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The bone-shattering truth: U.S. football is doomed
Chicago Tribune ^ | May 04, 2012 | John Kass

Posted on 05/05/2012 1:03:49 PM PDT by MinorityRepublican

With the apparent suicide of NFL great Junior Seau, who played 20 years in the world's most violently glamorous sport, American football is dying.

It's about time. The nationally televised gambling and meat-rendering factory cannot survive without new players.

And the parents of future players are asking themselves this:

Is football worth it for my child?

(Excerpt) Read more at articles.chicagotribune.com ...


TOPICS: News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: braininjury; football; nfl; seau
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To: MinorityRepublican

It’s a little premature to say football is dying.

I do think it’s time that we examine how it’s evolved though.

All the pads and upgrades in helmets that were supposed to protect players have, in fact, become weapons.

There may actually be something to the school of thought where we go back to leather helmets, shoulder pads, and thigh pads.


21 posted on 05/05/2012 1:21:02 PM PDT by End Times Sentinel (In Memory of my dear Friend Henry Lee II)
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To: MinorityRepublican
American football is dying.

Bravo Sierra.

5.56mm

22 posted on 05/05/2012 1:21:02 PM PDT by M Kehoe
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To: Colonel Kangaroo

Exactly. And let us keep in mind the “world champions” in futbol, are world champions not champions of a single country league where the lowest teams are not dropped to a lower leage from which the best teams advance. Speaking of “wussified” that how NFL is with its commercialized system.


23 posted on 05/05/2012 1:22:38 PM PDT by Revolting cat! (Let us prey!)
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To: Cringing Negativism Network

John Kass is NOT a euro-weinie or limpwristed liberal. He is a regular guy and a conservative writer for the Chicago Tribune.
He was the one that started calling Jesse Jackson “the king of bud” due to his sons getting the beer distributorship in Chicago.
He a mighty foe against the Dailey Machine, and the Illinois combine.

Cut him a little bit of slack. He’s a good guy and while you may disagree with him on football. He is not a white wine and veggie quiche person.


24 posted on 05/05/2012 1:23:17 PM PDT by LauraJean (sometimes I win sometimes I donate to the equine benevolent society)
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To: MinorityRepublican

Nancy-boy. What a beta male.


25 posted on 05/05/2012 1:23:26 PM PDT by x1stcav (There's a bunch of us out here spoiling for a fight.)
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Comment #26 Removed by Moderator

To: Cringing Negativism Network
You may not like to face this, but I agree with the author that football is dying. There are a whole bunch of reasons for this, but at the end of the day there's just the simple truth that more and more people are deciding that the long-term health risks simply aren't worth it. These sad tales of suicides and a litany of post-career health problems are only going to make it worse over time.

It's become such a fabricated spectacle anyway, when you think about it ... operated in the U.S. mostly by two large organizations (the NFL and the NCAA) that would be considered illegal rackets in almost any other industry.

27 posted on 05/05/2012 1:24:24 PM PDT by Alberta's Child ("If you touch my junk, I'm gonna have you arrested.")
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To: MinorityRepublican

“And the parents of future players are asking themselves this:

Is football worth it for my child?”

Really? And where are you hearing these voices??


28 posted on 05/05/2012 1:24:51 PM PDT by WKUHilltopper (And yet...we continue to tolerate this crap...)
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To: MinorityRepublican

Don’t know about that. The Romans used the gladiators to mask the decay of the Republic from the masses. I would venture to say much the same will be done with football. Heck ask yourself how many of the politically uninformed/uninterested people you know hang on every wire move the NFL makes. My guess is that the powers that be want no reason to have anymore of the brain dead actually paying attention. Hey we still got our sports teams, so let’s go sing about the “land of the free and the home of the brave”. Just don’t forget to bring your EBT card to the game in case you want to rent a 20$ beer.


29 posted on 05/05/2012 1:25:31 PM PDT by Kudsman
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To: Alberta's Child

Take off, eh.


30 posted on 05/05/2012 1:26:25 PM PDT by Cringing Negativism Network ("Fall Forward")
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To: Alberta's Child

(that’s meant with a smiley face)

Trying to remember how that song went... :D


31 posted on 05/05/2012 1:27:49 PM PDT by Cringing Negativism Network ("Fall Forward")
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To: MinorityRepublican

Is there any hard evidence for the author’s assertion?


32 posted on 05/05/2012 1:28:09 PM PDT by Revolting cat! (Let us prey!)
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To: Colonel Kangaroo
Darn tootin'!


33 posted on 05/05/2012 1:28:38 PM PDT by BenLurkin (This is not a statement of fact. It is either opinion or satire; or both)
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To: MinorityRepublican

Right.

Ratings will be as high as ever this coming season.


34 posted on 05/05/2012 1:28:38 PM PDT by GeronL (The Right to Life came before the Right to Pursue Happiness)
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To: Cringing Negativism Network
LOL.

We all know hockey is the best sport, anyway. :-)

35 posted on 05/05/2012 1:29:12 PM PDT by Alberta's Child ("If you touch my junk, I'm gonna have you arrested.")
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To: MinorityRepublican

Why can’t consenting adults participate in sports? They know the risk. Damn the government.


36 posted on 05/05/2012 1:29:38 PM PDT by goseminoles
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a nation of soccer playing pencil dicks


37 posted on 05/05/2012 1:31:06 PM PDT by llevrok (In today's world, environmentalists would find God out of compliance with the EPA)
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To: Secret Agent Man

I’m willing to bet there’s more suicides among cops and dentists...Is being a dentist worth it for my child?

How about we just replace football with Jacks? That should be metrosexual enough for some of the swishies in the crowd...


38 posted on 05/05/2012 1:31:22 PM PDT by WKUHilltopper (And yet...we continue to tolerate this crap...)
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To: MinorityRepublican

There used to be jokes made about guys playing football without a helmet, famously so when LBJ was speaking of Gerald Ford ((Minority Leader of the House of Representatives at the time). “Playing without a helmet” was supposed to leave one with scrambled brains and poorly formed judgmental capability.

Not everybdy can, or should, get out on a football field and engage in high-body-contact sports. It is similar to being in a series of vehicle crashes, and the human body is really almost as vulnerable as an egg. Sure, there can be protective measures, like padding and head protection, but a really determined opponent can get through the partial protection provided by these means, and wreak havoc on the hardest of underlying bodies. Bones break, joints tear and dislocate, deep contusions rupture blood vessels and crush nerves in ways that are sometimes simply beyond the means of medical science to reduce or ameliorate.

But this very drive to test the limitations of the human body, as a means to prove something about the spirit within, is one of those testosterone-based truisms that originate in the limbic system, and predate most animal conciousness, going back to almost the single-cell organisms. This can no more be weeded out of the cellular structure of our physical bodies, than the dependence of oxygen to sustain life.

What is the answer? Prohibition is impossible, because small boys, denied access to toy guns, will point their fingers and say “Bang!”, or take up sticks and play “sword” until somebody gets a cut or an eye poked out, then everybody runs back home. And they are right out there doing the same thing next day. Bigger boys, with adult bodies and the same outlook, crawl into powerful vehicles and perform hair-raising stunts to demonstrate that they have, if not to conquer fear and dread, at least to struggle manfully in the face of it.

Football is just a smaller powerful vehicle in which to perform hair-raising stunts.


39 posted on 05/05/2012 1:33:31 PM PDT by alloysteel (It is hard to get a man to understand, when his pay depends upon his not understanding something.)
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To: FatherofFive

Soccer is a sport for homosexuals who don’t have the hand-eye coordination for ping-pong or badminton.


40 posted on 05/05/2012 1:34:21 PM PDT by varmintman
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