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Ravens OL John Urschel, 26, retires abruptly, two days after CTE study
- sna1l 9y agoFor someone so smart, I'm a little surprised it took this CTE study to push him over the edge. But maybe he wanted more conclusive data before leaving a job which paid him millions. :)
- sputknick 9y agoHe's talked before about how addictive the feeling of playing is. It probably takes a lot to give up something you love.
- sna1l 9y agoYeah, I realize that my armchair comment was a bit flippant. If someone told me that writing software (insert profession/thing you love) led to CTE, I'd obviously be really torn about it as well.
- grogenaut 9y agoAnd you're likely not even considering the Fame and fortune parts as well as the ability to parlay that money and noteriety into something with the degree.
- drtillberg 9y agoIt's sedentary, statistically significant increase in risk of heart, circulatory problems. Interesting comparison.
- mysterydip 9y agoI would imagine being in front of a stadium full of fans and nationally televised each week would also be hard to give up. Not that people necessarily need the adoration, but it has to give you a high of some kind.
- afthonos 9y agoI know people who used to play varsity sports in high school and college, and, even at that level, moving past those years was difficult. They had come to really enjoy being in stadiums full of people cheering. I can only imagine how much more difficult it is when you're a pro, the stadiums are bigger, and you are on TV.
- stupidcar 9y agoUrschel at least has another passion and career that he can focus on. I expect for a lot of players the problem is also that, if they quit, then what? What do they do with themselves? How do they support themselves and their families when they're no longer on a pro's salary?
- peteretep 9y agoI really enjoy boxing and specifically sparring, and did an advanced degree at a Harvard-esque university. It's fun. But you do get to a point where you realize you're no longer invincible, which is why I stopped playing rugby at the end of high school.
- ilamont 9y agoHe was profiled in the most recent issue of Tech Review. He said his mother has been asking him to retire for a few years, but he still loved the athletic challenge of playing against top players.
- mncharity 9y ago"From the NFL to MIT: The Double Life of John Urschel" https://www.technologyreview.com/s/607988/from-the-nfl-to-mit-the-double-life-of-john-urschel/ https://www.technologyreview.com/s/607988/from-the-nfl-to-mi... June 21, 2017
- kraig911 9y agoWell I think the results of the CTE study showed him that though no matter how much he wanted both things, only one of those would be consciously choosable while the latter would all he would have left if he continued.
- HiroshiSan 9y agoDon't bother googling his name...seems that everyone who's getting their PhD is a genius.
- simlevesque 9y ago> everyone who's getting their PhD is a genius No but anyone with a PhD has a brain worth preserving.
- fotbr 9y agoNot entirely true. Anyone who's EARNED their PhD might very well have a brain worth preserving, but there's many PhDs out there who purchased their doctorate from degree mills, and are dumber than a box of rocks.
- HiroshiSan 9y agoEveryone has a brain worth preserving...my point was when you google "John Urschel", most of what the news has to say about him is that he is a Math Genius, because he is doing his PhD at MIT, which I don't believe is the case.
- magic_beans 9y agoI'm pretty damn impressed at ANYONE in the NFL with a secondary degree, but a Math PhD at MIT? That's incredible. This guy is clearly athletically and intellectually elite.
- notfromhere 9y agoNo, he's considered gifted in math because he has more than a few papers already published and in review. That's noteworthy for a guy who just started his PhD
- tnecniv 9y agoI'm amazed he had time to play and do a PhD at MIT. I imagine even in the off season those guys are very busy.
- anguswithgusto 9y agoI thought this was a pun on the headline (implying that Urschel was not only a Ravens OL, but the author of a study.) He's actually a math Ph.D at MIT! Crazy.
- grogenaut 9y agoSummary: a national football league player, and PhD in math from mit, John Urschel, abruptly retired 2 days after a study showing 99% of retired NFL players from a study group had chronic brain issues (Cte). This is right before training starts for the season. Edit: updates. Will point out that any summary is going to miss some facts as it's a summary. But I think people might be more likely to read the article if they could decipher the title. I like the Ravens and I assumed this was a cto of a game company yc startup who quit from the title.
- gburt 9y agoThat same player is a PhD candidate in mathematics. I think that's important.
- grasshopperpurp 9y ago. . . a study showing 99% of NFL players had chronic brain issues (Cte)" This is not exactly true. The study required volunteers, and from what I understand, the families who volunteered already suspected brain damage, so it's not really a representative study. It's still very alarming, though.
- grogenaut 9y agoV0.0.2 to address your concerns. Still in alpha and peer review. Expecting public release soon.
- fasteddie 9y agoTotally agree. On the NYT article about the study: "But 110 positives remain significant scientific evidence of an N.F.L. player’s risk of developing C.T.E., which can be diagnosed only after death. About 1,300 former players have died since the B.U. group began examining brains. So even if every one of the other 1,200 players had tested negative — which even the heartiest skeptics would agree could not possibly be the case — the minimum C.T.E. prevalence would be close to 9 percent, vastly higher than in the general population." https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/07/25/sports/football/nfl-cte.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/07/25/sports/footba...
- gburt 9y agoThis is a strong testament to the value of the research. The researchers may have saved this guy's brain, if not his life.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- zitterbewegung 9y agoHas he ever been recorded giving a lecture about the Math that he does? I found a paper of his [1]. Looking at his wikipedia he is specializing in spectral graph theory , numerical linear algebra and machine learning. I think following what his next steps will be might be interesting also. Might setup a scholar Google alert. [1] http://www.global-sci.org/jcm/openaccess/v33n2/pdf/332-209.pdf http://www.global-sci.org/jcm/openaccess/v33n2/pdf/332-209.p...
- default-kramer 9y agoHe has more papers here: http://math.mit.edu/~urschel/papers.html http://math.mit.edu/~urschel/papers.html
- bitL 9y agoSmart. Congrats! Find another sport for needed challenge ;-)
- keeptrying 9y agoThere is a significant bias here in that its 99% of NFL players brains * which have been donated to the NFL *. But honestly even if you could peek into every NFL players brain, I'm sure the likely incidence after 4-5 years of playing would be orders of magnitude greater than whats found in the general population.
- smeyer 9y agoThere's obviously a bias, but the mentioned study claimed that even if the rate of CTE were 0% among brains not donated to the study, their sample would still be large enough to indicate a significant deviation from the general population.
- learc83 9y agoThat is a bias. But it's also almost 10% of all NFL players that died during the study period.
- yk 9y agoYes, however the NYT mentioned yesterday, even if the brains are the only cases of CTE, then the incidence rate among players would still be vastly higher than in the general population.
- backtoyoujim 9y agoTrying to watch NFL reminds me of the moment in "Django Unchained" when we meet diCaprio's character sitting in a chair watching to slaves beat each other to death. That moment of that movie comes to me every time the TV producers cut to the team owner sitting in their fancy box in their fancy chair paying lots of African American men to beat each other up for our entertainment and profit.
- wyager 9y agoThe primary difference, of course, is that NFL players often make more money than God.
- accountyaccount 9y agoCollege Football on the other hand...
- siegecraft 9y agoNFL players are probably compensated the worst out of the 4 major US sports. That's just in terms of what they get paid and doesn't even look at the total package of the risk they expose themselves to in terms of chronic injury, painkiller addiction, etc.
- aphextron 9y ago>NFL players are probably compensated the worst out of the 4 major US sports. That's just in terms of what they get paid and doesn't even look at the total package of the risk they expose themselves to in terms of chronic injury, painkiller addiction, etc. Especially when you factor in that they have been doing this to themselves from the age of 8 years old in most cases, all the way through high school and 4 years of college play for no compensation. All for the tiny slim opportunity of maybe one day having a 3 year career in the NFL and earning less total than an MLB rookie's first year signing bonus. The only reason the NFL has their pick of such top talent is because millions of kids in this country spend their lives putting schoolwork and health second to this dream of "making it". There's a massive externalized cost to society which the NFL has arbitrage on.
- Azkar 9y agoSo what's the big picture here? We've suspected for years that football leads to brain trauma. Does that mean the NFL should shut down? Should they continue to operate as normal? There have been efforts recently to make the game safer for players, but the amount of concussions and injuries seen every season don't seem to be decreasing. Can you make the game "more safe" without drastically changing the game? Any game played at this high of a speed, with this strong of players is going to have some inherent danger to it. Do we just need to make the effects more widely known and understood by the players, maybe treat football like smoking with warnings printed on the outside of helmets? Anything less than that and you run the risk of not making your point. Should I feel bad as a fan for watching football? Is it any worse than buying clothing made by child labor from a third world country?
- nilved 9y agoBy this definition football is basically modern Gladiatorial combat.
- phkahler 9y ago>> By this definition football is basically modern Gladiatorial combat. Why would you have ever thought otherwise? Didn't you notice the coliseum looks like an ancient stadium? Football is very much a man-v-man battle and that's exactly why a lot of people like it.
- geophile 9y agoYes, the NFL should shut down. Yes, it is worse than the 3rd world child labor scenario. The kid in the 3rd world probably has no other choices, and along with his peers, may actually be improving things for his society. Nicholas Kristof (of all people) pointed this out when it was found that someone documenting the horrible conditions at Foxconn fabricated melodramatic stories. (This was a big kerfuffle on This American Life a couple of years ago.) The football player, living in a 1st world country, has other options. It is criminal that the responsible adults (coaches, recruiters) don't point out that they are signing up for virtually guaranteed severe brain damage.
- ineptech 9y agoHas "whether you let your kids play football" joined the long, long list of boolean values that separate members of the Red Tribe from the Blue Tribe? If not, I think it's inevitable that it will. Someone will try to get their school to close its football program, someone else will complain that the health dangers are exaggerated by the liberal media because football is a red-state passtime, and pretty soon it'll be "Why do you hate America and apple pie" vs "Why do you want children to suffer and die".
- dv_dt 9y agoI feel that this comment is unnecessarily divisive and condescending. In general, I think people care about their kids, and will have different levels of risk sensitivity. http://www.espn.com/espn/otl/story/_/page/popwarner/pop-warner-youth-football-participation-drops-nfl-concussion-crisis-seen-causal-factor http://www.espn.com/espn/otl/story/_/page/popwarner/pop-warn...
- ineptech 9y agoI am deriding the sort of discourse that topics like this usually produce, not the people making the arguments. It's certainly possible that the public debate over kids' football will largely be apolitical and civil and productive, such things do happen, but I'm predicting that it won't be.
- Stratoscope 9y agoWhat you're actually doing is creating the kind of discourse you claim to be deriding.
- CurtMonash 9y agoI abruptly stopped being a football fan last November. The immediate reason was Bill Belichick staking his own reputation on Donald Trump's assaults on the media, in a close state in a close election. But CTE was making it hard to remain a football fan anyway.
- macintux 9y agoYeah, I stopped watching/following the game years back when I thought Austin Collie was never going to get up after yet another collision. I don't want to see someone die on the field, and I certainly don't want to contribute to it happening.
- troisx 9y agoSo players killing people, players beating their wives and kids, and players breaking the law constantly didn't make you stop being a fan. But one coach exercising his political rights did. Fascinating.
- ApolloFortyNine 9y agoPolitics is the new religion, at least in America right now.
- nickpeterson 9y agoTo be fair, there are a lot of people in the NFL, and all of them are usually 20-40 year old men. The fact that some of them get convicted of crimes does not surprise me. It may be shocking if the percentage of criminals in the NFL was much higher than non-professional athletes I guess?
- ovulator 9y agoI mean, he could have just started rooting for the Jets.
- CurtMonash 9y agoBill Belichick didn't just exercise his First Amendment rights to nexpress an opinion I disagreed with. That alone is hardly a problem for me; for example, Danny Ainge's political views have no impact on my Celtics fandom). Belichick went further, however -- he supported a pack of lies meant to undermine the value of First Amendment rights anywhere. And we've seen subsequently just how destructive lying attacks on the press can be. Anybody who, while knowing better, spreads those lies is damaging our country. I do not want them to succeed; hence I do not want them to have the kind of success that strengthens their reputations.
- magic_beans 9y ago"Urschel is pursuing his doctorate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the offseason, focusing on spectral graph theory, numerical linear algebra and machine learning." This guy has a back-up plan. Good man.
- amelius 9y agoSounds like a very broad plan to me.
- bkjelden 9y agoIt's a better plan than almost every other NFL player has. Most players have lived very football-focused lives from a very young age, and have been the star on the team all of their life. Their future has always been more football, and they haven't given any thought to what comes after that.
- racl101 9y agoHoly schniekes. What a Renaissance man this guy is. Good for him, he's still only 26.
- H1Supreme 9y agoI didn't start programming until roughly that age. Good on him!
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- notjustanymike 9y agoThis guy and the Nasa Astronaut Navy Seal Medic need to star in a buddy cop comedy!
- ll931110 9y agoMet him twice during my time at MIT. A very nice, down to earth guy. We did get curious about his days as a football player for a while :)
- dragontamer 9y agoFootball may get a lot of study recently, because its one of the most popular sports. But Basketball injuries can ruin you for life as well. I have a cousin who has severe amnesia after getting knocked out during a Basketball match. Its like years of his life were wiped away after his concussion. He was a straight-A student too, these sorts of things are severely damaging to your student career. Brain injuries exist in a lot of sports. Football is particularly dangerous but the dangers in other sports (Boxing, MMA, Basketball, Soccer) are severe as well.
- macintux 9y agoI think football is categorically different than other dangerous sports: * Far, far, far more people participating at high levels (just based on team size). * Impact is less obvious/direct, so youth and young adults have a harder time recognizing the danger: CTE tends to manifest long after players are out of the spotlight. * The NFL has actively tried to cover up the danger of concussions; I'm not aware of any other governing body working so hard to harm those it should be protecting.
- learc83 9y ago>Boxing, MMA The biggest difference is that most parents don't sign their kids up for Boxing in kindergarten. I was a big kid (I'm 6'5" now), and I live in the south, so of course my parents signed me up to play football at 6. In other sports where kids start very young, like soccer, the contact injuries are usually a result of accidents. You aren't trying to slam into people at full speed.
- dragontamer 9y agoIts pretty common to use your head to physically stop or even change the direction of the ball in Soccer. There are accidents of course, but the standard norms of Soccer still don't seem very healthy for the brain. I'm aware of the "Football towns" across USA. Basketball is bigger in my area though, which might be why I hear more about Basketball-related injuries.
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- Dirlewanger 9y agoFunnily enough, this story also isn't prominently displayed on their homepage aside from the sidebar in tiny font. Apparently within hours of the NYT study being released, ESPN's reblogging of it disappeared to several page refreshes down their homepage. I can't wait for them to be significantly downsized if not dissolved completely.
- josephjrobison 9y agoI do feel like the commentators had a pretty supportive opinion of his decision, even saying he has plans to be more than just a football player.
- aresant 9y agoA few colorful facts to the story here: 1) 3 years of service vests into NFL pension plan, he just hit qualification - value pegged at $21,360 a year for life (3) 2) He has not publicly commented on his retirement or reasons for it. 3) He has a hugely awesome secondary option - doctorate of math at MIT 4) He was at end of his rookie contract, next year would be the "in the money" year for him so he is clearly leaving a lot of cash on the table. 5) Over three years he "only" earned ~$1.8m http://www.spotrac.com/nfl/baltimore-ravens/john-urschel-14586/cash-earnings/ http://www.spotrac.com/nfl/baltimore-ravens/john-urschel-145... - which after tax is 7 figures but still not a lot. 6) He has been notoriously thrifty, living on $25k a year and driving a used car (2). So would imagine at some level he has been planning this outcome, or leaving option wide open. (1) https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/early-lead/wp/2017/07/27/at-age-26-ravens-john-urschel-retires-from-nfl-to-pursue-phd-in-math-at-mit/?utm_term=.993521d04a50 https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/early-lead/wp/2017/07/27... (2) http://www.baltimoresun.com/sports/bs-sp-ravens-john-urschel-math-20150707-story.html#page=1 http://www.baltimoresun.com/sports/bs-sp-ravens-john-urschel... (3) http://firstquarterfinance.com/nfl-pension-plan-retirement-plan/ http://firstquarterfinance.com/nfl-pension-plan-retirement-p...
- paulddraper 9y ago> after tax is 7 figures but still not a lot What exactly is "a lot of money" (and how much do you think MIT professors are paid)? I think point #6 is more relevant than point #5.
- freyir 9y agoIn the context, it's obvious he's talking about NFL players. Offensive line annual salaries: http://www.spotrac.com/nfl/rankings/average/offensive-line/ http://www.spotrac.com/nfl/rankings/average/offensive-line/
- QuotedForTruth 9y agoI think the point is he isn't "set for life" like some may expect NFL players to be.
- matt_s 9y agoSomething that wasn't pointed out in the article is that the vast majority of cases where a NFL player's family donates the brain to CTE study is where they already were showing some degenerative symptoms. They can't test for CTE on living people and if someone has it but say dies from a heart attack before ever showing symptoms, they likely aren't donating to the CTE study.
- learc83 9y agoIt was also close to 10% of all NFL players that died since the study started.
- cwkid 9y agoThis is notable, because Urschel has previously written a piece explaining why he was willing to play football given the risks (https://www.theplayerstribune.com/why-i-play-football/ https://www.theplayerstribune.com/why-i-play-football/).
- balls187 9y ago"NFL Mathematics Expert" That's pretty amazing. He scored 43/50 on the Wonderlic (highest in 2014). Ryan Fitzpatrick scored a 49/50, though it was in the older format.
- meri_dian 9y agoHe clearly loves math so the CTE study may just have been the straw that broke the camel's back. He may have been yearning to fully devote himself to math for a while now. Regarding the broader debate that seems to be swirling along the lines of 'should we ban Football or not', I strongly believe we should not. If parents want to prevent their kids from playing football, great, that's their choice to make. But if they allow them to play, we have to keep in mind that only a very small percentage of players will continue on to play in college, and then only another fraction of those players will continue on to play in the NFL. I'm sure that people who play youth and high school football but stop playing after HS graduation have a much lower incidence rate of CTE than players who continue on to play at the collegiate and professional levels. So for the vast majority of football players CTE isn't much a risk. Because those who do reach the highest levels of the sport make tremendous amounts of money, as long as they are aware of the risks, they should be able to make the decision for themselves.
- sjg007 9y agoDude. Multiple blows to the head causes CTE. And it starts as early as high school which is when tackle football starts. At this point it is immoral and unethical to have tackle football in schools.
- dsacco 9y ago> At this point it is immoral and unethical to have tackle football in schools. That remains a normative claim, not a positive one. Some parents will be dissuaded from allowing their children to play football competitively, but you'll have great difficulty enforcing something like a ban.
- sosborn 9y agoIt isn't immoral or unethical to have sports where long-term injury can occur. Using that metric we would have to ban all sports. What is unethical is not educating the participants of the risks. We need to push for more studies and education, not bans.
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- otoburb 9y ago>>In August 2015, he suffered a concussion when he went helmet-to-helmet with another player and was knocked unconscious. "I think it hurt my ability to think well mathematically," Urschel said. "It took me about three weeks before I was football-ready. It took me a little bit longer before my high-level visualizations ability came back." Losing a high-level cognitive ability must be terrifying; the flood of relief upon regaining his ability (probably slowly?) after 4+ weeks must have made him deeply question his continuing commitment, and then the CTE study pushed him over the edge.
- ugh123 9y agoWow, shitty auto-play video without ability to pause. Be warned!
- usgroup 9y agoI admire this sort of decision making. In particular, I admire that he took the risk playing football in the first place but called it at some prerequisite level of damage he was willing to take. I'd imagine that is something he put a hard stop on before embarking on the career: "two concussions max then I'm out whatever".
- therajiv 9y agoI ran into this guy randomly at MIT once, during the offseason (last February). He was such a chill guy. Hearing this news makes me like him even more - he's not letting one of his passions get in the way of another.
- Angostura 9y ago>In August 2015, Urschel suffered a concussion when he went helmet-to-helmet with another player and was knocked unconscious. >"I think it hurt my ability to think well mathematically," Urschel said. "It took me about three weeks before I was football-ready. It took me a little bit longer before my high-level visualizations ability came back."
- jrwiegand 9y agoYeah, it is likely the smartest decision for him. I have watched him play his whole career (Ravens fan). He is good but he would have likely bounced around the league as a backup and got cut in the next few years due to age. With this decision he is starting a career that will be enjoyable, safe and well paying. You cannot beat that. Good luck #64.