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Malcolm Gladwell has looked at this issue[1]. He sees football as being analogous to dogfighting. Popular at the time and with fans, but the science behind it i

Malcolm Gladwell has looked at this issue[1]. He sees football as being analogous to dogfighting. Popular at the time and with fans, but the science behind it is scary. I've experienced a severe traumatic brain injury (sTBI), meaning I've seen many brain doctors. I have seen a neuro-omptomolgist (brain-eye doctor) who sees a football player who can't even add up his checkbook (meaning he can't add, not this his checkbook is too complex). I had a therapist who dated a college football player and eventually saw him as more of a patient than a boyfriend. A concussion is now defined as seeing bright spots[2] and is classified as a mild TBI. The results from concussions are cumulative[3], and football is one of the sports most prone to concussion[3]. A football block is defined as being good if you see bright spots or having a concussion, and players often play through this[4]. I'll never let my children play football. [1]:http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/10/19/091019fa_fact_gladwell?currentPage=all http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/10/19/091019fa_fact_... [2]:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concussion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concussion [3]:http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0140673675902883 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0140673675... [4]:http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/11/05/dont-tell-coach-playing-through-concussions/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0 http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/11/05/dont-tell-coach-pla...

jleader 12y ago
I know a few people who do neuropsychological testing (testing IQ, various kinds of memory, spatial reasoning, attention, and so on). Some college athletes are now getting "before" tests, as a baseline to evaluate the severity of damage after any subsequent concussion. One tester says she's seen players attempt to do poorly on the "before" tests, so they'll be able to keep playing even after a concussion impairs their cognitive abilities. This horrifies me more than I can describe.
- deathhand 12y ago
  Why can't one sell their the cognitive ability if they choose to? If the player is "smart" enough to cheat the test then ultimately it is their choice. Society has deemed their muscles more valuable then their intelligence and I don't think we would be turning towards them for their thoughts on optimizations for database wrappers.
  - leoc 12y ago
    Well, it depends. If you believe that Armin Meiwes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armin_Meiwes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armin_Meiwes is wrongly imprisoned and must be released, then sure; you also win the who's-the-most-consistent-libertarian contest. On the other hand, if you believe that humans possess certain unalienable (which means not revokable, and not relinquishable, even voluntarily) rights, then the fact that the football players are volunteering for brain damage is not necessarily enough to make it okay.
  - pdenya 12y ago
    I agreed with your moral position that it's the players right despite the fact that it's wasteful. Your last sentence is out there though. We're talking about kids in college, no one has put a price on their intelligence yet. Also unnecessary to imply that football players wouldn't be able to do anything useful with their intelligence.
  - jleader 12y ago
    I didn't say they don't have the right to choose (though there's a discussion to be had about how informed their consent really is), I just said that their choice horrifies me. Coincidentally, I've worked with a former Pac-12 football player (who left the game after I think freshman year), and in fact I have sought out his opinions on optimizations for database wrappers (among other subjects). Beware of who you write off with your stereotypes!
  - johnchristopher 12y ago
    Not ranting: I don't want to live in a society where people are told it's okay to have their bodies destroyed to get a living (or a scholarship) or to satisfy the market (for a prestigious football team that sell tickets). We shouldn't strive for that. Ranting: > Why can't one sell their the cognitive ability if they choose to? If the player is "smart" enough to cheat the test then ultimately it is their choice. That's a catch-22. If they were smart, they wouldn't sell their cognitive ability. > Society has deemed their muscles more valuable then their intelligence and I don't think we would be turning towards them for their thoughts on optimizations for database wrappers. So when the economy isn't good we should sell our organs because society deemed our body parts more valuable than our well being ?
Zelphyr 12y ago
> I'll never let my children play football. I wish more people had this attitude.
- ry0ohki 12y ago
  Or Hockey or Soccer? Concussions are common in many sports, soccer which is considered a "safe" alternative to football has the second highest rate. Also not unlikely to occur in Basketball or Baseball.
  - Zelphyr 12y ago
    I think the general overemphasis on sports in this country (are other countries as bad?) is ridiculous. Resulting in things like parents getting into fights over it. And parents ignoring doctors recommendations to pull the child out because of a concussion ("But they need to get back in the game!" "My son is no quitter!"). Its just insane. Is it really that important that you be the best at throwing a fucking ball around? Me personally, I'd rather be the best at creating something.
  - skierscott 12y ago
    > hockey or soccer? The biggest thing for me is the aim of the sport. The aim of American football is to stop the opposing team using your body; soccer and hockey both involve pretty intense strategy to get the ball/puck in the net. Hockey does have some body-body impact (through checks). I haven't played much hockey, so I don't know how severe it is.
- mhb 12y ago
  Football’s Risks Sink In, Even in Heart of Texas http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/12/sports/footballs-risks-sink-in-even-in-heart-of-texas.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/12/sports/footballs-risks-sin...
silverbax88 12y ago
When I was in high school I was a Division I football prospect. I had multiple schools after me: Alabama, Florida, LSU, etc. I really wanted Miami (this was the '80s) but deep down I really wanted to play basketball. I only got a little sniff of DI basketball interest but I went on a football visit to Florida and saw massive guys hitting each other and thought "I'm going to get killed" and never took the football scholarship. I'm a big guy - 6'4", 225, I was pretty close to that size in high school and I was a pretty angry teenager so hitting guys at full speed was in my...well, 'nature'. So please consider this when I say that those college guys were jacked up on 'roids' and WAAYY too big for me. I didn't take steroids in high school but I was big enough and strong enough (and in truth, angry enough) to play against those kids on 'roids anyway. I knew in college, I wouldn't have been. I walked away from a certain Division I college scholarship (at the time - I blew out my knee a year later) despite what my coaches were calling a 'no-brainer' to play football. I've NEVER regretted it and each year that has passed since has made me even more glad I did it.
- rcthompson 12y ago
  Well, it turns out football is a no-brainer after all, just not in the way your coaches meant.
- at-fates-hands 12y ago
  You sound remarkably similar to what Wayne Gretzky said after he retired. The last two years of his career, his Dad kept asking him if he was going to play another year. He basically said, "I don't know. Every year I go back to camp, the guys are bigger, stronger and hit harder than last year." When you look around the league, it's obvious how much bigger these guys have gotten. Look at some of the current LA KINGS forwards: Jeff Carter - 6'4" - 212lbs Dwight King - 6'4" - 230lbs Anze Kopitar - 6'3" - 224lbs Jordan Nolan - 6'3" - 221lbs I'm assuming their heights are all reflected without wearing skates, which adds a good 2" to those heights. This is one of the reasons many pundits said LA won the cup in 2011. Big, strong forwards and a merciless forecheck. I still remember one of the announcers saying, "Imagine you're a defensemen and everytime LA drops the puck into the corner in your end and you have two of these guys hurtling towards you as you go for the puck. It's a defensemen's worst nightmare."
jessriedel 12y ago
Nice anecdotes. Your comments and links are good at triggering fear, but the data doesn't back you up that football is an usually dangerous sport. Women's soccer has a higher rate of concussions than men's football at the collegiate level, and it has 75% of the rate at the high school level [1]. Similarly, men's college soccer has a higher rate than high school football. In fact, football is higher than the average sport (high school or college) by less than a factor of 2, an average which includes non-contact sports like volleyball. Will you be preventing your girls from playing soccer? Yes, football has a somewhat higher rate of concussions than most other sports, a fact that should be considered before participating. And yes, the recent improvement in concussion treatment and monitoring is a great thing which will naturally focus on football since it has a higher concussion rate and since more US high schoolers play football than any other sport by far. But the idea that football is in its own category of danger is ludicrous. If you're withholding your children from football, you should almost certainly be withholding them from all contact sports. [1] Table 1 here: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2140075/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2140075/
- markdown 12y ago
  This doesn't make sense. You're saying that Football (where hitting another player is illegal) is as dangerous as American Football, where hitting another player with the full weight of your body at high momentum is the point of the game for most positions. Does not compute. From the study you linked to: > Contact with another person was the risk factor responsible for most concussions among high school athletes. You could play an entire season of Football without ever coming into contact with another player. Unless you were a Marvel superhero, that wouldn't be possible in American Football. I skimmed the study you linked to an the conclusion was merely that Football and American Football had the highest rates of concussion... compared to what... track and field athletics? DUH!!
  - jessriedel 12y ago
    My understanding is that the concussions in soccer come from direct head-to-head collisions (which are not cushioned by helmets) and from heading the ball (which is moving significantly faster than a human being). The fact that you find the similar concussion rates between these two sports surprising is good reason for you to doubt your ability to identify dangerous sports based on your intuition for how violent they are.

jleader 12y ago

I know a few people who do neuropsychological testing (testing IQ, various kinds of memory, spatial reasoning, attention, and so on). Some college athletes are now getting "before" tests, as a baseline to evaluate the severity of damage after any subsequent concussion. One tester says she's seen players attempt to do poorly on the "before" tests, so they'll be able to keep playing even after a concussion impairs their cognitive abilities. This horrifies me more than I can describe.

deathhand 12y ago
Why can't one sell their the cognitive ability if they choose to? If the player is "smart" enough to cheat the test then ultimately it is their choice. Society has deemed their muscles more valuable then their intelligence and I don't think we would be turning towards them for their thoughts on optimizations for database wrappers.
- leoc 12y ago
  Well, it depends. If you believe that Armin Meiwes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armin_Meiwes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armin_Meiwes is wrongly imprisoned and must be released, then sure; you also win the who's-the-most-consistent-libertarian contest. On the other hand, if you believe that humans possess certain unalienable (which means not revokable, and not relinquishable, even voluntarily) rights, then the fact that the football players are volunteering for brain damage is not necessarily enough to make it okay.
- pdenya 12y ago
  I agreed with your moral position that it's the players right despite the fact that it's wasteful. Your last sentence is out there though. We're talking about kids in college, no one has put a price on their intelligence yet. Also unnecessary to imply that football players wouldn't be able to do anything useful with their intelligence.
- jleader 12y ago
  I didn't say they don't have the right to choose (though there's a discussion to be had about how informed their consent really is), I just said that their choice horrifies me. Coincidentally, I've worked with a former Pac-12 football player (who left the game after I think freshman year), and in fact I have sought out his opinions on optimizations for database wrappers (among other subjects). Beware of who you write off with your stereotypes!
- johnchristopher 12y ago
  Not ranting: I don't want to live in a society where people are told it's okay to have their bodies destroyed to get a living (or a scholarship) or to satisfy the market (for a prestigious football team that sell tickets). We shouldn't strive for that. Ranting: > Why can't one sell their the cognitive ability if they choose to? If the player is "smart" enough to cheat the test then ultimately it is their choice. That's a catch-22. If they were smart, they wouldn't sell their cognitive ability. > Society has deemed their muscles more valuable then their intelligence and I don't think we would be turning towards them for their thoughts on optimizations for database wrappers. So when the economy isn't good we should sell our organs because society deemed our body parts more valuable than our well being ?

Zelphyr 12y ago

> I'll never let my children play football. I wish more people had this attitude.

ry0ohki 12y ago
Or Hockey or Soccer? Concussions are common in many sports, soccer which is considered a "safe" alternative to football has the second highest rate. Also not unlikely to occur in Basketball or Baseball.
- Zelphyr 12y ago
  I think the general overemphasis on sports in this country (are other countries as bad?) is ridiculous. Resulting in things like parents getting into fights over it. And parents ignoring doctors recommendations to pull the child out because of a concussion ("But they need to get back in the game!" "My son is no quitter!"). Its just insane. Is it really that important that you be the best at throwing a fucking ball around? Me personally, I'd rather be the best at creating something.
- skierscott 12y ago
  > hockey or soccer? The biggest thing for me is the aim of the sport. The aim of American football is to stop the opposing team using your body; soccer and hockey both involve pretty intense strategy to get the ball/puck in the net. Hockey does have some body-body impact (through checks). I haven't played much hockey, so I don't know how severe it is.
mhb 12y ago
Football’s Risks Sink In, Even in Heart of Texas http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/12/sports/footballs-risks-sink-in-even-in-heart-of-texas.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/12/sports/footballs-risks-sin...

silverbax88 12y ago

When I was in high school I was a Division I football prospect. I had multiple schools after me: Alabama, Florida, LSU, etc. I really wanted Miami (this was the '80s) but deep down I really wanted to play basketball. I only got a little sniff of DI basketball interest but I went on a football visit to Florida and saw massive guys hitting each other and thought "I'm going to get killed" and never took the football scholarship. I'm a big guy - 6'4", 225, I was pretty close to that size in high school and I was a pretty angry teenager so hitting guys at full speed was in my...well, 'nature'. So please consider this when I say that those college guys were jacked up on 'roids' and WAAYY too big for me. I didn't take steroids in high school but I was big enough and strong enough (and in truth, angry enough) to play against those kids on 'roids anyway. I knew in college, I wouldn't have been. I walked away from a certain Division I college scholarship (at the time - I blew out my knee a year later) despite what my coaches were calling a 'no-brainer' to play football. I've NEVER regretted it and each year that has passed since has made me even more glad I did it.

rcthompson 12y ago
Well, it turns out football is a no-brainer after all, just not in the way your coaches meant.
at-fates-hands 12y ago
You sound remarkably similar to what Wayne Gretzky said after he retired. The last two years of his career, his Dad kept asking him if he was going to play another year. He basically said, "I don't know. Every year I go back to camp, the guys are bigger, stronger and hit harder than last year." When you look around the league, it's obvious how much bigger these guys have gotten. Look at some of the current LA KINGS forwards: Jeff Carter - 6'4" - 212lbs Dwight King - 6'4" - 230lbs Anze Kopitar - 6'3" - 224lbs Jordan Nolan - 6'3" - 221lbs I'm assuming their heights are all reflected without wearing skates, which adds a good 2" to those heights. This is one of the reasons many pundits said LA won the cup in 2011. Big, strong forwards and a merciless forecheck. I still remember one of the announcers saying, "Imagine you're a defensemen and everytime LA drops the puck into the corner in your end and you have two of these guys hurtling towards you as you go for the puck. It's a defensemen's worst nightmare."

jessriedel 12y ago

Nice anecdotes. Your comments and links are good at triggering fear, but the data doesn't back you up that football is an usually dangerous sport. Women's soccer has a higher rate of concussions than men's football at the collegiate level, and it has 75% of the rate at the high school level [1]. Similarly, men's college soccer has a higher rate than high school football. In fact, football is higher than the average sport (high school or college) by less than a factor of 2, an average which includes non-contact sports like volleyball. Will you be preventing your girls from playing soccer? Yes, football has a somewhat higher rate of concussions than most other sports, a fact that should be considered before participating. And yes, the recent improvement in concussion treatment and monitoring is a great thing which will naturally focus on football since it has a higher concussion rate and since more US high schoolers play football than any other sport by far. But the idea that football is in its own category of danger is ludicrous. If you're withholding your children from football, you should almost certainly be withholding them from all contact sports. [1] Table 1 here: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2140075/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2140075/

markdown 12y ago
This doesn't make sense. You're saying that Football (where hitting another player is illegal) is as dangerous as American Football, where hitting another player with the full weight of your body at high momentum is the point of the game for most positions. Does not compute. From the study you linked to: > Contact with another person was the risk factor responsible for most concussions among high school athletes. You could play an entire season of Football without ever coming into contact with another player. Unless you were a Marvel superhero, that wouldn't be possible in American Football. I skimmed the study you linked to an the conclusion was merely that Football and American Football had the highest rates of concussion... compared to what... track and field athletics? DUH!!
- jessriedel 12y ago
  My understanding is that the concussions in soccer come from direct head-to-head collisions (which are not cushioned by helmets) and from heading the ball (which is moving significantly faster than a human being). The fact that you find the similar concussion rates between these two sports surprising is good reason for you to doubt your ability to identify dangerous sports based on your intuition for how violent they are.