Sports Muckraking, Vol. 1

In a 1955 interview with Walter Cronkite, Sam Huff, a New York Giants linebacker summed up the strategy behind the sport: "We try to hurt everybody."

It's not a big surprise. We know it's about injuries as well as NFL insiders, and everyone just accepts it. Buzz Bissinger, author of Friday Night Lights, wrote in his column "The Daily Beast" that "violence is not only embedded in football; it is the very celebration of it. It is why we like it. Take it away, continue efforts to curtail the savagery, and the game will be nothing, regardless of age or skill." But if we look at the NFL's history of attempts at making the game more civilized, fans will quickly realize they have nothing to worry about. As players' face protection has gone up, they've also learned to tackle with their heads instead of their arms. In 1970, the average weight of an offensive tackle was 260 lbs; in 2006 that number was 314. Last year James Harrison, linebacker for the Steelers stated his understanding of the game: "I try to hurt people." In more than 50 years, nothing has changed.

I hesitated before writing on this for Conversation Topic Tuesday for a while. But it's something that affects the safety of citizens of every age and in almost every town in the nation.

So here are a few talking points:

• A 2009 study conducted by the University of Michigan's Institute for Social Research reported that former NFL players are 19 times more likely to develop Alzheimer's disease or similar memory-related diseases than a normal man between the ages of 30 and 49.
• Alan Schwarz of The New York Times reports that the only helmet standard to have been written was put together by the National Operating Committee on Standards for Athletic Equipment--a volunteer consortium that receives a large part of its financial backing from the helmet manufacturers. This standard has not changed since 1973, even as concussion rates in youth football have risen.
• Chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a condition experts believe results from both large collisions and the accumulation of small collisions (such as those sustained in football practice but not large enough to be recognized as dangerous) has been known to develop as young as 21 years old. Since CTE can only be diagnosed through autopsy, it is unclear how many football players suffer from the disease. However, Christopher Nowinski, a concussion expert, told The New Yorker that a prediction of 20 percent of NFL players having CTE seemed conservative.
• According to the National Center for Catastrophic Injury research, between 1982 and 2009, 295 fatalities resulted either directly or indirectly from high school football.
• The New York Times reports that "more than 100,000 children are wearing helmets too old to provide adequate protection — and perhaps half a million more are wearing potentially unsafe helmets that require critical examination, according to interviews with experts and industry data."

Perhaps more easy to digest are the human stories:

• The first diagnosis of CTE was made on the brain of Mike Webster, former center for the Pittsburgh Steelers, who died homeless living out of a truck.
• The second diagnosis of CTE was made on ex-Steeler offensive lineman Terry Long, who killed himself drinking antifreeze.
• CTE was also diagnosed in Justin Strzelczyk, who died when his car hit a tanker truck after he drove the wrong way down the New York Thruway. 
• Ted Johnson, a retired New England Patriots linebacker, was 34 years old when he began locking himself in his apartment with the blinds drawn for days at a time. His neurologist told him he was already showing early signs of Alzheimer's disease.
• Markus Koch, retired defensive lineman for the Washington Redskins, can't stand for too long or his legs go numb. He suffers from depression and is sometimes unable to leave his bed for long periods of time.

The evidence goes on and on and on. The more I've thought about it, the more the differences between football and the Roman spectacle begin to disappear. Except in the American version, by the time the athlete is defeated, all the crowds have left him to suffer alone.

(Sources: The New Yorker, The New York Times)