Flight from Football

I’m writing this column from Africa—Cape Town, South Africa, to be specific. American football isn’t played here. South Africa doesn’t have “Friday Night Lights,” tailgate Saturdays, and pro football Sundays. But football followed me all the way to Cape Town. Here’s how.

It’s a long way from Detroit to Cape Town, 7618 miles, one way. The second leg (from Amsterdam to South Africa) is brutal—12 hours in the air. I needed reading material to get me through the flight. Among other things I brought three football articles to read—New York Times pieces that appeared in the paper over a recent four-day period. None had been featured in the sports section, though, and that’s an important part of this story.

Let’s start with David Leonhardt’s provocative article, “Football, the Newest Partisan Divide” (November 4). Democrats, Republicans, and football? What’s that about? It’s about the number of boys playing high school football and why the number is dropping more in some states than in other states.

Courtesy: huffingtonpost.com

States experiencing the largest declines over the last six years are historically “Blue-leaning’’ states: Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Colorado (at around 15%) and Massachusetts, Maryland, New York, and California (between 5-10%). Those states rate high on another measure: the percentage of the population with a college degree. Keep that fact in mind.

Player safety is the primary issue, but there are differential perceptions regarding football safety. Two variables are involved—voting preference and education level—but the interplay is complex.

The Rand Corporation asked a national sample of Americans if they’d be comfortable with their son playing football. The “yes” percentage was about 55% overall, but sub-analysis revealed significant differences in two groups of respondents. One group (with about 60% saying “yes”) were Romney voters in the 2012 election. Education level didn’t seem to affect safety perceptions in that group, a group that also included Obama voters without a college degree. But there was another group: Obama voters with a college degree. Half as many (30%) said “yes” to being comfortable about having a son play football. That means about 70% felt uncomfortable.

Liberal perspective + Higher Educational Attainment (seems to contribute to) Greater Concern about Football Safety.

Could there be a future without football, at least as we know it today? Possibly. Widespread public preferences and behaviors can change over time when the public makes collective judgments about safety. Want examples? Smoking and boxing were “big” decades ago, but safety issues emerged in each case. Today interest and participation levels are nowhere near what they were before: smoking rates have declined substantially and interest in boxing has waned considerably.

On to the second article…published on November 8 with the title “The Places in America where College Football Means the Most” written by Neil Irwin and Kevin Quealy. Facebook data were analyzed in this study, Facebook “Likes,” specifically. What did the authors learn about college football nationally?

Courtesy:
itsalwaysunnyindetroit.com

College football seems to have greater meaning to Facebook users who live in the South and in pockets of the Midwest. The highest percentage of Likes were found among residents in Southeastern states: Alabama (tops), Arkansas, South Carolina, Mississippi, and Louisiana—SEC states. Midwest states with the highest percentage of “Likes” for college football include Ohio, Nebraska, Iowa, and Michigan—Big Ten states.

At the other end of the spectrum—with low percentages of “Likes” for college football—were Facebook users in California, New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Vermont, and Illinois—urban, industrial states or states without a major college team.

Overall, college football “Likes” were substantially higher in rural vs. urban areas; and college football didn’t seem to be a big deal in certain sections of the country (e.g., New England, the Mountain West).

There’s an interesting association between the two studies. We may be seeing the beginning of a convergent evolution (perhaps a revolution) in football interest and support among certain people and in certain regions of the country.

What might it take to speed up and magnify change—if, indeed, change is to occur? One answer is the public’s response to players who suffer life-altering football injuries. Consider, then, what we learn from the article published in the November 6 edition of New York Times Magazine, “How One Lawyer’s Crusade Could Change Football Forever,” written by Michael Sokolove.

It’s the story about Jason Luckasevic, an attorney who’s fighting to secure appropriate compensation for NFL players with suffer brain and related damage from football injuries. The story starts when Luckasevic’s brother worked for Bennet Omalu, a forensic pathologist who conducted the autopsy on Mike Webster, the Steeler great, who died at 50 from complications associated with what we know today as chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE). That autopsy, done nine years ago, was followed by five autopsies on former players. The results were all similar—“tangled brain tissue and the accumulation of tau protein, a characteristic of Alzheimer’s Disease.” Omalu published an article about the Webster case in the journal, Neurosurgery. The NFL protested.

Courtesy: dignityafterfootball.org

Luckasevic decided to get involved. He began interviewing former players. “Many of the men he met suffered from headaches, memory loss, depression, and sleeplessness,” Sokolove writes. So in 2011 Luckasevic filed his first suit against the NFL on behalf of 75 players. The claim: players didn’t realize that they were, in Sokolove’s words, “putting their intellectual and emotional well-being at risk” by playing professionally.

Case in point: former Michigan State and Buffalo Bills standout, Joe DeLamielleure, an offensive lineman. He has significant hearing loss in his left ear caused by right-handed defensive players slapping him in the head repeatedly. DeLamielleure also suffers from headaches and anger issues. He’s a living example of the problems. What about those who’ve passed on? Of the nearly 80 autopsies conducted on former NFL players 76 have shown “what appears to be football-related damage.” It’s a bleak picture.

Enough reading, I thought, it’s time for a break. I’ll watch a film. Perusing the airline’s film list I came across this title: “Casualties of the Gridiron” (see video clip). It’s a videography (presented in eight parts) about the trauma associated with life after football. I couldn’t get away from this topic, it seemed.

In the producer’s words “Casualties” is about “the struggle of retired NFL players who endure chronic pain, addiction, and traumatic brain injuries, as they search for healing, redemption and freedom from their suffering.” The story centers around pro bono medical services offered by a New Jersey-based organization called P.A.S.T.

Courtesy: GQ Films

Former players come to P.A.S.T. to get services, support, and help their peers. Many are drug addicted (pain pills) and suffer from a variety of physical and emotional trauma. The face of the story is Ray Lucus, former Rutgers and NY Jets quarterback. Some of the most compelling scenes are in the surgery room as you watch physicians tending to the players’ chronic and excruciating pain. It was difficult to watch. Those scenes are connected to viewing various on-the-field blows that players received while playing the game.

Much food for thought, I reasoned, as the plane landed in Amsterdam. Then a tweet came across my phone as I was waiting to board for the second leg of the trip. From The National College Players Association (NCPA) it read: “Protecting players’ brains should NOT be OPTIONAL! College player’s suicide linked to brain trauma” (text emphasis from the original tweet).

I went to the URL link in NCPA’s tweet and watched a video report by CNN’s Sara Ganim: “Athlete’s suicide linked to brain trauma” (see video clip). It’s a story about a college linebacker—21-year old Owen Thomas, captain of the U Penn football team—and the quest to discover why he had committed suicide. Thomas had played football since 9 years of age. While he had never been diagnosed with a concussion, a post-mortem brain analysis performed at Boston University revealed that he suffered from CTE. The likely cause: repeated blows to the head, “sub-concussions” as they are called, hits that are often as severe as concussions but occur without causing symptoms.

BU’s Dr. Robert Stern believes that “hits add up” over the lifetime of a player’s career—from practices and in games. “These football hits are about 20g force,” Stern estimates, “which is about the same, simplistically, as a car going 30-35 miles an hour and hitting a brick wall. Imagine that happening 1000-1500 times a year.”

Sobering stuff, I thought. Then, after landing in Africa, another NCPA tweet came across my phone: “NCAA ignored concussion research. What happened to the #NCAA founding principle of protecting college players?”It was a second story by CNN’s Ganim. “Lawsuit says NCAA ignored concussion,” (see video clip) was the focus this time. Ganim reports that the NCAA has largely ignored concussions, despite “10 years of research (on the subject), even some that it (the NCAA) paid for.”

Courtesy: USATODAY

Ganim focuses on the case of Adrian Arrington of Eastern Illinois University. His story, which led to a lawsuit against the NCAA, revolves around the impact of concussion-related athletic activity and what universities are doing (and not doing) to address head traumas in college football. A pivotal incident in this story is when Arrington’s father left the stands to intervene on the sidelines after Arrington suffered a head injury during a game. Arrington was being readied by coaches to re-enter the contest. The father told coaches not to put Arrington back in the game because Arrington had a history of concussions. Arrington was pulled. He never played football again.

Arrington’s suit was consolidated with other similar suits against the NCAA and was settled earlier this year, mostly in terms of money the NCAA will set aside for monitoring the health status of former athletes. The settlement, which does not include compensation funds, is being criticized largely for that reason. The matter is back in the courts.

Where will things settle? It’s anybody’s guess. On the one hand football is, in Leonhardt words, “akin to a secular religion…a tribal way of organizing life, complete with special garments, a sense of identity, and weekly rituals…and “holidays.” There’s the “The Iron Bowl” (Auburn-Alabama), “The Civil War” (Oregon-Oregon State), “The Big Game” (Stanford-Cal), and so on, including our “national holiday,” The Super Bowl.

On the other hand evidence is mounting regarding serious health risks. Leonhardt believes that “most fans (today) are willing to ignore the health damage that NFL players expose themselves to. We make ourselves feel better by saying that the players know the risks” and they are well-compensated, too. But things will hit closer to home, Daniel Okrent surmises, “when universities and school boards have to start paying out substantial settlements.”

Courtesy: wherediditallgogright.blog.wordpress.com

Rather than think “big football” is untouchable—an embedded and unchangeable feature of American life—consider what happened to “big tobacco.” Sokolove says it took 60 years from the time that medical evidence surfaced about smoking’s impact on human mortality (1938) to the time that the industry settled a $200 billion compensation lawsuit with attorneys general across the country (1998). In between there was the Surgeon General’s Report on the impact of tobacco use (1964) and the industry’s public acknowledgement that cigarettes cause cancer (1997).

Might football follow the same path? The connection between play and health risks is no longer a matter of conjecture. The NFL has already set aside player compensation funds. Many parents are withholding kids from high school football. And it’s one of the reasons (certainly not the only reason) why current and former college players are contesting NCAA policies regarding the college game.

This we know for sure: Media coverage will continue. Advocacy organizations, like the NCPA, will continue working aggressively. Lawsuits will continue to be filed. Unless things change significantly—and that will require leaders stepping up to address player safety as the #1 issue in football at all levels, high school through pro—the game’s future is not bright.

How long will the American public support a game that produces life-altering injuries? How will the public respond if a player’s death is tied directly to a game-related injury?

How serious is it? Consider what Joe DeLamielleure told Michael Sokolove:

“I lived football. I loved football. I can tell you the starting lineup from the Detroit Lions from 1961. I can tell you their numbers. I can tell you the colleges they attended. That’s how much I loved it. But knowing what I know now, I wish I had never played the game.”

ENDNOTE: Perhaps the most interesting thing about football and change is how “big change” often occurs in society. There will always be people who’ll promote change for ideological, moral, and values-based reasons. For them change is the right thing to do. And there will always be people who’ll seek change for reasons of self-interest. For them change is the smart thing to do. Big change comes with convergence—when a sufficient number people representing both groups combine to tip the scales of change. This doesn’t happen overnight. It often takes years to develop. However, there’s more than enough evidence that people in both groups are out there in America today, and their numbers are growing, too. Act now, football leaders, and there’s a chance to save the game—at least reasonably, as we know it. Do nothing or engage in self-defense and the game is vulnerable. If big change comes my guess is that it won’t be because a lot of college and pro leaders are driven by doing the right thing. Give me the name of one major, influential spokesperson in that camp. Change will likely come out of self-interest, to protect the stake they’ve worked hard to develop. Better that way than no way. FAF