Tag: Damar Hamlin

No Matter How Cute the Commercials

~ slfuchs ~ 2 Comments

The Niners and the Chiefs will play the “Concussion Bowl –aka– the Super Bowl next Sunday in Las Vegas. For many millions it is the not to missed High Holy Day of American Civil Religion.

And I see on the internet that decent seats – not great but decent – can be had for about six grand. So, I find myself wondering:

What would I do if my doorbell rang, and a person handed me two fifty-yard-line seats, two first class tickets to and from Las Vegas and a voucher for five nights in a luxury suite on in one of the finest hotels on the Strip?

Oh, I would be tempted, but I hope I would decline the gift.

I hope I would decline the gift in the same way I hope that if I lived in ancient Rome, I would decline a ticket to see gladiators battle to the death for the amusement of the audience. If you look at the statistics, and they are irrefutable, you will see that American football is just a couple of degrees more civilized than the gladiatorial contests of ancient Rome!

According to Wikipedia based on a whole host of other sources as indicated by the footnotes:

“Chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) has been found in 345 of 376 (that is 91.76 %) deceased former National Football League (NFL) players’ brains, according to a 2023 report by the Boston University CTE Center, which has led the effort to diagnose CTE cases. In comparison, a 2018 BU study of the general population found one CTE case in 164 autopsies, and that one person with CTE had played college football.[1] The NFL acknowledged a link between playing American football and being diagnosed with CTE in 2016, after denying such a link for over a decade and arguing that players’ symptoms had other causes

Although the symptoms of CTE can vary, it doesn’t directly cause death but instead changes personality and behavior, making a person not feel like themselves anymore.[15] Players with CTE can become isolated from their friends.[16] Sometimes they become unable to tell a story,[17] carry on a conversation,[18] or recognize their loved ones.[19] One former player later found to have CTE described having headaches that felt like ice picks hitting his brain.[20]

Some former players with CTE suffer from memory loss and depression.[21] Some players and those around them deal with their violent mood swings, rage,[22] and paranoia.[23][24] In some cases, damage to players’ brains contributes to severe alcoholism leading to death.[25][26] Two former NFL Man of the Year winners suffering from CTE symptoms shot themselves in the chest so their brains could be studied for the damage inflicted by football.[27][28]”  (Dave Duerson and Junior Seau)

And speaking of injuries according to an article in the February 2020 issue of Forbes magazine:

No sport racks up injuries quite like football, so it’s no surprise that NFL teams spent an estimated $521 million on sidelined players during the 2019 season, according to a study by The Associated Press

521 million dollars

I think of the number of schools, low-income housing units, medical care facilities and other worthwhile causes that could be served by 521 million dollars annually. It sickens me to fathom that that money is going to treat injuries inflicted in the pursuit of spectator entertainment and the almighty dollars of ticket sale, TV, and advertising revenue.

As a Rabbi, but more importantly as a human being, created in God’s image, can I really be a fan or even an observer of a spectacle that shortens the lives and drastically reduces the quality of the post-career lives of the participants?  Oh, like millions and millions of others, I used to be a fan, but several years ago I realized I can no longer be.

You see, where evil exists, we have a simple choice: We can be part of the problem or part of the solution.

“Whoa, whoa, Rabbi,” so many have responded, “Let’s not get carried away. The players know the risks, and they exercise their own free choice to participate.”

It is an argument that assuages the qualms of many but not me.

Are we not complicit in the life-altering and life-threatening injuries and early deaths of the players when we dangle untold riches and glamor before the eyes of the participants? I conclude that we are…no. matter how cute the commercials.

Therefore, though mine may be a lonely voice crying out to tuned out ears, I must say, “No,” to “The Concussion Bowl” and all the dementia-causing life-shortening contests that precede it.

Football Again …I Cannot Be Silent

~ slfuchs ~ 5 Comments

Damar Hamlin is the latest, but he won’t be the last. 

It has been a few years now since I have written about the horrors of big-time football – the shortened lives, the almost certainty of brain damage for those who play, the inordinate number of suicides, and yet the money – oh so much money – driven beat goes on.

Please don’t defend this carnage by saying it is the choice of players to play.

Starting with the peewees, society makes heroes our of football players with talent. The infinitesimal number who make it to the pros earn big money, but like their less talented counterparts they often come away from a high school, college or pro career with concussion addled brain cells, and lingering pain from gridiron injuries.

After the horrific incident in which Mr. Hamlin collapsed on the field with cardiac arrest and in critical condition, columnists once again offered litanies about the danger of the sport.  But those warnings die in the din of the violent spectacle that captivates so much of our world.

Yes, I know other sports are dangerous.. I would ban them also, but none has the appeal and reach of big-time football.

Like the gladiators of old players enter the arena knowing at any minute a debilitating injury can permanently alter their lives.  Although the Damar Hamlin cases are rare, the fates of the majority of professional football player is predictable.

What is wrong with us that we are addicted to this blood sport. One NY Times headline proclaimed what I have been writing for years,” We Are All complicit in the NFL’s Violent Spectacle.”

Columnist Curt Streeter asked: “Will it take a player nearly dying on national television for us to widen our view and examine why and how we watch?”

I can say with saddened confidence, “No Mr. Streeter,” not even that will do it.

We are too addicted, and there is too much money involved.

As Jenny Vrentas wrote in The Times, “There is a risk of serious injury every single time the football is snapped” And the inherent danger persists …”

“In 15 years of covering the NFL,” she continues, “I have never gotten over how hard the hits are. As a simple matter of physics, the combination of the size and speed of professional football players means that the force of their collisions can be akin to that of a world-class sprinter running into a brick wall.”

“More than 300 former players,” Vrentas notes, have posthumous diagnoses of chronic traumatic encephalopathy.  Translation: brain damage. 

But who cares? Why? Because the league will likely meet NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell’s goal of earning 25 billion dollars in annual revenue by 2027.

Yes, 25 billion dollars! How many lives, crippled and/or brain damaged bodies is that worth?

For my money, not one!

I have said it before, and I will say it again even though I know I am spitting into the wind:  When it comes to big time football, we are either part of the problem by continuing to watch, or we are part of the solution by turning away. Yes, we must turn away, once and for all, from the carnage.