Posted on 01/10/2013 12:06:35 PM PST by ColdOne
SAN DIEGO -- Junior Seau, who committed suicide in May, two years after retiring as one of the premier linebackers in NFL history, suffered from the type of chronic brain damage that also has been found in dozens of deceased former players, five brain specialists consulted by the National Institutes of Health concluded.
Seau's ex-wife, Gina, and his oldest son Tyler, 23, told ABC News and ESPN in an exclusive interview they were informed last week that Seau's brain had tested positive for chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a neurodegenerative disease that can lead to dementia, memory loss and depression.
(Excerpt) Read more at espn.go.com ...
This is one of the reasons that my enthusiasm for the game of football has waned considerably over the past few years.
I think one thing that should be looked at is weight limitations on players.....they are simply too big and too fast now.
There are two sports I told my son I would not allow him to play: hockey and football.
Simply too much risk. He’s quite happy with baseball and now has taken up basketball. Despite his lack of height he’s an amazing player.
That oughta be the rule in the NFL too.
This is tragic.
We put a weapon on the heads of the participants and tell them not to use it. If I hadn’t witnessed a teammate breaking his neck by spearing rather than using his face, I’d have done it too.
There are solutions. One is to put an accelerometer in every helmet with a warning light/buzzer. If the player experiences an impact over a certain level, game over for him.
Another solution would be to go to back to a leather helmet. If it immediately hurts to use your head to spear someone, you won’t do it.
If the NFL knew about the problem but kept quiet, I would expect the suits to be successful.
If the NFL could prove they didn't know enough about the problem, the suits would have a higher bar to overcome.
Since football concussions are a proven problem now, how many NFL players will give up millions of dollars and quit football to save their sanity? I think very few. - tom
Junior Seau loved his mother and father more than anything. If he was in his right mind he would never do anything to cause the pain and sorrow that his suicide brought to them.
Or no helmet at all. Rugby is a tackle sport that has neither helmets nor pads.
No it’s not. He exchanged his life for money in full knowledge the game can kill and maim.
Football fans and other fans exchange their money to pay them directly and indirectly.
To quote Russel Crow in Gladiator, “Are you not entertained?”
It is unfortunate. But it is no tragedy. Everyone bought their ‘ticket’ and took their chances. If all are good with that, free will has been exercised.
And whether they are 98 pound weaklings or steroid supermen does not matter.
I agree. A reason I think he shot himself in the chest.
how do they know CTE is not that “extra something” that allows them to achieve the level of the NFL. In that it was always there.
I would not be surprised if you found the same problems in the brains of rugby players.
Its not to hard to slow down the speed of the game.
I have done design work on Field Turf football fields. Then I did a Field Turf baseball field; and, I learned a trick: replace some of the rubber pellets in the field with sand. The purpose of this was to prevent the baseball from bouncing unnaturally fast and hitting some player in the teeth.
Hmmm...if balls bounce off Field Turf unnaturally fast, so do your feet. The NFL could slow down much of the game, if they sanded some of their artificial fields.
I believe that one of the reasons fans are so fanatic about football is that is the modern day equivalent of Roman Gladiators. It satisfies a primal need to divide and conquer, and in some respects war. Players, coaches, announcers and fans all use war metaphors to describe the action.
That said, I hope the Broncos kill the Ravens this weekend.
“No it’s not. He exchanged his life for money in full knowledge the game can kill and maim.”
I couldn’t disagree with you more. While I agree football is a violent game, and that there is a trade off in terms of bodily punishment for money, death is not an acceptable result.
In the old days, “getting your bell rung” was no big deal. Guys played with concussions. We now know that concussions can lead to serious mental issues.
Therefore it’s tragic in my view.
Now that we know, something has to be done, if not, it becomes on the level of gladiators.
good question
I am very skeptical about this new “disease” The symptoms listed occur in 75% of the people I know that are older than 40. Methinks the thought of a lot of research money may be exerting just a taaaaaaaaad of influence on these researchers somewhat like the explosion in diagnosis of ADHD when money started getting thrown at it. Who is to say that this disease is not a side effect of possible use HGH,anabolic steroids, Adderral,street drugs either solely or in combination. Causality does not equal causation.
He didn’t have full knowledge though. One of the big problems the league is running into, why they’re going to lose the lawsuits against them, is in the early 90s they released a “study” saying that concussion had no long term side effects. They lied to the players, including Seau.
There’s nothing new about it. People have known about CTEs in some name or another since the 1930s, the only thing new is doing the autopsies necessary to find out just how many people, mostly athletes, suffer from it.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.