My father, who played football through his military academy days and into his time in the Marine Corp suffered back pain forever, and had a complete set of false front teeth early one. I don’t think he would have traded it, but...
My nephew in 10th grade suffered a head injury playing football which put him out of school for a year.
There are a lot of instances of wussification, but I don’t know what to say about that.
I had a couple of hits in high school football that darn near paralyzed me. You can feel the shock going down your spinal cord.
Yup. I still suffer from three blown out discs from one play in a high school practice. I toughed it out and played though college. Not sure if I would do it again.