Even Tony Romo?
Seriously, though, this is a very serious problem. Linemen often sustain serious lower back problems, and I recall first hearing about traumatic brain injuries in Sports Illustrated.
Posted on 07/29/2007 8:07:34 AM PDT by wildbill
For many Cowboys on 1977 team, gridiron glory yielded years of pain
Almost 30 years after limping through Super Bowl XII – his final NFL game – Mel Renfro walks with an artificial left hip. His right knee needs to be replaced. Arthritis has settled in his shoulders and ankles. Damaged vertebrae have robbed his neck of movement. Sunlight often triggers headaches.
He writes everything down to make sure he doesn't forget. On occasion, depression sets in, forcing him to retreat from the world.
Like his physical ailments, the failing memory and periodic despondency are the result of a lifetime of concussive collisions, doctors have told him.
(Excerpt) Read more at dallasnews.com ...
I'm sure this is true of other teams' players, and to a lesser extent to all of us who played football at some level. It's amazing to see how stoically they view their injuries and primarily remember their careers as greatest time of their lives.
My high school girlfriend at 60 has had both hip and knee replacements. I have to write things down because the memory ain’t so great. I’ve had a triple bypass and cataract surgery.
Life happens! People get old, wear out and one day, die. Get used to the idea!
Evolution does not work. If it does, then why has not any living organism on the planet evolved to the point of immortality?
Yeah ... and x amount of years as a human battering ram/substitute brick wall certainly isn’t conducive to ‘relaxing in the sun in the August of ones’ years’.
I’m sorry for your medical problems, but I think you missed the point. It isn’t that aging doesn’t have problems, but how some problems were induced at a younger age by the desire to compete at a high level.
I doubt your girlfriend had a steel rod pounded into a broken hip in her 20s so she could continue to run footraces.
Football players, especially Pro players from the ‘good-bad old day’ have injury-related health problems at a much higher rate than the general population.
See has all the symptoms!
Because there's no evolutionary advantage to it. Evolution is about improving things through mutation, and passing down the genes. It takes energy to continue to repair a body, and once offspring have been created, the gene has no further use for it. That's why it starts to deteriorate after prime childbearing years.
They don’t have to be NFL players, either. My best friend played Pop Warner, high school, and one year of small college ball as a running back.
He’s now 47 and in constant pain. His knees are shot and he can’t sleep more than a couple of hours without being awakened by back pain.
A high price to pay for being able to date the head cheerleader.
Immortality is selected against. Either immortal creatures would continue breeding, and become overpopulated, or they would stop breeding, and the population would become unable to adapt to changes in the environment.
i played through four years of college ball, albeit on what could arguably be called the worst team in the country, but never even wanted to date the head cheerleader.
I guess going to an all male school proves you could argue we were dumb before we got hit on the head
Greasers got all the really hot chicks anyway.
Was it Robert Heinlein who said that America is a place where they mistake athletes and actors for important people? I believe it.
I could make some really tacky remarks about the position your mom might have played, but I won’t go there. Wouldn’t be prudent.
It’s not just that the knees are fragile, it’s the fact that at a very early age defenders are taught: “Hit him at the knees!”
I remember my friend telling me in high school that they always went for the knees (what better way to take out a running back?).
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