And some that groups of people view as barbaric today that we will continue to do a hundred years from now.
I’ve never understood how we can consider boxing, the main goal of which is to cause the other person brain damage, a sport.
I just spent the weekend at a mountain bed and breakfast where the subject of discussion among several of the guests was football training, and football camps. For children – everyone involved had kids younger than 18. These are educated, well-to-do people… apparently completely unfazed by the head trauma discussions.
I have no stake in it, no one in my family played football, but thought it was interesting to see to what extent this ISN’T on the radar in football-loving families.
I have friends whose boys were both standout high school football players. The oldest was recruited by his first choice college but suffered a very serious concussion his freshman year. He missed a lot of school and had a hard time fighting back from his injury. After seeing what his brother went through the younger decided not to play in college despite getting recruiting calls. Their dad played college football but now feels there’s too much risk of brain injury for his boys to play.
http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/researchers-found-diagnose-cte-living-patients-article-1.3523022
This is good news!
And please, can we stop with the false comparisons to bicycle accidents and being clonked by apples or whatever? This is why you should wear a bicycle helmet. People on bicycles don’t deliberately butt their heads together.
“In terms of absolute numbers, falling and getting a head injury while getting in and out of the tub exceed both of the above.” *
Are they all slipping because of the pee?
In the late 1800’s and early 1900’s the three most popular sports in the US were baseball, horse racing, and boxing. All three involved gambling. I would imagine in 100 years from now our most popular sports might not be football, basketball, or baseball, but they will still be sports very popular with gamblers.
One concern for parents of women athletes is the growth of college rugby club teams (up to 374 according to one source). Rugby is the only collegiate women’s full-contact sport yet most players don’t wear helmets or scrumcaps. The typical player arrives on campus with little or no playing experience and receives spotty training.
It is, and despite its libertarian bent, it definitely acknowledges the evil of smoking–at least the book it’s based on does.
Side comment, but I have a relative who did the kind of “PR” work (though different topic) that the main characters of Buckley’s book do. Around the time the book came out, relative and Buckley were in the same green room before a TV appearance, and Buckley turned to relative and said–you know the book’s based on you, right?
Relative has since gotten out of that sort of business.
So I took a look at the new BU study. Using their own data, you get completely different results if you treat AFE as a continuous variable or as a binary variable. It’s far from obvious to me why one choice would be better or worse than the other. It does illustrate that seemingly minor changes in the a priori assumptions used to construct the model, can produce nearly polar opposite results in the study.
Which one gets headlines? Which gets the lead on the evening news? Which one gets their work talked about by parents around the water cooler at work? Which one might get them more funding?
Rugby is a game about drinking in the old country LOL, but even there, there is some pushback.
Did you read your link? It says rugby has 8x and ice hockey 2x the concussion rate of American football. So football could be safer than some other contact sports.
And?
Someone is grasping at straws.
But if you love football, please consider it humanely. Have athletes start later, when they can understand the risks. Protect them better, with helmet technology and safety rules about tackles. And monitor them closely.
I don’t think that’s enough but it’s something.
Did anyone see the Packers-Bears game last night? There was a horrifying hit on Davante Adams. It’s hard to believe he only has a concussion.
http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-cte-biomarker-football-20170926-story.html
The science for detecting CTE earlier is progressing
“There was a horrifying hit on Davante Adams. It’s hard to believe he only has a concussion.”
These hits won’t stop until players start getting multiple game suspensions.
^^
My suggestion is that anyone making a hit like that needs to sit out as long as the injured player does, or one game more
Let's look at demographics when we consider the modern-day gladiator of the football field. Lest we not consider the actual exploitation of the poor and less educated while pretending players get an education in the name of football. The current discussion re kneeling is enough to show that many "fans" think the players are indentured servants who are getting uppity. If the players feel the risk is worth the reward, we should ask why.
NFL players aren’t exploited. They are some of the most privileged people on the planet. You might plausibly argue at least some college players are exploited, but I don’t see how you could pay the men’s teams, but not the women’s, without getting rid of Title IX.