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At Colorado, a Breach in Football’s Wall

76 points by mlthoughts2018 8y ago

LanceH 8y ago
They should make the field slower.
- mlthoughts2018 8y ago
  For example, maybe they could adopt something like ultimate frisbee rules? A receiver is marked down at the spot where a catch is made. Eliminate running backs and tackling from the game entirely. Defenders can try to jockey for position to intercept the ball or deflect passes (but still can result in pass interference), or they can rush the quarterback from the line of scrimmage, where pass blocking operates mostly unchanged from how it is today. Perhaps tackling the quarterback (with continued improvements on protecting a defenseless QB) is the only place where tackling is still allowed. This would get rid of about 99% of the situations where there are violent, high-speed collisions, and where tacklers coming from the linebacker or safety positions end up involving the head in violent tackles. The obvious downside is that it eliminates rushing or yards-after-catch from receivers, especially long, wide-open touchdown sprints. But I don’t see how open field running and tackling can possibly coexist with concussion safety in the future of the sport. There will be some type of huge reckoning I think.
- soared 8y ago
  Then we just get bigger offensive and defensive lines, who still take big hits. Making the field faster might be a solution - moving the game towards hockey rather than rugby speed.
  - LanceH 8y ago
    Speed makes hits catastrophic. A slower field means those linemen (who are taking hits every play) are doing so with less impact. A faster field and those linemen launch into each other with even greater force and impact. The running backs up the middle are going even faster when they get stuffed by a faster linebacker. Make the field slower. No three point stance. Extreme version would be no runs inside the tackles so we see mostly lateral movement and pass plays. Step one is to stop funding football with the schools. Private clubs can show proof of insurance.
    - lostapathy 8y ago
      If you move the game along faster and reduce the resting time between plays, the average player is going to shrink back closer to something more closely resembling a normal human, so the reaction mass (and thus severity of collisions) will drop a lot as well.
jedberg 8y ago
I'm a season ticket holder (for Berkeley). When all the CTE stuff started coming out, I felt a bit guilty but not enough to cancel the tickets. Now I'm not sure how I feel. On the one hand, these kids are aware of the risks and choosing to play anyway. On the other hand, many of them are choosing to play because they come from depressed backgrounds with no other way of paying for or in some cases even getting into college, and football offers a chance to completely change their entire family's situation. But then again, I was listening to a Freakonomics podcast where they interviewed someone who played football and then went on to get an MBA from Harvard and worked in the executive ranks of both the NFL and NBA. He's well aware of the CTE risks, but when they asked him if he'd do it all again knowing what he knows now, he said he would still do it, because he grew up poor and now has multiple lifetimes of money. But he would never let his son play, because his son doesn't need to play to get out of a bad life situation like he did. He said it was a sacrifice he'd make again for the sake of his kids and his family. Do we want to deny people that chance to get out of poverty even though they have to knowingly risk their life? I honestly don't know because I didn't grow up poor.
- umanwizard 8y ago
  He’s an outlier. The overwhelming majority of college football players will make no money from it.
  - metalliqaz 8y ago
    What about a degree?
    - mlthoughts2018 8y ago
      Often it’s essentially an on-paper degree in soft majors specifically designed to cater to athlete schedules and ensure minimal attendance or effort is needed to pass and stay eligible for sports. For the majority of D-1 student athletes, unless they go pro (a tiny percentage) or otherwise convert their college fame into a career, the degree does not open any doors. There are exceptions, but it’s rare. Even athletes who do make it pro are often fucked over by the teams they play for, agents, financial advisors, etc., and a lot of them still end up poor, especially if they are more of a roster player who only manage to stay in the league for a few seasons. For example, I’d guess a lot of people reading this article earn more than median salary for Major League Soccer. In 2016 the median was around $117,000 per year, with around 40 players (on senior rosters) earning the league minimum of about $55,000 [1]. Professional sports leagues are pretty brutal places for all but the biggest stars and of course managers and executives (unsurprisingly disproportionately white men as well...). [1]: https://www.forbes.com/sites/christinasettimi/2016/09/07/major-league-soccers-top-earning-players/#721f82831dee https://www.forbes.com/sites/christinasettimi/2016/09/07/maj...
madhadron 8y ago
This is entertaining, because football was almost eliminated from US universities in the early 20th century because it was too lethal. Teddy Roosevelt stepped into broker a rules change to remove the most lethal parts of the game. > Cabral loves the band of brothers aspect of football Or join ROTC if you want the real thing. > We should move in the direction of offering lifelong insurance and medical care for football players who become badly damaged,” said John Kroll The problem with this is that it's hard to say when the brain injury occurred, since its effects manifest down the road. So we should probably require high schools and Pop Warner leagues to carry lifelong insurance for players.
michaelbuckbee 8y ago
I knew it was bad, but I had not realized that the CTE numbers were so high from the article "...read the work of the Boston University C.T.E. center, which found evidence of degenerative brain disease in 99 percent of brains obtained from deceased N.F.L. players and 91 percent of college football players and 21 percent of those who played high school football." From BU's site, here was the methodology: "For the study, the researchers began with the donated brains of 202 football players. Pathologists, knowing nothing of a patient’s history or symptoms, examined each brain for evidence of CTE. At the same time, clinicians—blinded to each brain’s pathology—used medical records and interviews with family members to collect detailed information about each patient’s medical history and symptoms. The group met for regular consensus meetings, where the pathologists and the clinicians presented their findings. They limited the study to football players, providing a somewhat homogeneous sample." Stated another way (based on the study) 9 out of 10 college football players are going to leave with CTE.
- slg 8y ago
  I don't want to diminish the seriousness of CTE, but there is a huge selection bias there since the brains had to be donated to the study in the first place. Fully healthy people are probably much less likely to make the decision to donate their brain on death. Most of the people who are making the choice to donate are probably doing so because they experienced CTE symptoms during their life.
  - ericras 8y ago
    The University of Nebraska's Center for Brain, Biology and Behavior (which is housed inside the stadium) is trying to overcome the selection bias of these studies by doing a baseline scan of all football players: https://www.starherald.com/sports/big_red_wrap/football/at-nu-football-team-and-researchers-have-teamed-up-to/article_186a10ab-226f-599f-99f8-cb0e1f6855d9.html https://www.starherald.com/sports/big_red_wrap/football/at-n...
  - brightball 8y ago
    Exactly. The brains were actually donated due to suspicion of CTE and one of them was a punter who died in a motor cross accident. The game is only getting safer right now. IMO there’s no reason to play tackle football before the middle school level but after that I have zero issue. I played offensive and defensive line in high school and have been following these studies closely; there’s a ton of scare mongering and data slanting happening to create the headlines and very little coverage being given to rule changes to make the game safer.
drivingmenuts 8y ago
It seems the way to make the game safer is, ironically, to reduce the safety equipment. After all, if you have more skin in the game, so to speak, the less you might make or take on risky maneuvers. Of course, there are always those who are going to go for broke and do it anyway, So maybe the way to win is not to play, A similar sport is rugby, but the incidence and possibility of injury is pretty high there, if you read the news. Plus, rugby is un-American, just as American football is un-Worldwide. So changing sports isn't really an answer, either. Basketball isn't the same kind of sport, though I took a few elbows in the face and a knee or two in a very unfortunate spot, so yeah, it rates up there. I grew up in a small Texas town where football was practically a second church (technically, 4th, since there were three churches in town). I broke a couple of bones and sprained both ankles multiple times before I was out of elementary, plus I was rail-thin, so by the time football rolled around I was pretty risk-averse. However, I "managed" the team, which meant doing a lot of menial tasks the the coach didn't want to. I was also the cameraman. There were several times I observed some pretty serious injuries. One of our tackles shattered his right thumb to the point where it was very difficult to reconstruct. I watched a running back go over the line and got pinned between two tackles, right at the hip, not only taking him out of the game, but putting him in serious condition in the hospital for a week (the term used at the time was "bone-bruise" and he was on crutches for the rest of the season, at least). During training, despite every precaution, I saw people suffer from heat-stroke and -exhaustion because we started training in the 110-degree August sun. These weren't urban kids, either. They were small-town farmboys, used to working in heat and taking hits from the occasional obstreperous cow or a kick from a nervous horse (those were few and far between, thankfully). I once had my bell rung by a charging sheep desperate to get out of a trailer, so I know what a concussion feels like, after you wake up. No hospital trip, either. Just sucked it up and went back to work. The point is: that these guys were were willing to take some damage just to play a sport. They were middle-school and high-school kids, ready to take on the world, without considering the potential risks. Their parents encouraged it (my grandparents were pretty much neutral about it) and when one of their kids got injured, it was just part of the game, even if the damage was fairly traumatic. None of these guys were particularly violent at the time, but if there was fight, they weren't going to back down and so the prospect of being padded up and charging the other guy wasn't that big of a deal. How do you even begin to compete against that sort of mentality? NOTE: Not to knock om people who grew up in an urban environment, but I think growing up in a rural farming community carries a higher risk of injury. When working around livestock you have to be on your game at all times, since you can't just take a break for a minor injury, that would otherwise entail a trip to the family doctor for a quick checkup. That was potentially a whole day lost. Anything above a minor sprain or a small cut could have some serious effects on production.
inamberclad 8y ago
Weird to hear about my school in the news, mostly because I stay on the other side of campus and don't give a flying fuck about the D1 sports. Besides, we're usually not that competitive.
terryschiavo22 8y ago
What's most important in this conversation is to remember that we're not talking about football. We're talking about college athletics as a whole. Just because degrees attained while playing college football are largely worthless because of how little time is able to be spent studying does not mean that degrees attained with less-demanding sports (say, gymnastics or soccer) are equally worthless.
- soared 8y ago
  For those unaware the above comment is likely about how american football programs fund almost entirely all athletics and some amount of academics at universities.
  - scott_s 8y ago
    I don't think that's accurate. Many top-level football programs lose money. See: https://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/sports/wp/2015/11/23/running-up-the-bills/?utm_term=.cf7073df0f5f https://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/sports/wp/2015/11/23/runni...
    - smileysteve 8y ago
      Thanks for mentioning this, it's important; we're told, tv money, etc, but every bowl season schools not in the top 10 have to face a choice of making money or losing money
  - terryschiavo22 8y ago
    My point was that the rules are the same across all sports. If you make a change that will positive affect football athletes, that change might not be so positive for the other sports it will affect as well. Although, you are absolutely correct in your comment as well.
- jackschultz 8y ago
  Are you sure? Because the article doesn't mention 'degree' or 'graduate' at all. This article is only about the culture of violence in football and its repercussions later in life. There are tons of other articles and talks about this, but here, there's nothing. I hate the NCAA. People who think players don't deserve to get paid for what they bring to the table in football or basketball because they're getting free education are incredibly wrong. The culture of the majority of the programs and also the desire of the players themselves don't put education first. But this article isn't about that issue, it's about injuries in football alone.
dannylandau 8y ago
I'm currently sitting in a Boulder Cafe at Galvanize reading this article, and wondering if a high school peer that I know -- Tennyson McCartney -- who also played for the CU team back in the day had CTE. He also committed suicide 10 years back. Remember him as a giant of a guy that was smart and kind.
dekhn 8y ago
Football is a sport where when I first saw it, I thought it was basically a sports analogy to war, including damaging soldiers. Like boxing, I simply cannot comprehend why people want to do sports where injury is a routine component of the activity.
- username223 8y ago
  It sort of was a "sports analogy to war." It was created after the American Civil War, which killed around 1 million people, and football was at least in part an attempt to "keep our Ivy League boys tough." Now people do it for the money, pride, or fame. Football, like pankration, creates incredible athletes, but that doesn't mean that the sport should still exist.
- leetcrew 8y ago
  > Like boxing, I simply cannot comprehend why people want to do sports where injury is a routine component of the activity. football is probably one of the more dangerous sports, and it's getting a lot of attention right now due to CTE concerns. that said, injury is a routine component of pretty much all sports at the highest level. you can't be the best in the world at a physical activity without pushing your body to its very limits.
  - dekhn 8y ago
    yes, but there's a difference between running and causing self-injury, and a sport where people actually have to collide.
- CM30 8y ago
  Because it's enjoyable? Because they find some meaning in it? Why do they do any dangerous activity at all? If everyone was super concerned about their own safety above all else, then many activities (including basically all extreme sports) would have gone extinct. Either way, I think people are way too obsessed with making life 'safe', when what matters should be that people can enjoy what they want as long as it doesn't risk those aren't willing participants.
JustSomeNobody 8y ago
> “My dad always told me the name of the game is hit, hit, H-I-T. There is always a place on the field for someone who will hit.” This is just sad. Would love to see data before and after "hitting" replaced "tackling".
uberdru 8y ago
I hope that American football does not exist in its current state in 10 years. Ideally, a test will be developed to detect CTE before you're dead. I was a lineman. I hit hard, and I was knocked out several times over the course of a decade or so of play. There's no way to play football in a 'safe' manner. The tactics and the equipment have evolved in a way that maximizes risk of brain injury.
- dylan604 8y ago
  What about going back to leather helmets and other less armor like equipment? Sure, there will probably be a steep injury spike as people try to play in current styles with less padding, but maybe they'll go back to actually tackling rather than trying to light someone up for the sake of it. Rugby seems to do alright without all of the body armor.
  - peteretep 8y ago
    > Rugby seems to do alright without all of the body armor. Rugby has very different rules on physical engagement, and has never seen the epidemic of deaths that American Football had.
smileysteve 8y ago
> “My dad always told me the name of the game is hit, hit, H-I-T." The article doesn't touch the board response beyond this quote, but this mindset seems problematic. In a sport marked by injuries at all levels, and in this concussion centric area, it says a lot about ignoring the issues that such would be a tagline. Why it's different from a Nascar team purposefully running people off the road is a question begging to be asked. And that a majority of the fans probably watch for the hits, much like Nascar fans in the 90s is problematic. It's probably affecting society in other ways too - obesity epidemic, family violence, us vs them mentality Basketball, Soccer, even "real" football fans are looking for the play development and strategy much more than the "hits".
- smileysteve 8y ago
  One example is that "Hit, Hit Hit" is as extreme as "Chug Chug Chug" might be in alcohol consumption. There's speed, skill, strategy, player rotation, juking, wrapping up, deflecting --- but hit hit hit is the rallying cry.
writimov 8y ago
I've spoken with multi-generation football family coaches, players who say that the sport is headed for an end. I'm not sure I believe that. It comes down to whether a safe helmet can be made or whether a CTE treatment can be created. (Both of those seem like very difficult goals.) The number of participants in the kids leagues has been declining for a while: https://www.statista.com/statistics/191658/participants-in-tackle-football-in-the-us-since-2006/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/191658/participants-in-t... What parent would allow their high schooler to play if there is a 21% chance of lifelong disability, loss of earnings potential, etc.?
- lostapathy 8y ago
  A safer helmet isn't the only way out, though. Rules can be changed to shape the game away from the big hits as well. Change the rules so there isn't so long between plays and all the optimal players get smaller and more athletic, and they can't "rest and reset" for the next big play. All of a sudden, the magnitude of the collisions goes down substantially. "Unfortunately" then an NFL game wouldn't be good for 3+ hours of TV advertisements, so there's a lot of incentive to keep the pace slow.
xibalba 8y ago
I played high school football, and my family is a "football family" with Dad and other relatives having played at the college level. I loved the game and had many great experiences. I'm sad to write it, but that tradition ends with me. I will absolutely not allow any children I might have to play this game. I often wonder how badly my own brain is damaged. Coincidentally, I also did my undergrad at CU.
- pacala 8y ago
  Quite popular among middle schoolers in my city is Ultimate Frisbee [0]. It flows similarly to football, at least for an European eye, but without rushing or tackling. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultimate_(sport) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultimate_(sport)
  - nostrademons 8y ago
    Ultimate was hugely popular in the social circles I went to college and worked with. It's faster-paced than football, has relatively little risk of injury, and the rules are easy to explain. It's also the most accessible sport in terms of equipment needed: all you need is a 50-cent frisbee and an open playing field. Even beats soccer and basketball in that regard.
  - basetop 8y ago
    We already have football without tackling - flag football or touch football. Most of us play flag or touch football in school. Only a tiny fraction of people who play football play organized tackle football. Frisbee is nice, but there is nothing like throwing a tight spiral or catching a football.
    - tomjakubowski 8y ago
      High school football is most commonly full-contact/"tackle", and the source of most football-related injuries, because most players don't advance beyond that level. I think that in most of the country, K-8 schools don't organize football teams, but I did know kids who played flag football in park district youth leagues.
Balgair 8y ago
It seems that repetitive head injuries are really something that has long term consequences. The issue is VERY complex and has a lot of factors. One thing to look at is the complex data on other sports[0]. It turns out that men's rugby and women's ice hockey are also big magnets, along with soccer/futbol. It seems to be that just about any hit to the head can be damaging, regardless of equipment. The 'violence' of American football may be a correlated factor, but not causative. But we're just beginning to understand these things. More data is needed, unfortunately. It seems that these athletes really are suffering. [0] https://completeconcussions.com/2018/12/05/concussion-rates-what-sport-most-concussions/ https://completeconcussions.com/2018/12/05/concussion-rates-... P.S. I've also struggled with these issues. I've written on HN before about them and won't bore here. Suffice to say, though I've had deep struggles with concussions, and in the end I'd say I wish I'd not done those sports as a result, it is a hard question to answer. If I could be back out on that pitch once more with my mates and be guaranteed to not get another head injury, I'd do it in a heartbeat. I loved that time and really do miss it everyday, even decades later, I love rugby. I wasn't an easy thing to quit, and it is still not easy to stay away from. The concussion epidemic is not going to be easy to solve.
- mathgeek 8y ago
  > More data is needed, unfortunately. I’ve slowly been convinced that more data isn’t needed before we act on this. The only reason there’s a call for more data is that these sports are very popular and drive revenue. We have enough data to say “yes, these sports pose a serious risk to the health of those playing them.” That doesn’t mean to have to stop playing them, but it does mean we can’t throw our hands up and claim we just don’t know why these kids keep getting brain injuries.
  - jeffchien 8y ago
    Agreed. I can't help but think that some calls for more data is just intentionally delaying doing the right thing. Will any amount of data ever satisfy diehard fans and those who financially benefit from college football? Great talk about this very point: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWaPXzTDEDw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWaPXzTDEDw
rb808 8y ago
If all kids could just sit on the sofa and play video games we'd all be much healthier.
- mactrey 8y ago
  False dichotomy. You can get strenuous, competitive, healthful physical activity without ever risking brain trauma. Swimming, tennis, track and field, etc.
fiftyfifty 8y ago
Why do we continue to allow our institutions of higher learning (namely high schools and colleges) to promote this sport? The very organizations charged with making our children smarter sponsor a sport proven to cause brain damage. At some point these institutions need to be held accountable for this, only when that happens will we see any change.
- dylan604 8y ago
  Simple: money. The money earned from football events pay for so much of that institution's budget. Friday Night Lights is a tradition that's not going to change.
  - mlthoughts2018 8y ago
    Actually this is not true. Many top athletics programs lose substantial amounts of money, even after accounting for TV deals, https://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/sports/wp/2015/11/23/running-up-the-bills https://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/sports/wp/2015/11/23/runni... There’s some unsubstantiated claim that constantly growing expenditure on sports is requires like a marketing arms race to advertise to potential students, but I haven’t seen much data backing that. My guessis that, just as with most professional sports clubs, college athletics programs by design are intrinsically huge loss leaders designed to be vehicles by which coaches & administrators extract money from the university. For the tiny fraction of top teams with massive fan bases, they can get away with this while being profitable. For almost all other programs, they burn through money chasing success and profitability for a while, and after enough consecutive seasons of financial losses, they retreat to fiscal austerity and a decline in the athletics department while some other programs are on an upswing.
    - ajkjk 8y ago
      It doesn't have to be a surprising economic argument. People like football. They're obsessed with it. Of course they have it at their schools.
      - 8y ago

They should make the field slower.

mlthoughts2018 8y ago
For example, maybe they could adopt something like ultimate frisbee rules? A receiver is marked down at the spot where a catch is made. Eliminate running backs and tackling from the game entirely. Defenders can try to jockey for position to intercept the ball or deflect passes (but still can result in pass interference), or they can rush the quarterback from the line of scrimmage, where pass blocking operates mostly unchanged from how it is today. Perhaps tackling the quarterback (with continued improvements on protecting a defenseless QB) is the only place where tackling is still allowed. This would get rid of about 99% of the situations where there are violent, high-speed collisions, and where tacklers coming from the linebacker or safety positions end up involving the head in violent tackles. The obvious downside is that it eliminates rushing or yards-after-catch from receivers, especially long, wide-open touchdown sprints. But I don’t see how open field running and tackling can possibly coexist with concussion safety in the future of the sport. There will be some type of huge reckoning I think.
soared 8y ago
Then we just get bigger offensive and defensive lines, who still take big hits. Making the field faster might be a solution - moving the game towards hockey rather than rugby speed.
- LanceH 8y ago
  Speed makes hits catastrophic. A slower field means those linemen (who are taking hits every play) are doing so with less impact. A faster field and those linemen launch into each other with even greater force and impact. The running backs up the middle are going even faster when they get stuffed by a faster linebacker. Make the field slower. No three point stance. Extreme version would be no runs inside the tackles so we see mostly lateral movement and pass plays. Step one is to stop funding football with the schools. Private clubs can show proof of insurance.
  - lostapathy 8y ago
    If you move the game along faster and reduce the resting time between plays, the average player is going to shrink back closer to something more closely resembling a normal human, so the reaction mass (and thus severity of collisions) will drop a lot as well.

I'm a season ticket holder (for Berkeley). When all the CTE stuff started coming out, I felt a bit guilty but not enough to cancel the tickets. Now I'm not sure how I feel. On the one hand, these kids are aware of the risks and choosing to play anyway. On the other hand, many of them are choosing to play because they come from depressed backgrounds with no other way of paying for or in some cases even getting into college, and football offers a chance to completely change their entire family's situation. But then again, I was listening to a Freakonomics podcast where they interviewed someone who played football and then went on to get an MBA from Harvard and worked in the executive ranks of both the NFL and NBA. He's well aware of the CTE risks, but when they asked him if he'd do it all again knowing what he knows now, he said he would still do it, because he grew up poor and now has multiple lifetimes of money. But he would never let his son play, because his son doesn't need to play to get out of a bad life situation like he did. He said it was a sacrifice he'd make again for the sake of his kids and his family. Do we want to deny people that chance to get out of poverty even though they have to knowingly risk their life? I honestly don't know because I didn't grow up poor.

umanwizard 8y ago
He’s an outlier. The overwhelming majority of college football players will make no money from it.
- metalliqaz 8y ago
  What about a degree?
  - mlthoughts2018 8y ago
    Often it’s essentially an on-paper degree in soft majors specifically designed to cater to athlete schedules and ensure minimal attendance or effort is needed to pass and stay eligible for sports. For the majority of D-1 student athletes, unless they go pro (a tiny percentage) or otherwise convert their college fame into a career, the degree does not open any doors. There are exceptions, but it’s rare. Even athletes who do make it pro are often fucked over by the teams they play for, agents, financial advisors, etc., and a lot of them still end up poor, especially if they are more of a roster player who only manage to stay in the league for a few seasons. For example, I’d guess a lot of people reading this article earn more than median salary for Major League Soccer. In 2016 the median was around $117,000 per year, with around 40 players (on senior rosters) earning the league minimum of about $55,000 [1]. Professional sports leagues are pretty brutal places for all but the biggest stars and of course managers and executives (unsurprisingly disproportionately white men as well...). [1]: https://www.forbes.com/sites/christinasettimi/2016/09/07/major-league-soccers-top-earning-players/#721f82831dee https://www.forbes.com/sites/christinasettimi/2016/09/07/maj...

madhadron 8y ago

This is entertaining, because football was almost eliminated from US universities in the early 20th century because it was too lethal. Teddy Roosevelt stepped into broker a rules change to remove the most lethal parts of the game. > Cabral loves the band of brothers aspect of football Or join ROTC if you want the real thing. > We should move in the direction of offering lifelong insurance and medical care for football players who become badly damaged,” said John Kroll The problem with this is that it's hard to say when the brain injury occurred, since its effects manifest down the road. So we should probably require high schools and Pop Warner leagues to carry lifelong insurance for players.

michaelbuckbee 8y ago

I knew it was bad, but I had not realized that the CTE numbers were so high from the article "...read the work of the Boston University C.T.E. center, which found evidence of degenerative brain disease in 99 percent of brains obtained from deceased N.F.L. players and 91 percent of college football players and 21 percent of those who played high school football." From BU's site, here was the methodology: "For the study, the researchers began with the donated brains of 202 football players. Pathologists, knowing nothing of a patient’s history or symptoms, examined each brain for evidence of CTE. At the same time, clinicians—blinded to each brain’s pathology—used medical records and interviews with family members to collect detailed information about each patient’s medical history and symptoms. The group met for regular consensus meetings, where the pathologists and the clinicians presented their findings. They limited the study to football players, providing a somewhat homogeneous sample." Stated another way (based on the study) 9 out of 10 college football players are going to leave with CTE.

slg 8y ago
I don't want to diminish the seriousness of CTE, but there is a huge selection bias there since the brains had to be donated to the study in the first place. Fully healthy people are probably much less likely to make the decision to donate their brain on death. Most of the people who are making the choice to donate are probably doing so because they experienced CTE symptoms during their life.
- ericras 8y ago
  The University of Nebraska's Center for Brain, Biology and Behavior (which is housed inside the stadium) is trying to overcome the selection bias of these studies by doing a baseline scan of all football players: https://www.starherald.com/sports/big_red_wrap/football/at-nu-football-team-and-researchers-have-teamed-up-to/article_186a10ab-226f-599f-99f8-cb0e1f6855d9.html https://www.starherald.com/sports/big_red_wrap/football/at-n...
- brightball 8y ago
  Exactly. The brains were actually donated due to suspicion of CTE and one of them was a punter who died in a motor cross accident. The game is only getting safer right now. IMO there’s no reason to play tackle football before the middle school level but after that I have zero issue. I played offensive and defensive line in high school and have been following these studies closely; there’s a ton of scare mongering and data slanting happening to create the headlines and very little coverage being given to rule changes to make the game safer.

drivingmenuts 8y ago

It seems the way to make the game safer is, ironically, to reduce the safety equipment. After all, if you have more skin in the game, so to speak, the less you might make or take on risky maneuvers. Of course, there are always those who are going to go for broke and do it anyway, So maybe the way to win is not to play, A similar sport is rugby, but the incidence and possibility of injury is pretty high there, if you read the news. Plus, rugby is un-American, just as American football is un-Worldwide. So changing sports isn't really an answer, either. Basketball isn't the same kind of sport, though I took a few elbows in the face and a knee or two in a very unfortunate spot, so yeah, it rates up there. I grew up in a small Texas town where football was practically a second church (technically, 4th, since there were three churches in town). I broke a couple of bones and sprained both ankles multiple times before I was out of elementary, plus I was rail-thin, so by the time football rolled around I was pretty risk-averse. However, I "managed" the team, which meant doing a lot of menial tasks the the coach didn't want to. I was also the cameraman. There were several times I observed some pretty serious injuries. One of our tackles shattered his right thumb to the point where it was very difficult to reconstruct. I watched a running back go over the line and got pinned between two tackles, right at the hip, not only taking him out of the game, but putting him in serious condition in the hospital for a week (the term used at the time was "bone-bruise" and he was on crutches for the rest of the season, at least). During training, despite every precaution, I saw people suffer from heat-stroke and -exhaustion because we started training in the 110-degree August sun. These weren't urban kids, either. They were small-town farmboys, used to working in heat and taking hits from the occasional obstreperous cow or a kick from a nervous horse (those were few and far between, thankfully). I once had my bell rung by a charging sheep desperate to get out of a trailer, so I know what a concussion feels like, after you wake up. No hospital trip, either. Just sucked it up and went back to work. The point is: that these guys were were willing to take some damage just to play a sport. They were middle-school and high-school kids, ready to take on the world, without considering the potential risks. Their parents encouraged it (my grandparents were pretty much neutral about it) and when one of their kids got injured, it was just part of the game, even if the damage was fairly traumatic. None of these guys were particularly violent at the time, but if there was fight, they weren't going to back down and so the prospect of being padded up and charging the other guy wasn't that big of a deal. How do you even begin to compete against that sort of mentality? NOTE: Not to knock om people who grew up in an urban environment, but I think growing up in a rural farming community carries a higher risk of injury. When working around livestock you have to be on your game at all times, since you can't just take a break for a minor injury, that would otherwise entail a trip to the family doctor for a quick checkup. That was potentially a whole day lost. Anything above a minor sprain or a small cut could have some serious effects on production.

inamberclad 8y ago

Weird to hear about my school in the news, mostly because I stay on the other side of campus and don't give a flying fuck about the D1 sports. Besides, we're usually not that competitive.

terryschiavo22 8y ago

What's most important in this conversation is to remember that we're not talking about football. We're talking about college athletics as a whole. Just because degrees attained while playing college football are largely worthless because of how little time is able to be spent studying does not mean that degrees attained with less-demanding sports (say, gymnastics or soccer) are equally worthless.

soared 8y ago
For those unaware the above comment is likely about how american football programs fund almost entirely all athletics and some amount of academics at universities.
- scott_s 8y ago
  I don't think that's accurate. Many top-level football programs lose money. See: https://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/sports/wp/2015/11/23/running-up-the-bills/?utm_term=.cf7073df0f5f https://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/sports/wp/2015/11/23/runni...
  - smileysteve 8y ago
    Thanks for mentioning this, it's important; we're told, tv money, etc, but every bowl season schools not in the top 10 have to face a choice of making money or losing money
- terryschiavo22 8y ago
  My point was that the rules are the same across all sports. If you make a change that will positive affect football athletes, that change might not be so positive for the other sports it will affect as well. Although, you are absolutely correct in your comment as well.
jackschultz 8y ago
Are you sure? Because the article doesn't mention 'degree' or 'graduate' at all. This article is only about the culture of violence in football and its repercussions later in life. There are tons of other articles and talks about this, but here, there's nothing. I hate the NCAA. People who think players don't deserve to get paid for what they bring to the table in football or basketball because they're getting free education are incredibly wrong. The culture of the majority of the programs and also the desire of the players themselves don't put education first. But this article isn't about that issue, it's about injuries in football alone.

dannylandau 8y ago

I'm currently sitting in a Boulder Cafe at Galvanize reading this article, and wondering if a high school peer that I know -- Tennyson McCartney -- who also played for the CU team back in the day had CTE. He also committed suicide 10 years back. Remember him as a giant of a guy that was smart and kind.

dekhn 8y ago

Football is a sport where when I first saw it, I thought it was basically a sports analogy to war, including damaging soldiers. Like boxing, I simply cannot comprehend why people want to do sports where injury is a routine component of the activity.

username223 8y ago
It sort of was a "sports analogy to war." It was created after the American Civil War, which killed around 1 million people, and football was at least in part an attempt to "keep our Ivy League boys tough." Now people do it for the money, pride, or fame. Football, like pankration, creates incredible athletes, but that doesn't mean that the sport should still exist.
leetcrew 8y ago
> Like boxing, I simply cannot comprehend why people want to do sports where injury is a routine component of the activity. football is probably one of the more dangerous sports, and it's getting a lot of attention right now due to CTE concerns. that said, injury is a routine component of pretty much all sports at the highest level. you can't be the best in the world at a physical activity without pushing your body to its very limits.
- dekhn 8y ago
  yes, but there's a difference between running and causing self-injury, and a sport where people actually have to collide.
CM30 8y ago
Because it's enjoyable? Because they find some meaning in it? Why do they do any dangerous activity at all? If everyone was super concerned about their own safety above all else, then many activities (including basically all extreme sports) would have gone extinct. Either way, I think people are way too obsessed with making life 'safe', when what matters should be that people can enjoy what they want as long as it doesn't risk those aren't willing participants.

JustSomeNobody 8y ago

> “My dad always told me the name of the game is hit, hit, H-I-T. There is always a place on the field for someone who will hit.” This is just sad. Would love to see data before and after "hitting" replaced "tackling".

uberdru 8y ago

I hope that American football does not exist in its current state in 10 years. Ideally, a test will be developed to detect CTE before you're dead. I was a lineman. I hit hard, and I was knocked out several times over the course of a decade or so of play. There's no way to play football in a 'safe' manner. The tactics and the equipment have evolved in a way that maximizes risk of brain injury.

dylan604 8y ago
What about going back to leather helmets and other less armor like equipment? Sure, there will probably be a steep injury spike as people try to play in current styles with less padding, but maybe they'll go back to actually tackling rather than trying to light someone up for the sake of it. Rugby seems to do alright without all of the body armor.
- peteretep 8y ago
  > Rugby seems to do alright without all of the body armor. Rugby has very different rules on physical engagement, and has never seen the epidemic of deaths that American Football had.

smileysteve 8y ago

> “My dad always told me the name of the game is hit, hit, H-I-T." The article doesn't touch the board response beyond this quote, but this mindset seems problematic. In a sport marked by injuries at all levels, and in this concussion centric area, it says a lot about ignoring the issues that such would be a tagline. Why it's different from a Nascar team purposefully running people off the road is a question begging to be asked. And that a majority of the fans probably watch for the hits, much like Nascar fans in the 90s is problematic. It's probably affecting society in other ways too - obesity epidemic, family violence, us vs them mentality Basketball, Soccer, even "real" football fans are looking for the play development and strategy much more than the "hits".

smileysteve 8y ago
One example is that "Hit, Hit Hit" is as extreme as "Chug Chug Chug" might be in alcohol consumption. There's speed, skill, strategy, player rotation, juking, wrapping up, deflecting --- but hit hit hit is the rallying cry.

writimov 8y ago

I've spoken with multi-generation football family coaches, players who say that the sport is headed for an end. I'm not sure I believe that. It comes down to whether a safe helmet can be made or whether a CTE treatment can be created. (Both of those seem like very difficult goals.) The number of participants in the kids leagues has been declining for a while: https://www.statista.com/statistics/191658/participants-in-tackle-football-in-the-us-since-2006/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/191658/participants-in-t... What parent would allow their high schooler to play if there is a 21% chance of lifelong disability, loss of earnings potential, etc.?

lostapathy 8y ago
A safer helmet isn't the only way out, though. Rules can be changed to shape the game away from the big hits as well. Change the rules so there isn't so long between plays and all the optimal players get smaller and more athletic, and they can't "rest and reset" for the next big play. All of a sudden, the magnitude of the collisions goes down substantially. "Unfortunately" then an NFL game wouldn't be good for 3+ hours of TV advertisements, so there's a lot of incentive to keep the pace slow.

xibalba 8y ago

I played high school football, and my family is a "football family" with Dad and other relatives having played at the college level. I loved the game and had many great experiences. I'm sad to write it, but that tradition ends with me. I will absolutely not allow any children I might have to play this game. I often wonder how badly my own brain is damaged. Coincidentally, I also did my undergrad at CU.

pacala 8y ago
Quite popular among middle schoolers in my city is Ultimate Frisbee [0]. It flows similarly to football, at least for an European eye, but without rushing or tackling. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultimate_(sport) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultimate_(sport)
- nostrademons 8y ago
  Ultimate was hugely popular in the social circles I went to college and worked with. It's faster-paced than football, has relatively little risk of injury, and the rules are easy to explain. It's also the most accessible sport in terms of equipment needed: all you need is a 50-cent frisbee and an open playing field. Even beats soccer and basketball in that regard.
- basetop 8y ago
  We already have football without tackling - flag football or touch football. Most of us play flag or touch football in school. Only a tiny fraction of people who play football play organized tackle football. Frisbee is nice, but there is nothing like throwing a tight spiral or catching a football.
  - tomjakubowski 8y ago
    High school football is most commonly full-contact/"tackle", and the source of most football-related injuries, because most players don't advance beyond that level. I think that in most of the country, K-8 schools don't organize football teams, but I did know kids who played flag football in park district youth leagues.

Balgair 8y ago

It seems that repetitive head injuries are really something that has long term consequences. The issue is VERY complex and has a lot of factors. One thing to look at is the complex data on other sports[0]. It turns out that men's rugby and women's ice hockey are also big magnets, along with soccer/futbol. It seems to be that just about any hit to the head can be damaging, regardless of equipment. The 'violence' of American football may be a correlated factor, but not causative. But we're just beginning to understand these things. More data is needed, unfortunately. It seems that these athletes really are suffering. [0] https://completeconcussions.com/2018/12/05/concussion-rates-what-sport-most-concussions/ https://completeconcussions.com/2018/12/05/concussion-rates-... P.S. I've also struggled with these issues. I've written on HN before about them and won't bore here. Suffice to say, though I've had deep struggles with concussions, and in the end I'd say I wish I'd not done those sports as a result, it is a hard question to answer. If I could be back out on that pitch once more with my mates and be guaranteed to not get another head injury, I'd do it in a heartbeat. I loved that time and really do miss it everyday, even decades later, I love rugby. I wasn't an easy thing to quit, and it is still not easy to stay away from. The concussion epidemic is not going to be easy to solve.

mathgeek 8y ago
> More data is needed, unfortunately. I’ve slowly been convinced that more data isn’t needed before we act on this. The only reason there’s a call for more data is that these sports are very popular and drive revenue. We have enough data to say “yes, these sports pose a serious risk to the health of those playing them.” That doesn’t mean to have to stop playing them, but it does mean we can’t throw our hands up and claim we just don’t know why these kids keep getting brain injuries.
- jeffchien 8y ago
  Agreed. I can't help but think that some calls for more data is just intentionally delaying doing the right thing. Will any amount of data ever satisfy diehard fans and those who financially benefit from college football? Great talk about this very point: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWaPXzTDEDw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWaPXzTDEDw

rb808 8y ago

If all kids could just sit on the sofa and play video games we'd all be much healthier.

mactrey 8y ago
False dichotomy. You can get strenuous, competitive, healthful physical activity without ever risking brain trauma. Swimming, tennis, track and field, etc.

fiftyfifty 8y ago

Why do we continue to allow our institutions of higher learning (namely high schools and colleges) to promote this sport? The very organizations charged with making our children smarter sponsor a sport proven to cause brain damage. At some point these institutions need to be held accountable for this, only when that happens will we see any change.

dylan604 8y ago
Simple: money. The money earned from football events pay for so much of that institution's budget. Friday Night Lights is a tradition that's not going to change.
- mlthoughts2018 8y ago
  Actually this is not true. Many top athletics programs lose substantial amounts of money, even after accounting for TV deals, https://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/sports/wp/2015/11/23/running-up-the-bills https://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/sports/wp/2015/11/23/runni... There’s some unsubstantiated claim that constantly growing expenditure on sports is requires like a marketing arms race to advertise to potential students, but I haven’t seen much data backing that. My guessis that, just as with most professional sports clubs, college athletics programs by design are intrinsically huge loss leaders designed to be vehicles by which coaches & administrators extract money from the university. For the tiny fraction of top teams with massive fan bases, they can get away with this while being profitable. For almost all other programs, they burn through money chasing success and profitability for a while, and after enough consecutive seasons of financial losses, they retreat to fiscal austerity and a decline in the athletics department while some other programs are on an upswing.
  - ajkjk 8y ago
    It doesn't have to be a surprising economic argument. People like football. They're obsessed with it. Of course they have it at their schools.
    - 8y ago