Free Republic

Everything that you’ve heard about football is wrong. “More kids died getting struck by lightning on football fields last season than died getting struck by other players,” Daniel J. Flynn writes in his latest book, The War On Football: Saving America’s Game. By way of contrast, Flynn notes that: “Bicycling kills about seven hundred Americans every year; “Skateboarders suffered forty-two deaths in 2011; and “Skiing/Snowboarding on American mountains results in about forty-two deaths per season.” the war on football dan flynn largerFlynn, the author of four other books, is the former executive director of Accuracy in Academia. In his exhaustively...

BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) - A New York Assemblyman's proposal to prohibit kids under 11 from playing tackle football isn't going over well with some coaches. In Buffalo Thursday, a handful of youth football leaders and participants joined state Sen. Timothy Kennedy outside a stadium to protest the idea. Assemblyman Michael Benedetto introduced the legislation last week, telling reporters it's meant to protect children...

Guns & Concussions to Get the Blame for Belcher Murder

Former football star Ray Easterling has become the latest sportsman to kill himself after suffering from depression believed to have been linked to head injuries during his career. The 62-year-old, who police say shot himself at his home in Richmond, Virginia, played for the Atlanta Falcons during the 1970s and later sued the NFL over its handling of concussions. He began showing signs of brain damage 20 years ago with bouts of depression and insomnia.

PHILADELPHIA - It seems the Eagles aren't the only team in town ready for some NFL action. The lawyers of Anapol, Schwartz, Weiss, Cohan, Feldman and Smalley have taken on the National Football League in federal court. Seven former professional football players -- among them former Chicago Bears and Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Jim McMahon and Philadelphia Eagles lineman Gerry Feehery -- retained the Philadelphia law firm, alleging the NFL failed ...

(CBS/AP) PHILADELPHIA - Six former players and one current player have sued the NFL in Philadelphia over the league's handling of concussion-related injuries, the first potential class-action lawsuit of its kind. The players accuse the league of training players to hit with their heads, failing to properly treat them for concussions and trying to conceal for decades any links between football and brain injuries. The plaintiffs include two-time Super Bowl champion Jim McMahon, who has said he played through five concussions but now frequently walks around "in a daze" and forgets why he entered a room. The suit accuses the...

Sidney Crosby's concussion is causing a headache for the Penguins on the ice and the National Hockey League off it. Nobody knows when Crosby might play hockey again, and continued speculation about his health is as frustrating to the team as it is confusing to fans. ---(snip)--- Head injuries will be a major topic during three days of meetings by the league's 30 general managers starting today in Boca Raton, Fla. -- and not just because Crosby, widely regarded as the face of the NHL, has cast a spotlight on the subject. ---(snip)--- Taking a toll According to The Concussion...

Wide receiver Hines Ward told NBC before the Pittsburgh Steelers' overtime loss Sunday night in Baltimore that opinion was divided among Steelers players about whether quarterback Ben Roethlisberger should have been playing in the game. Roethlisberger sat out the game, a week after suffering a concussion during a defeat to the Kansas City Chiefs. An independent neurologist reportedly recommended that Roethlisberger not play against the Ravens. Ward told NBC, according to a written transcript provided by the network: "This game is almost like a playoff game. It's almost a must-win. I could see some players or teammates questioning like, 'It's...

Former Staff Sgt. Kevin Owsley is not quite sure what rattled his brain in 2004: the roadside bomb that exploded about a yard from his Humvee or the rocket-propelled grenade that flung him across a road as he walked to a Porta Potti on base six weeks later. After each attack, he did what so many soldiers do in Iraq. He shrugged off his ailments — headaches, dizzy spells, persistent ringing in his ears and numbness in his right arm — chalking them up to fatigue or dehydration. Given that he never lost consciousness, he figured the discomfort would work...

Vin Ferrara, a former Harvard quarterback, was looking for an aspirin in his medicine cabinet when his eyes fixed upon a ribbed plastic bottle used to squirt saline into sinuses. Ferrara squeezed the bottle, then pounded on it — finding that it cushioned soft and hard blows with equal aplomb, almost intelligence. “This is it,” Ferrara declared. Three years later, Ferrara’s squirt bottle has led to a promising new technology to protect football players from concussions. Football helmets have evolved over more than a century from crude leather bonnets to face-masked, polycarbonate battering rams. But they still often fail to...

Pro wrestler Chris Benoit suffered brain damage from his years in the ring that could help explain why he killed his wife, son and himself, a doctor who studied Benoit’s brain said Wednesday. Prosecutors have said Benoit, 40, strangled his wife with a cord, used a choke hold to strangle his 7-year-old son, placed Bibles next to the bodies and hanged himself on a piece of exercise equipment the weekend of June 22.