NIH Neuroscientists: Junior Seau Had Brain Disease Caused By Hits To the Head 240
McGruber writes "ABC News/ESPN broke the story that a team of scientists from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) analyzed the brain tissue of renowned NFL linebacker Junior Seau and have concluded that the football player suffered a debilitating brain disease likely caused by two decades worth of hits to the head. From the article: 'In May 2012, Seau, 43 — football's monster in the middle, a perennial all-star and defensive icon in the 1990s whose passionate hits made him a dominant figure in the NFL — shot himself in the chest at his home in Oceanside, Calif., leaving behind four children and many unanswered questions.'
As Slashdot earlier reported, more than 30 NFL players have in recent years been diagnosed with chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a condition once known as 'punch drunk' because it affected boxers who had taken multiple blows to the head."
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Re:Concusion detection tech (Score:5, Interesting)
They should remove the damn helmets and pads. The reason you get the huge hits is because of them. People hit harder because you have 'protection'. Which leads to worse injuries. It's like asking someone to run into a wall. If you run into the wall with a helmet you're going to hit harder because the bits that you can feel don't hurt as much but there is still internal damage. Compared to running straight into a wall unprotected. It's going to hurt your forehead probably before it hurts the brain.
I'd love to see the same results from career Rugby players.
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The NFL is not a contact sport, it is a collision sport. The collisions are fundamental to the way the game is played. Your theory works well for things like Boxing -> MMA, but the game would change entirely if this path was followed. There's too much invested by athletes, fans, businesses, and future stars to make such a black-and-white change.
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The NFL is not a contact sport, it is a collision sport. The collisions are fundamental to the way the game is played. Your theory works well for things like Boxing -> MMA, but the game would change entirely if this path was followed. There's too much invested by athletes, fans, businesses, and future stars to make such a black-and-white change.
you know why it's a collision sport and not a cool sport about contact and guys doing cool parkour runs over others? BECAUSE OF THE FUCKING PADDINGS.
remove 'em. people will adjust playstyles accordingly. certainly they wont be hitting their heads into each other for 20 years, they'll stop after one and the injuries are less hidden.
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> If there is data that airbags, anti-lock brakes, or 4wd make cars less safe to due to overconfidence, that would be relevant.
They do. Replace airbags with knives. People won't drive faster than 5 MPH and crashes will all but eliminated. Airbags make cars safer given the situation where people refuse to slow down.
If people are going to drive 70 MPH then airbags make cars safer at 70 MPH. But if you include the scenario where people never go faster than 5 MPH then airbags would actually cause more damag
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Replace airbags with knives
It is called the windshield
Seriously though, accidents happened a lot before air bags and even before seat belts and people didn't drive 5 mph because of it. Not all accidents are caused by something the driver did.
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Not all accidents are caused by something the driver did.
None of them are, in fact. Accidents are always caused by something the other driver did.
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4WD actually has nothing to do with safety and has to do with grip.
Such pure BS, the only two accidents I've had were due to lack of grip (hydroplaning), grip is control and control is necessary for safety.
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4wd doesn't have anything to do with hydroplaning.
Let me rephrase that since you have obviously never used a 4WD vehicle. 4WD will assist in grip at low speeds to START moving. All vehicles already have four wheel braking. Four wheel drive won't help you slow down. It won't stop you from hydroplaning.
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When your car starts to oversteer on a slippery surface, the very *last* thing you want to do is brake.
You need traction on the road to keep the car under control, and 4WD gives you 2 more surfaces that can transfer power from the engine to the road.
On a long hydroplane...you're pretty much screwed, but if you skip over a wet surface and end up on the tarmac at an angle to your vector, 4WD will help getting the car straight again.
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Grip = Traction = Less Spin Outs in Rain and Ice.
Re:Concusion detection tech (Score:5, Interesting)
Runners who use minimalist/no shoes generally use a forefoot/midfoot strike (the ball of the foot hits the ground first), while those with thickly padded shoes are usually heel-strikers.
Heel strikers tend to run more upright, with the heel landing well forward of the runner's center of gravity, while fore/midfoot strikers lean more foreward, with the foot landing almost under the CG. It's like you are always just 'falling forward', with your feet catching you from falling on your face. It takes some getting used to, but the effect is much lower impact than heel striking.
The reasoning is twofold: 1) If your foot lands well forward of your CG, you are effectively retarding your forward progress and increasing the force traveling up your legs, and 2) By striking with the heel, you remove the flexing of the foot and calf muscles as a shock absorber, and the force travels directly up the leg - right up into your knee. The padding in the heel of the shoe (and it's always the heels that are heavily padded) don't make up for the loss of the foot/calf system as a shock absorber.
You can run using a fore/midfoot strike with a thickly padded shoe, but the thick heel just seems to get in the way.
Re:Concusion detection tech (Score:5, Informative)
You're joking, right?
Concussion in Rugby is hidden epidemic [sciencedaily.com]
Concerns rise over rugby concussion risk [bbc.co.uk]
Concern at lack of rugby head injury reporting [bbc.co.uk]
Rugby players urged to donate their brains to help head-injury research [scotsman.com]
The saddest part is your bullshit got modded as interesting and insightful.
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Can you provide any numbers that compare the rate of injuries? Just because concussions are a concern in rugby (as they are in any sport) doesn't mean that they are at rates higher than that of football.
And per thousand hours of play I'd say that they're significantly less considering that the average NFL game has 11 minutes of action compared to a 90 minute Rugby game.
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Do you understand why they added protection in the first place? It's the same with all those stupid macho arguments about football players wearing all that protection while rugby players don't and therefore are manly.
here's the spoiler. it's because people died. Football is a collision sport, that is different from rugby and hockey, even though they certainly have some high speed collisions, it is not as constant.
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FTS: "In its infancy during the late nineteenth century, the game of football was still a work in progress that only remotely resembled the sport millions follow today. There was no common agreement about many of the game’s basic rules, and it was incredibly violent and extremely dangerous. An American version of rugby, this new game grew popular even as the number of casualties rose. Numerous
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This is a common refrain of old school guys from before the helmet or facemask era. The game is simply too fast to remove helmets. You *might* slow down play a bit, but you won't stop the incidental head collisions that cause a lot of concussions (guys hitting their head on the turf, getting kneed, etc).
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Without the padding, American football would be almost indistinguishable from rugby. Why not just rename the NFL to the NRL, and get rid of American football altogether? I would be in favor of that, but that's just not realistic.
Re:Concusion detection tech (Score:5, Interesting)
The fundamental difference is that - as sports of strategy - rugby football is real-time while American football is turn-based.
Rugby is far more improvisational while American football is far more orchestrated. That's not to say that rugby can't have set plays and that American football can't be spontaneous, but I think the generalisation is accurate. That also means that rugby players are more jacks-of-all-trades and American football players are specialists.
The fastest guy on a rugby football team also has to be able to make and shrug off tackles and (pardon the arcane terminology) clean out at rucks; the biggest guy on a rugby team also has to be able to run and catch and pass and kick. Possession can change in an instant. In rugby you have to be able to go from playing offense to defense and back at the drop of a hat and for long uninterrupted passages of play without a whistle going. A rugby player has to be able to do a bit of every other player's job if circumstances require.
In American football every step, every pass, every hit is planned out and prepared for in advance and the positions and responsibilities are far more specialised. The offensive teams specialise in offense, the defensive teams in defense, and the special teams in kicking plays. Large numbers of complex pre-planned plays have to be memorised. A top-level punt returner would probably make a top-level rugby winger - each the fastest man on his team - look laughably slow. A defensive tackle would probably make a rugby prop - each the heaviest strongest man on his team - look frickin' anorexic.
The notion of taking a rest on the sideline while a specialist team takes its turn on the field is alien shit to a rugby player. Similarly the notion of the biggest guy on the field spontaneously making a run down the sideline (entirely on his own initiative, without ever having discussed it with his teammates or coaches) before getting smashed by the fastest guy on the other team is a scenario that seems just as alien to an American footballer.
TLDR? Basically rugby is Starcraft while American football is Civilization.
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... system of downs, the snap, the clock, the overtime rules, the shape of the ball, the field goal kick, the position of the goal posts, blocking...
...and an almost fanatical devotion to the Pope.
Re:Concusion detection tech (Score:5, Informative)
I play Rugby. I've torn both ACLs. I've had numerous other injuries. But when you knock heads with someone there are
In a similar manner to how the people with congenital insensitivity to pain [wikipedia.org] end up with more damage to their body because they have no pain feedback. Your brain has no internal pain receptors. It's why they can perform awake open brain surgeries. But you do have an extensive network of pain nerves all over your skull. By mitigating the pain the rest of the skull feels (with helmets) you're preventing the body from knowing when it is starting to damage the brain.
Re:Concusion detection tech (Score:5, Insightful)
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Thank you for what? Spreading bullshit? Concussions are a major issue in Rugby.
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Statistics per thousand player hours?
The average NFL game has 11 minutes of action. Split that into offense and defense means you have 5.5 minutes of action per game. Then toss in a 17 game season and you have 93.5 minutes of game time per team. Yet you're still seeing injuries of this quantity.
93.5 minutes is slightly longer than your average Rugby game. A rugby player will see 93.5 minutes of action in 4 games at most.
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You can't only count game time. Full and Half contact practices occur also. There is pre-season and post season. Certainly, post-season stakes are higher so players risk more, hit harder, and play with more intensity.
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congenital insensitivity to pain [wikipedia.org]
Hey, thanks for posting that link; I always thought maybe I was just crazy, as my automatic reaction to intense pain is equally intense laughter.
It's nice to know I'm not alone in that respect.
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I play Rugby. I've torn both ACLs. I've had numerous other injuries. But when you knock heads with someone there are
... "?"
Are we to assume that knocking heads causes one to lose track of what one is saying? Sounds serious.
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Obviously you've never played touch hockey.
Just because some idiots like to damage and beat their body up doesn't mean the rest of us do.
Re:Concusion detection tech (Score:5, Informative)
Yep. Just like you see all the time in Rugby... except you don't. Rugby Injuries: A Review of Concepts and Current Literature [kevinkaplanmd.com]. If you count actual injuries per 1000 hours of playing time professional Rugby has fewer injuries than the NFL.
And given a choice between a broken bone and permanent brain damage, I'll take the broken bone.
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Injuries, particularly head injuries, are notoriously underreported in rugby. It's almost comical.
Re:Concusion detection tech (Score:5, Informative)
It's less, but not by much.
11.3% for high school rugby [nih.gov]
15.3% for high school football [k12.ia.us]
Professional injuries don't bother me nearly as much as the amount of injuries that occur in high school and even earlier. I don't see how you could reasonable argue that either concussion rate is acceptable at all, and the uncertainties in these studies actually overlap.
Re:Concusion detection tech (Score:5, Informative)
11.3 concussions per 100 player-seasons.
15.3% players sustained concussions per season.
These numbers are not comparable.
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In football, 15.3% of players sustained concussions per season. No information on how many concussions each of those players, on average or in total, sustained.
Being concussed once *drastically* raises the likelihood that you will be concussed again. It is extremely likely that far fewer than 11.3% of rugby players sustain a concussion each season, and also extrem
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Which due to rarity will be far better than the current situation. They will also get immediate treatment and not sent back out to get another concussion.
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What would the sensors actually accomplish? I'm just curious- it seems like they would be great for gathering data about how harmful the sport already is, but do you propose that mandatory in-game penalties should be imposed for hitting or being hit too hard? Mandatory player rest periods after hits? Maximum number of impacts per season?
If it's used something like a dosimeter, where once a player got so many hits he would have to be sidelined, then I suppose a lot more linebackers would get to play in the
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Sure, why not? What other industry do we allow free reign to cause known harm to their employees?
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All the fighting sports?
Boxing of various types.
Wrestling of various types.
Survival Contests (real ones, not reality TV shows).
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How can you start the discussion that football is too dangerous to partake in by the millions. You cannot convincingly get across the point that this sport causes more suffering than joy created by spectating. This is what the sensors are for, gathering scientific data showing the causes of future mental issues. Then the discussion can begin.
Stopping multiple concussions from occurring within a short time will stop unnecessary injury, as you suggest, so there will be immediate gains.
Horse already out of the barn (Score:2)
There exist sensors that can be placed into the helment and detect hits that are potentially damaging.
If those are triggered then the damage is already done. More to the point if you are in a sport where that sort of thing is necessary, perhaps playing that sport isn't such a good idea. I have nothing particularly against american style football as a sport (heck I've taken boxing lessons) but if we're causing that much damage then maybe we should reconsider our entertainment choices.
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There are also helmets which supposedly reduce the risk of concussions, but the NFL won't mandate them for some reason. They keep saying that they think for some reason that attempting to protect players would make them more liable in a lawsuit if a player still ended up with a concussion. That would only really be the case if the NFL false promised they are guaranteed to prevent concussions.
But part of the problem is that many of these helmets are designed to help protect against the most violent blows, wh
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The players are against the NFL controlling the equipment they choose. Its purely an issue caused by the NFLPA, the player's union. The NFL has tried to get that inserted but the NFLPA wants concessions if they do.
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There exist sensors that can be placed into the helment and detect hits that are potentially damaging.
WARNING! You just took a hit to the cranium that likely damaged your brain! Would you like to continue?
Yea, fat lot of good it'll do to let them know they mind-fucked themselves after the fact...
Something something ounce of prevention, something something pound of cure.
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Obligatory SMBC (Score:5, Funny)
It's even in the same paragraph this time! (Score:2)
a condition once known as 'punch drunk' because it affected boxers who had taken multiple blows to the head
As opposed to the boxers that never get hit in the head in their entire career? The entire sport is giving each other concussions and you hear more complaints about the NFL than boxing these days. I think the loudest whiners are just soccer fans and/or people who don't like football.
Re:It's even in the same paragraph this time! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:It's even in the same paragraph this time! (Score:5, Insightful)
Yet golf had unsurpassed popularity when Tiger Woods took over, and the predominantly white hockey still lags behind the other pro sports like football, basketball, and baseball.
More people play football (Score:2)
The entire sport is giving each other concussions and you hear more complaints about the NFL than boxing these days
Not many people are in the sport of boxing. A few thousand nationwide maybe. Football on the other hand is wildly popular with participation counts likely in the millions. While your point is valid, we can prevent a lot more injuries by worrying about football.
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It's not that people hate football. I honestly love to watch football. I grew up in Buffalo during Jim Kelly's prime. There was nothing finer than watching sixty minutes of hurry-up offense, believe me.
But there's two things. One, the amount of litigation is about to go ballistic. The NFL is flush with cash and everyone knows it, and retirees and their widows everywhere are lawyering up.
Two, no one in good conscience is going to let their kids go out for football anymore. No one. Would you let your
In Fine Slashdot Traditon (Score:5, Insightful)
In fine Slashdot tradition, let's hear from 52 people telling us that correlation does not imply causation and that only people with brain trauma or predisposed to it play football.
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Well it does take an idiot to play it.
Still better than the Slashdot tradition where instead of arguing against an opinion you simply restate it like it would somehow invalidate it.
Re:In Fine Slashdot Traditon (Score:4, Interesting)
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it's still boring if you understand it. maybe even more so.
seriously playing madden '91(or whatever year it was, ega graphics, dos) was kinda fun.
watching it is much less so.
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Football is perhaps the most complex of the major sports. To excel at it, especially at the NFL level, you have to be fairly intelligent.
I've got nothing to say about the rest of your comment, but this statement is absolutely not true. I went to high school with William "The Refrigerator" Perry (a very successful NFL player). I bet even he would laugh at the suggestion that he is "fairly intelligent".
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The game has changed significantly in the decades since he played. Pure size is no longer the advantage it once was.
Offensive and defensive playbooks are quite complex. New packages and formations are installed every week. And it isn't simply memorizing a great deal of information. Players (especially at professional levels) need quick reasoning skills to analyze everything unfolding around them at blistering speeds.
Before the NFL draft, incoming players go through a combine. Vertical leap, 40 yard dash tim
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In fine Slashdot tradition, let's hear from 52 people telling us that correlation does not imply causation and that only people with brain trauma or predisposed to it play football.
I've got a different argument.
It's a dangerous sport and there are a multitude of ways the players can get seriously hurt. The players know that going in, and are willing to take on the risks for the rewards. What exactly is the problem?
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In fine Slashdot tradition, let's hear from 52 people telling us that correlation does not imply causation and that only people with brain trauma or predisposed to it play football.
Negative. I put it to you: Natural Selection will eventually correct for this. We pay them a lot, the star players are sexually and socially desirable.
Eventually we'll grow thicker skulls and/or our brains will shrink to contain more fluid, much like a wood pecker's... Much in the same way that "tall dark and handsome" has lead to taller darker and more sexy humans... Now if we could just get on board with crotchless pants, all guys could finally grow giant cocks.
Are we surprised (Score:2)
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While you are correct - people's perceptions of gains / harms are amazingly enough, strongly biased by how much they stand to gain from the behavior, getting this message out to the general public time and time again is needed if the overall perception of those activities is to change.
While American Football (Commercial Ball? Beer Ball?) will be the social core of many a small town for years to come, real football ('soccer') is slowly gaining respect and support in no small part because it is perceived as h
didn't shoot himself in the head? (Score:3)
Interesting that he didn't shoot himself in the head. I wonder if that was a calculated move so that scientists could examine his brain to find the cause of his debilitating brain injuries?
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Yes, it was.
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Could be. According to Wikipedia, "Seau's death recalled the 2011 suicide of former NFL player Dave Duerson, who shot himself in the chest and left a suicide note requesting that his brain be studied for brain trauma.[31][32]" That could be where he got the idea. Seau didn't leave a note, though.
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Another less famous player died in the same manner, but I believe he left a note saying to study his brain. Since this was in the same manner, it was believed Seau was trying to say the same thing.
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He left a suicide note saying that's why he didn't shoot himself in the head.
Only The Brain? (Score:2)
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My suspicion has always been that steroids HAD to have something to do with this because 1.) only some players are affected and 2.) a body builder friend from college who told me about all his roid-raging friends. But, I think there've been recent studies showing no correlation.
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Think about the damage caused to OTHERS by the steroids that football players take.
The hits are artificially made harder than "normal."
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Too bad the family didn't have doctors study what years of (alleged) steroid abuse did to him. Easier to point the finger at someone else, I suppose.
Don't need to, there's already a control group for that - baseball players.
All the same steroid abuse as the NFL, minus the repeated head injuries.
Changes to football are coming... (Score:2)
It's inevitable that the game of 'football' is going to have to drastically change its rules to take away the traumatic brain injuries. It will start with high school football, then college, then the NFL. What school district or college can afford lawsuits over that? Maybe it will have to become flag football or, more likely, some sort of hybrid with limited blocking and tackling. Whatever results, though, the Football 2.0 rules will end the present situation where brain injuries are a certainty.
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We have the technology, this should be easy! (Score:2)
What we need to do is remove the skull of football players and put more padding around the brain. There would be a new permanent skull-helmet placed over the brain-padding to protect from cuts and sharp edges. I'm sure all the football players will look rather strange with giant heads, but we would get used to it after a short while. On the plus side for the players, they will be very easy to recognize out in public, so their fame will go up even more.
eliminate substitution (Score:3)
I'm pretty much in the "eliminate helmets" camp, but also think that eliminating substitution, or requiring, say, 10 plays from scrimmage before a player can leave the field would help too. Right now, many players are on the field for one play and they know they'll be subbed out for the next play (different yards to first down or whatever), so they go all-out no matter what.
If players had to control themselves so they could function for 10 straight plays, they might throttle back a bit. Plus it would force them to learn offense and defense, which I think would be a lot more interesting.
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football
I think you meant to type "handegg".
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No, he just needed to make it clear that this was a reference to the non-gay one.
The non-gay football? You mean the one with less contact than the other one [wordpress.com]?
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You forgot the scrotum-sniffing.
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This has nothing to do with statism. Conscientious parents simply aren't going to let their kids go out for football. Who wants to set their kids up for a lifetime of this - particularly if it increases their likelihood of an early death, of suicide, violence off the field or debilitating mental illness?
Why does everything have to be a political argument? This mostly has to do with being humane. If you wouldn't want this to happen to yourself or your loved ones, why would you pay to see it happen to s
Re:Phut Bawh (Score:4, Insightful)
Why does everything have to be a political argument? This mostly has to do with being humane. If you wouldn't want this to happen to yourself or your loved ones, why would you pay to see it happen to somebody else?
Because for generations school funding had been diverted away from the fundamentals of an enriching education in favor of sanctioned sports. And as the public school system crumble with teachers and professionals alike saying we need to focus on education, our politicians gladly raise our taxes only for the windfall to again be mismanaged into non-priority academics.
Best case is that it was blind loyalty to a stupid game of tribalism, worst case is that it's intentional to keep the cup rattling for more money.
Re:Phut Bawh (Score:5, Interesting)
Frankly I wish they would dispense with the half-assed warfare of football, and bring back the gladiatorial games. Instead of mock battles over some stupid ball and goal posts, let's just move the game straight to big motherfuckers cutting each other to pieces. We can triple their pay, and they likely won't make it to 40, let alone to the point where they start suffering the ill effects of neurological damage.
I mean, if these guys are going to end up brain damaged messes in the end anyways, why not just short circuit all of that and go for the blood. That's what audiences really want, anyways. I can just see Hank Williams Jr. shouting "It's time for Monday Night Slaughterhouse!"
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I don't think there's as much "sport" in a gladitorial game as compared to our popular sporting events. If you're dealing lethal blows to one another, it takes only a momentary slip for a prime athlete to fall and high-level competition is diminished as a result of this loss.
In Boxing and MMA, there are long slugging matches, but sometimes you have one clean shot that ends the match in the first round. I'm aware that vast amounts of training had gone into living up events into that one clean shot, but it ma
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Hang gliding, bungi jumping, sky diving, piloting private planes, piano-lifting, writing bad checks, Class B fireworks, running with scissors - what is it exactly that you want to do that our oppressive statist jack-booted government is preventing you from doing?
Pretty sure he's talking about teh marijuana.
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We can only hope. Football is now scientifically proven to be more dangerous than marijuana. It's time to start sending football players to jail.
Re:Go figure. (Score:5, Informative)
Well, I hope your son never plays soccer beyond the Recreational level. Part of the game is heading the ball, which can travel quite fast. It may be a very light ball compared to other sports, but remember your physics lessons: it doesn't matter what it weighs if it's moving fast enough. Pro soccer players (the linked article is about a pro sport, yeah?) often have brain damage from taking hundreds of shots to the noggin from a ball traveling 60+ mph; and that's the low end of a kick, there are players who can kick for 80+ mph, and a few who claim 90+ mph.
I think you're suffering from a condition called "over-protective parent disorder." ALL sports have risk involved. Some more than others, yes, but the two examples you give are also dangerous. ACL/MCL tears and ankle problems (along with the above example) are major parts of soccer. Swimming? Drowning doesn't seem to be very fun- and yes, it does happen.
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There hasn't been an awful lot of research that I know of about CTE in soccer. But some early studies show that heading the ball in soccer is pretty similar to the frequent low level collisions that linemen experience in football. In a game a player is not going to head the ball that frequently. But in practice they often do.
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Multiple hits cause chronic damage. That's why I kept my son out of hockey, and why I'll keep him out of football as well. Soccer and swimming seem relatively safe. Being Canadian, a lot of people rag on anyone who says that hockey is dangerous for hits (like that twit Don Cherry) but it's just obvious.
Any physical activity can cause any injury. Sure, they may not end up as one with 25 years of head injuries, but end up with a limp and arthritis at the ripe old age of 35 as well. I played football back in the day and other contact sports. It's fun. It's more fun if you are decent at your particular sport. I'm sure it's even more fun when you are a top flight athlete, like those in the professional ranks. I've seen cheerleaders (girls) who have chronic knee and back problems a few years after high school
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Soccer does actually have higher concussion rates in youth sports than football.
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> a lot of people rag on anyone who says that hockey is dangerous for hits
Reminds me of that old joke: I went to the fights and a hockey game broke out.
We've had touch hockey, touch football, etc, for years. It helps keeps the focus on _gameplay_, not the gratuitous and idiotic hitting. It is barbaric that men are so stupid that they have to revert to violence for entertainment. /sarcasm Who cares if someone gets permanent damage for the rest of the life if the fans are entertained, right!
Re:Go figure. (Score:5, Funny)
heading in soccer also causes brain damage.
Banging one's head against the desk when some idiot posts a convoluted edge case as a rebuttal to a general argument probably also causes brain damage, hypertension, blurred vision and damaged keyboards.
I should probably quit doing it.
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heading in soccer also causes brain damage.
Banging one's head against the desk when some idiot posts a convoluted edge case as a rebuttal to a general argument probably also causes brain damage, hypertension, blurred vision and damaged keyboards.
I should probably quit doing it.
Not enough data points.
We're going to need you to continue until we can develop a good representative sample; your next of kin will be notified.
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However, that's not my point, my point is people have different thicknesses of their skull and a doctor measures that thickness and determines if you're
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Americans take money very seriously. NFL and College Football are very good at bringing in money, from what I can tell by ticket and concession pricing.
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You don't want to take that trip in the way-back machine to the early years of football. They almost banned the sport at the college level because so many kids were getting killed.
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This research may also prove valuable for returning war veterans, who were exposed to concussive explosions repeatedly; which also causes long term brain injury.
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an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Keep the troops home, no messed up brains. Lets instead, focus on problems that don't have easy solutions like "Don't ram your head into people repeatedly" or "Don't invade 3rd world counties and expect them not to try and blow your ass up"
Re: (Score:2)