ANALYSIS/OPINION:
I wonder how many mothers, upon hearing the news that a 24-year-old NFL player is quitting football because of fear of brain and body damage, will not sign the permission slip this year for their sons to play football.
I wonder how many of them will think about the thousands of former players who filed concussion lawsuits against the NFL, and think to themselves, “This is not some player looking for money. This is a young man beginning a promising NFL career, and is walking away from the money out of fear.”
I wonder how many mothers will hear the story of Chris Borland — the San Francisco 49ers linebacker who decided, “Not me, I’m not going to be sitting in a car someday after my career and ponder whether or not I should go home or kill myself” — and wonder just what they are signing when they agree to let their children take the same punishment at age 10, 12 or 15 years old that Chris Borland is afraid of.
I wonder how many mothers will say to the fathers, “Not my son.”
There will be some. There have been some already, and as each moment passes in this story about the crisis of football in America, there will be more, because the fact is that the more they know about the human carnage of football, the greater the gamble of the lives of their sons seems.
You know those public service television spots, “The More You Know?” The more you know about risks of playing football, the greater the fear.
That’s what Borland told ESPN when he declared he was done.
“I just honestly want to do what’s best for my health,” he said. “From what I’ve researched and what I’ve experienced, I don’t think it’s worth the risk … I feel largely the same, as sharp as I’ve ever been, for me it’s wanting to be proactive. I’m concerned that if you wait until you have symptoms, it’s too late.
“There are a lot of unknowns. I can’t claim that ’X’ will happen. I just want to live a long healthy life, and I don’t want to have any neurological diseases or die younger than I would otherwise.”
The more Borland learned, the greater the fear.
That is probably the discussion that has been taking place at kitchen tables across America since the football health crisis emerged.
The more you know, the scarier the unknown.
The NFL has attempted to deal with this problem with its youth football educational program, “Heads Up Football,” teaching youth football coaches how to keep kids safe while playing tackle football with pads and helmets. But Hall of Fame coach John Madden — who led one of the toughest teams in football in the Oakland Raiders — sacked that program in a roundtable discussion in August at the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
“With all due respect to the program, I don’t believe in it,” Madden said. “I’m a firm believer that there’s no way that a 6-year-old should have a helmet on and learn a tackling drill. There’s no way. Or a 7-year-old or an 8-year-old. They’re not ready for it. Take the helmets off kids.
“Start at 6 years old, 7 years old, 8 years old, 9 years old. They don’t need a helmet. They can play flag football. And with flag football you can get all the techniques. Why do we have to start with a 6-year-old who was just potty trained a year ago and put a helmet on him and tackle?”
What the NFL can’t do is put the toothpaste back in the tube for the players who played in the era when the league either didn’t know or hid the long-term effects of football concussions. The “Heads Up Football” program takes a hit every time a Hall of Famer like Tony Dorsett announces he has been diagnosed with signs of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), the degenerative brain disease that has been linked to concussions and the suicides of former football players.
“My quality of living has changed drastically and it deteriorates every day,” Dorsett told ESPN in June. “I’ve thought about crazy stuff, sort of like, ’Why do I need to continue going through this? I’m too smart of a person, I like to think, to take my life, but it’s crossed my mind.”
That message is more powerful to a mother than any football safety clinic.
Youth football participation continues to decline, and the costs of programs for high schools to address all the medical fears continues to rise. The NFL is not going to collapse or run out of players, because, after it, it is a TV show, and they don’t run out of washed up celebrities or pregnant women trying to determine who the fathers of their babies are to put on television. There will always be players.
But will we continue to marvel at their exploits on Sunday, or feel sorry for them? Then how many mothers will say, “I’m glad I refused to sign.”
• Thom Loverro is co-host of “The Sports Fix,” noon to 2 p.m. daily on ESPN 980 and espn980.com.
• Thom Loverro can be reached at tloverro@washingtontimes.com.
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