The new football season
looms before us. Olympic memories linger, but the countdown to football dominates sports radio and ESPN. Fans and media cannot wait for the game and the carnage. But before we jump in to enjoy the sport,
let’s remember the shadow that hangs over every football player and game as
well as our support of it.
Football can kill the
soul of players.
Junior Seau, a NFL
icon, shot himself in the chest in May. He joins three former professional
football players who committed suicide in the last two years. Several were diagnosed
after the fact with mental illness caused by brain damage related from
repetitive head trauma. Seau’s brain has also been diagnosed as suffering from CSE a progressive disease resulting from repeated head trauma. It contributed to his erratic behavior and suicide.
Football kills the soul by destroying brain functioning. The brain suffers from the generation of webs of plaque in the brain that destroy neural
communication and processing. These plaque entanglements seem to be caused by
repetitive head injuries, mainly traumatic concussions. Repetitive
impact alone may also do as much damage in creating the
nodes of tau proteins that anchor these tangles. The tangles lock up
neurons and disrupt the brain’s neural ability to communicate and sustain a
bioelectrical balance.
In July 2012 over 3000 former
players consolidated their law suit claiming the NFL “deliberately and
fraudulently” withheld and discouraged knowledge about the damage football was doing
to the brains of football players. The law suit reflects accumulating knowledge
about the cognitive impacts of injury as well as a widespread and belated
recognition that while football is a violent and dangerous game, its damage lay
far deeper and more sinister than destroyed knees, brutalized ACLs, wrecked
shoulders and crippled players late middle age.
I have written about
this often. I talked of Achilles Revenge where athletes choose to risk their health for glory and wealth in exchange for physical pain. The brain trauma goes beyond physical pain. The neural damage undermines judgment and manufactures
erratic emotional responses. Players can suffer from dementia, chronic
traumatic encephalopathy. CTE induces depression, loss of memory, unpredictable
emotional swings and aberrant decision-making. Player’s emotional and
judgmental resources erode. The more we know the more we understand the issues may be underreported.
This erosion of
judgment, emotional stability and resilience combines with the normal physical pain and status loss retired players face. The loss of their locker room camaraderie and support
compounds this isolation. Roman Oben a 12-year veteran puts it this way, “they
spend the rest of their lives being shadows of who they were at 25.”
The result?
The rash of suicides by
retired football players augments the compelling evidence that a significant
percentage of football players may struggle with declining cognitive limits and
depression in rates beyond the regular population. After Jay Easterling killed
himself with a handgun, his wife Mary Ann commented, “He felt like his brain
was falling off…He was losing control. He couldn’t remember things from five
minutes ago.” Earlier Dave Duerson had shot himself in the chest to preserve
his brain for further study.
No other sport spawns
this level of suicide. Sometimes suicide can be contagious as a way out of the
emotional and spiritual pain of watching your personality slip away and losing control of all you value. No one knows how many ex-players struggle
with mental illness induced by the brain trauma. No one knows the causal
pathways. No one knows much about it because the NFL worked hard to discredit any research in this area.
The country will not
outlaw football. Many present and former players resent efforts
to mitigate the violence and long-term harm. They represent the classic
commitment psychology of someone who has invested in the trauma and identity of
the sport. They experience this as a form of initiation for them
and the sport. If they did it, so should the young players. A number of players and commentators have already attacked the new NFL contract that places strict limits upon the level of contact in camp to protect the long-term welfare of players. They bitterly complain that drawing down the level of violence limits the ability of young players to demonstrate their toughness and beat out veterans. Others just say, “I’d do it all again.” So the players’ law
suit focuses upon informing players and not regulating the game.
This solution flows from the free choice defense. The
players and league want to ensure that the new draftees have adequate
information about the threats. The players can make “informed” choice.
Let’s look at what
this informed consent might look like. We have to ask a person to make a
decision to risk potential loss of their personality when they are 22 years old. We need to remember that human begins tend to
overestimate catastrophic consequences but underestimate small losses. People
also tend to be over optimistic in their own projections about how they will
avoid statistical dangers to themselves. The informed negotiation leading to the brain trauma deal might
look like this:
Drafted Player (DP)
“I have a chance to
live my dream. I got drafted! This is incredible.”
Advisor/Agent (AA)
“Fantastic. Now we can
negotiate with the teams to get you're a contract that matches your slot.”
RP “How soon can we start?”
AA “I meet with the team in two days, but before I
begin we need to talk about something that a recent settlement with the league
mandates.”
DP “Got it. What’s up?”
AA “Well, I need to alert you to the fact that
football can be dangerous to your health. Here is a list of the
dangers. I also have a video you can watch.”
DP “Come on man. Of course I know that. I have
three surgeries to prove it. This is news?
Football is a violent and dangerous game, I know that.”
AA “Well I need you to read this disclaimer and
check the part of about brain trauma, dementia and compromised judgment.”
DP “Yeah, I’ll read it, but I know this stuff.
I’m not afraid of this. My bonus will cover it all. Besides, this stuff is a
hundred years in the future.”
AA “Well actually, it’s about 20 to 30 years in
the future, but you are right, most of these injuries start to impact you in
your late forties. Sadly Chris Henry suffered it when he was 26. I also want to remind
you that we may need to set aside some funds for this just in case from your
signing bonus or your first year.”
DP “Look, this is stupid. I am 23. I will be
fine and besides I owe it to my mom and friends to take care of them. I
promised my mom a new house, and I want her out of where she lives. Man, I
suffered for this, and I want my return. She deserves this. I can take care of
the stuff later. I’ve got a lot of money. Right now, just get the
money so I can take care of my family.”
AA “I just want to be clear. Football is
dangerous and brutal and violent. We both know that. Well, the court settlement does give you the
option of talking to some guys, watching videos or going to a panel to talk
about how to think about these injuries and prepare for it.”
DP “I know what I’m getting into. I have the
scars on my knee and shoulder to prove it. Besides I’m a lineman, and I’ve
never had a concussion so I’m not that worried about it.”
AA “Well some doctors think it’s not about concussions,
but it about repetition. A number of players have had serious brain issues
without any real concussions.”
DP “Ok, OK. I’ll think about it. But I’ll take
the risk. This is my one shot, my one chance. Football is what got me here. I
owe it to myself and to my family. Besides I’ve read the interviews. Most of
the guys say they’d do it all again even if they have sore knees.”
AA “Well, OK. But remember you have been duly
notified as required by the terms of the court settlement.”
DP “By the way, what do the guys who have
suffered brain damage say about how they are handling it.”
AA “Well it’s kind of hard to figure out.”
DP “What?”
AA “Well. You know for some of the guys.
Well, you know. Well, it’s like this.”
DP “What are you getting to? Come on, spit it
out.”
AA “Well. A lot of them are not compos mentis.”
DP “Come on. I’ve got a degree, but I did not
take French.”
AA “Well they aren’t really all the able to talk
about how they are doing. You see, well. You see. Well a couple are
living with tubes in their throats and respirators. Some of them are not all
that stable or coherent all the time.”
DP “This is getting a little weird.”
AA “Look I’m trying to help. Think of it this
way. You get wealth, privilege, fun and status for awhile.”
DP “Yeah. I know. That’s the whole point of
this.”
AA “Well the other side is. You potentially give
them your soul.”
DP “This is a little metaphysical man, are you
sure you are OK?”
AA “I just want you to know. Their wives do most of the talking.”
DP “Well I read about some other guys who were
big names like Seau and Easterboork who were struggling with this. What did
they say?”
AA “Well, they can’t say much. They committed
suicide.”
DRP “Your’e shitten me, man. Look man, this is
getting us nowhere. What do you expect me to do, go manage a car rental office? --- This won’t happen to
me. Let’s make this happen.”
So much for informed
consent changing decisions of players.
Every one of us entering a career embarks on a path that will change us. We seldom know what our future
self will look like when we enter a job world. Sometimes we
discover that our path is destroying what we value in ourselves, and we change
jobs or change careers. Sometimes ten years down the road we look in the mirror
and no longer recognize the person we have become.
Throughout our life we negotiate over the person we are and the person we are becoming. None of us really knows how we will end up, but we do know that the person we become will be is shaped by the work we do. No different with football, but the impact can be a little more severe.
Throughout our life we negotiate over the person we are and the person we are becoming. None of us really knows how we will end up, but we do know that the person we become will be is shaped by the work we do. No different with football, but the impact can be a little more severe.
No person easily or
rationally risks his or her personality and capacity to be a human decision
maker. The core of our humanity lies in our ability to feel, think and shape
our life; it depends upon our brain working. The stealthy soul death brought on
the brain trauma induced by impacts condemn players to a living
death, far beyond their imagination.
Expecting informed
individual choice option to address the brain damage threat is an illusion. It
makes as much sense as the older argument that coal miners made a free choice
to enter the mines and accept black lung disease compared to unemployment. The
solutions remain similar. The sport and unions need to continue aggressive and
continued research and interventions to minimize the long-term damage. The other path should involve joint contributions to a fund to support later life victims of the brain damage and soul loss that no one
should have to bargain away.
The odds are that
individual players will not build up a fund. Mary Ann Easterling, whose husband committed suicide, summed it up, "I'd
also like to see the NFL take care of the players that do have symptoms or
could possibly have symptoms."
The league and union
need to do this. It is the least they can do for the sentence that some players
will consign themselves to.
Excellent piece. I am very glad I discouraged my son from playing football (though I think baseball left him with elbow damage I wasn't quick enough to stop).
ReplyDeleteNot only at the college or pro level, but at the lowest levels, we need to re-examine our culture of "being manly," "playing through the pain," and "getting in there," because MOST kids do not grow up to cash a professional athlete salary.
pandora bracelet
ReplyDeletekd 10
balenciaga shoes
canada goose outlet
kyrie 6 shoes
adidas yeezy
nike kyrie 5
golden goose outlet
pandora jewelry
yeezys