let's not forget the sense of community it creates
October 29, 2012 5:06 AM   Subscribe

This post was deleted for the following reason: This might be better as a part of a more developed post that addresses the question of head injuries and football, but as is it just seems like a sort of perfunctory grar-bait without much more to offer for discussion. -- taz



 
Yeah. Ouch.

I'm not going to say more than that because I have two football players in my class this semester, and a scholar-athlete whom I taught last year went pro, and I wish these young men nothing but success in their chosen pursuits (academic and otherwise.)

But... yeahhhhhhh....
posted by BrashTech at 5:22 AM on October 29, 2012


I just don't see why we throw bricks at college students' heads for entertainment.

That's a lack of vision, right there.

What? It's an analogy?

Is that like a lesion?
posted by pompomtom at 5:22 AM on October 29, 2012


It'll take a while--20 years, say--but football is going to go the way of boxing. The pleasures of the game, such as they are, are going to be harder to embrace in light of the risks involved.
posted by Cash4Lead at 5:38 AM on October 29, 2012 [1 favorite]


As a person who has never enjoyed a certain head-injury-related sport, and who attended college with a good friend who was warned by his own doctor that continuing to participate in that sport could kill him, I found this grimly amusing.

Last night I saw a commercial (for what, I don't know) that featured a series of slamming, in-game collisions between helmeted players--you could clearly see the heavy percussion as helmet struck helmet--with loud overvoice declaring that the product in question delivered just as heavy a thrill, and showing guys fist-pumping in appreciation.

Like the man said, it's part of the culture...
posted by kinnakeet at 5:39 AM on October 29, 2012


It'll take a while--20 years, say--but football is going to go the way of boxing.

Yeah because nobody boxes professionally anymore.
posted by chavenet at 5:39 AM on October 29, 2012


It'll take a while--20 years, say--but football is going to go the way of boxing. The pleasures of the game, such as they are, are going to be harder to embrace in light of the risks involved.

I have a long-running debate with my brother on this subject. I really agree with you -- I just don't see how the sport can survive in the long term as we get more and more information about how bad it is for players. He thinks boxing withered away because of cheating and general malfeasance, not because of the head injuries.

I think our current check-in date on this is 2027.
posted by gerryblog at 5:41 AM on October 29, 2012


Yeah because nobody boxes professionally anymore.

When I was a kid, twenty or twenty-five years ago, boxing was huge. It's nothing compared to that today -- and the NFL couldn't survive that kind of decline.
posted by gerryblog at 5:42 AM on October 29, 2012


This is a weak way to have the same pointless discussion about football.
posted by rocket88 at 5:43 AM on October 29, 2012


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