. Now the solution is not to cancel US football, but there must be some way that schools can adjust the game, still have it be competitive, and not put students at such a high risk. Regardless, people will get hurt doing sports—then again you can get hurt walking down the stairs or slip on the sidewalk—so those who participate need to be willing to take the risks. I think this already happens anyway.
This is a fascinating topic. I cannot help but point out that there are some philosophical concerns attached to the issue of football: Is it worth it to risk one's life for a sport? What constitutes an acceptable risk? It says in the article that football is using army helmets as inspiration for their own helmets. There is something rather darkly ironic about that. Football is a sport, but football players need the same amount of head protection as soldiers in the army?
Thank you for the link, Kira. That was an interesting article.
I agree that football isn't leaving. But I think that we should be conscious of the risks that we ask athletes to take. Being afraid in sports is considered a negative thing, and certainly unnecessary fear is unfortunate and potentially dangerous. However, a healthy fear of a head-on tackle is probably a good thing to have.
I don't think that we should hide ourself in our house because we're afraid of the dangers the world may bring, but neither should we unnecessarily take risks. I don't know where the happy medium is, but I don't think that we've reached it yet as a society.
Personally, I do not believe that football will ever be successfully shifted from our focus, as it is such a dominant sport in our lives and even our culture. Instead of turning away from the sport, I think what we can do is to raise awareness for the dangers that playing football can bring. I feel that a major problem is not the sport itself, but the way athletes are forced to train in order to compete with each other to be the best. I believe that finding a balance between work and rest is key, and I hope that everyone can find this balance soon.
Post a Comment