Posted on 08/09/2012 8:50:57 AM PDT by murron
Women play all other competitive sports, golf, basketball, soccer, softball, but have not been able to break into the football world. It is, by all measures, a man's sport, and this may be driving the left crazy. This cannot be allowed by their reasoning.
Could this be the drive behind trying to ban the sport or to sissy-fy it? I think so, IMHO.
I would say Mike Webster’s family, (among many others), would disagree.
I love football, but the brain trauma issue is real, and concerning. The size and speed of today’s player makes football dangerous. I don’t have an answer, but it is a real problem.
People are being sucked in by BS. Women do not compete in men’s baseball, men’s swimming, men’s basketball, men’s wrestling, etc, etc, etc. Men are men, women are women....most of them anyway. Live with it.
But the concussion-issue is serious, and I don't think it's dawned on that many people, yet.
I do think you have a point, murron. However, I think the war on football is more complex. I personally feel it is “anti-alpha male”. Let me explain: football players are “masculine”. By that, I mean metro-sexuals don’t do well in the sport. These boys/men train to take or give a hard hit, run like the wind etc... IMHO, football is at the center of controversy right now. Hockey will be next. Any sport defined as truly “masculine” will be questioned in the future.
$$$ for trial lawyers and unions is the issue.
I’ve long said that I hope to see the day that football goes the way of boxing (for you youngsters, boxing was a major sport not too long ago).
In the 60’s, at least it was an entertaining battle of wits. Now, it’s all coaches with the rules rigged for offense. It’s not a “sport” anymore, it’s a TV show. A TV show that cripples its stars.
You can’t train to minimize brain injuries, as football is currently played.
Just another phase of the UN/Communist global conspiracy to have the USA adopt soccer as the sport of choice. I remember when it was introduced to my elementary school as a recess /PE game back in the 60’s. I instinctly knew that was going to be used as some sort of indoctrinational tool then. Back then the only rule that we really had was that we couldn’t use our hands and we had to include everyone because anyone could kick a ball if it came their way.
Of course times have changed and I know that some people are really in to it which is cool but I would still rather watch paint dry then a zero-zero tie game.
Concussions and other type of injuries occur with many sports. Hockey players get concussions. Baseball players get hit with a ball. LAX players get hit with the stick (and yes... can suffer a concussion). Football, IMHO, is in the front and center of a “controversy” simply because it is truly American and masculine.
As someone who played high school football at a Texas powerhouse, I have noticed that since the early 1970s the left has been at war with football at the school level, Wally was just about the last TV or movie, school figure (HS or college)that could play football and still be seen as good, nice, intelligent, normal.
For decades, being a football player, or later, cheerleader, or now, an attractive blond girl, means you are the villain, or at least shallow, mean, and stupid.
The left likes soccer, even the good guy on TV can be a soccer player.
It could be, and you could be right.
But it could also be that the game really has changed to the detriment of the human body.
I do know that they used to tackle, not as battering rams but grabbing the legs and pulling the guy down. That seems less injurious to me, but just as effective.
It is American, it is GIGANTIC!!!! It is HUGE!!!! It is SUCCESSFUL!!! is is masculine, and 50,000 times more Americans watch it than do soccer, so it must be punished.
I’ve been at war with professional sports for some time. I will remain in a state of war until they give up their habit of blackmailing politicians into spending taxpayer money to build their facilities for them. They can afford to build their own play pens.
It also has the deepest pockets of any professional sports league and a large pool of former players that are barely making ends meet because the era that they played in did not have huge contracts. A lot of modern day players do not have huge contracts, either, and only last 3-5 years in the game. $500-600k over three years may not be worth a lifetinme of chronic headaches and other symptoms of nervious system trauma or damage to organs such as the spleen, kidneys, or lungs.
Note that the lawsuits are coming from former players, not the women’s groups, or some lib lawyer agenda mill like the ACLU or SPLC. This is not the homo, estrogen, or lib lobby trying shut down the game; it is equal parts a money grab and legitimate concern by people that played the game over the long term health effects. Bottom line I see another few years, the owners and Player’s Union are going to get pinched pretty hardin the wallet and there will be lot of new equipment and rules to try and reduce long term nervous system/internal organ trauma.
This is coming from the perspective of a man that has loved the NFL, NCAA, and all forms of football since I was 8.
“That seems less injurious to me, but just as effective.”
It’s probably not quite as effective, or some guys would still be doing it. I think when they go for the legs, you probably still have a small chance to wriggle free, unlike when a human freight train barrels over you and you are on the ground before you know it.
“... means you are the villain, or at least shallow, mean and stupid”.
Absolutely agree, Ansel12. Movies and television shows portray the football player as a moron, bully and the type of guy who rapes a girl. What isn’t known by some is that at the high school level, for example.. the players have to manage not only practice time, game time but their grades and homework. Talk about time management (I may be biased since I am involved a bit in the high school level).
It is totally American and I love it. I love watching it at the local high school level, college level, and on television.
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