Columns

ECLETIC RANT: Mammas, don't let your boys grow up to be football players

Ralph E. Stone
Friday March 24, 2017 - 04:09:00 PM

Dwight Clark, hero of "The Catch" he made in the 1981 49ers-Cowboys NFC Championship game, recently announced that he has been diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) or Lou Gehrig's disease. ALS is a motor neurone disease that causes the death of neurons which control voluntary muscles.  

Several medical experts recognize the possible connection between ALS and chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), the degenerative brain disease believed to be caused by repeated blows to the head. The symptoms of CTE. include memory loss, confusion, impaired judgment, impulse control problems, aggression, depression, anxiety, suicidality, parkinsonism, and, eventually, progressive dementia. These symptoms often begin years or even decades after the last brain trauma or end of active athletic involvement.  

Bennet Omalu, a Nigeria-born neuropathologist, first discovered CTE in an NFL player. In his opinion, taking professional football players as a group, over 90% of American football players who play at the professional level suffer CTE to some degree. He claimed to have not examined any brain of a retired football player that came back negative. (Will Smith played Omalu in the film Concussion.) 

But football players wear helmets -- shouldn’t they protect players from the trauma of a head-on collision? As a Scientific American video shows, helmets are designed to protect the skull—not the brain. The brain can be hurt as it smashes against the skull, causing a range of symptoms including headaches and loss of consciousness.  

When Clark was asked if playing football caused this [ALS]," he said, "I don't know for sure. But I certainly suspect it did. And I encourage the NFLPA [NFL Players Association] and the NFL to continue working together in their efforts to make the game of football safe, especially as it relates to head trauma." But can football be made safe? It may be that the only way to prevent football-related CTE (and possibly ALS) is by not playing football. 

Despite the dangers, football may be too big to ban. Consider that the NFL made $13 billion in 2015. And colleges and universities – the NFL’s minor leagues – are valued in the hundreds of millions. For example, the Texas Longhorns generated $121 million in revenue ($92 million in profit), Alabama at $97 in revenue. In many colleges and universities, income from football pays for most, if not all, collegiate sports.  

Why does anyone become a football player at any level with this health risks? The major reason, I suspect is the prospect of making lots of money. An NFL football player averages $1.9 million in salary plus endorsements. At one time, football players knew the risks of injury but not the risks of head trauma that could follow them long after retirement.  

But even knowing the likely risks, the so-called Goldman Dilemma is instructive. "Researcher Bob Goldman surveyed elite athletes every other year from 1982 to 1995. He asked them a simple question. If you could take a drug that guaranteed you would win an Olympic gold medal, but it would kill you within five years, would you do it? In every survey, Goldman got the same results. About half of the athletes would accept that trade-off." 

Football is not a safe sport and it is unlikely it can be made a safe sport. NFL players are our gladiators taking the field to do battle for our entertainment. Unlike the gladiators of old, they do not fight to the death on game day, but will likely pay a dreadful price in the future. The gladiators did not have a choice; our young men do. In the meantime, the NFL, colleges and universities will continue to rake in the profits from today's gladiators.