Posted on 08/27/2013 7:33:07 AM PDT by Academiadotorg
Everything that you’ve heard about football is wrong. “More kids died getting struck by lightning on football fields last season than died getting struck by other players,” Daniel J. Flynn writes in his latest book, The War On Football: Saving America’s Game.
By way of contrast, Flynn notes that:
“Bicycling kills about seven hundred Americans every year; “Skateboarders suffered forty-two deaths in 2011; and “Skiing/Snowboarding on American mountains results in about forty-two deaths per season.”
the war on football dan flynn largerFlynn, the author of four other books, is the former executive director of Accuracy in Academia. In his exhaustively researched, but fast moving, book, he has devoured just about every history of the game and study on injuries in it.
Most of his findings may surprise. For example, the government found that, contrary to an oft-repeated stat, football players actually live to a riper old age than most Americans. Additionally, certain cheerleaders, namely “flyers,” actually experience greater rates of injuries than gridiron athletes. For those not accustomed to this nomenclature, the flyers are the cheerleaders who go on top when the squad creates a human triangle on the field.
“The activity of the flyer is many, many times more dangerous than a football play,” Robert Cantu, co-director of Boston University’s Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy, found. “The incidence of concussion in flyers in cheerleading is more than tenfold what it is in football players.”
“The same is true of the incidence of Catastrophic injuries.”
(Excerpt) Read more at academia.org ...
Come now, everyone KNOWS the Pravda: football is too dangerous to play. Facts be damned!!!
October 8th and 15th there will be a documentary on football and head injuries (and injuries in general) on Frontline. ESPN was originally one of the producers but the NFL pressured them and ESPN removed their name from all credits.
I don’t care one way or other if football survives or whatever but if you want to see ramifications talk to some pros who played for 6-10 years and now cannot formulate a sentence or hardly walk. I know several in their late 40’s to 60’s. I have some pity but they were paid and went in knowing it is a violent game but their argument is that when they got hurt the teams and league doctors/trainers told them they were ok to go back in and play. I do find that suspect as who do the doctors answer to?
I have seen in person exactly ONE professional soccer game.
And let me tell you, the brutality kind of shocked me.
Guys getting kicked in the head, flipping around in the air and hitting the ground hard, constant shots to the groin, etc. All with little to no padding.
Football for all it’s problems HAS to be safer.
Being a catcher in the MLB can be pretty rough.
The problem with football these days is helmet to helmet hits and lack of proper form tackling.
I smell bull***t.
I have seen x-rays of the knees of professional catchers.
They actually wear a groove on the underside from twenty years of being in the crouch.
If you look at games from the 80s on youtube you’ll see the larger pads that players wore at that time. Players today wear lighter padding because the game has become much quicker and they don’t want the restriction that comes with larger pads. As a consequence, players on both sides of the ball came to see the helmet as a preferred area to take a hit.
There definitely needs to be changes made to the way the game is played and probably some equipment changes as well.
Being a spectator in soccer games is dangerous. Say beatings and rapes common.
Not to mention repeated foul tips to the face. Alex Avila’s mask throws sparks.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SswaGjRtB24
Also there is blocking the plate and getting run down by runners coming home.
You made it this far...
Bye...
Yup. Repeated moderate blows to the head over the course of a football career, not one catastrophic injury or singular blow to the head that causes one concussion (although moderate blows after that single concussion occurs might be more damaging).
Freegards
Smell what you want. Some I can name are Kevin Brooks and Tony Dorsett from the old Cowboys. They have issues with cognitive skills and mobility, whether it is directly related to head injuries is for someone above my pay grade to determine.
What stupid comparisons. First of all, who thinks how many players die on the field is any measure of how “safe” a sport is?
Then, he is comparing football, a controlled arena sport, to sports with uncontrollable environmental hazards like speeding cars. Why not compare football to similar arena sports, like soccer, basketball, baseball, and hockey, then see how the numbers really look?
In my experience, people only avoid using the best comparisons when the numbers are not favorable to the point they want to make.
I’m probably the only one on this thread who has killed someone while playing football.
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