Well, I suppose I might fail your macho standards, but at my age I find myself less interested (not uninterested, just less so) than in the past.When my brother passed on in his late seventies, the death certificate listed a HS football injury as the cause of death. Long story short, if you knew the background you would not trouble to argue with that diagnosis. After the season of that accident, I never considered playing HS football again - and no one ever asked why. People would have asked why I was allowed to (which I wouldn’t have been). I’ve heard of mothers weeping and imploring their sons not to risk it because of that incident.
And there was a guy on that team who was so prone to concussions that they were considered routine. Knowing what we know now, you won’t be surprised to learn that he had brain problems as an adult.
Life happens; by the time he died my brother had survived more than a few of his classmates. You pays you money and you takes you choice. My son didn’t ask me for permission to play, either. But then, he was a lot slighter physically during HS than he is now . . .
I stopped playing football at the age of 14 because I decided that being an unemployed cripple at the age of 30 isn’t worth the money (which really isn’t all that much for the average player). I concluded that after watching an HBO special called Disposable Heroes back in the early ‘80s. Yep, HBO was once worth a crap but you have to look back about 35 years. It’s one of the few times that I can cite TV as being a good influence.