A KIND OF A BRAIN INJURY!

(HealthWise, Daniel Trotta, Jo Ingles)

(Hackney Publications, Caitlin Schmidt)

(Fatima Harajli, Frazer Chronicle)

 

Did you ever feel like you were slowing down, can’t concentrate, have trouble remembering new information, experience nausea, vomit, have balance problems, are nervous or anxious, and can’t sleep, (no you don’t have a hang-over) you probably have a concussion and if you have all of the above listed problems you should have a friend take you immediately to the nearest emergency room for medical attention.

 

Almost without exception people (mostly boys or men) have experienced a concussion…..I can point to at least four times when I’ve had my bell rung, but remember only once being treated for a concussion. The biggest and baddest culprit of causing concussions in today’s society, or for that matter over the past fifty or sixty years is football…..football on every level.

 

Pop Warner, Little League, freshman, high school, and college football are by far the worst perpetrators of head injuries and trauma. I use both injury as well as trauma to describe what football can do to the human body, football ranks right up there with Mixed Martial Arts and boxing in causing brain injuries.

 

It’s really funny how the youth of America are sold a bill of goods with regards to the virtues of the game of football. Let’s set a few ground rules, plus get a few notions rectified with regards to football and what the game can mean to the youth of America.

 

1. Football does not make boys into men, what the game really does is pacify or strokes a coach’s ego, by and large a high school football coach doesn’t care about a players health, I know, I’ve been there.

2. Football does not teach boys the value of working as a team, what it does show is if those players with less ability do a specify task, those players with more ability will succeed.

3. Although football can be a source of individual pride, and a confidence builder, coaches continually exude teamwork, and not individual effort which in effect eliminates the feel-good sources of individual pride, and confidence.

4. Football does not breed a sense of fair play and honor on the battlefield there is, and always has been an attitude of win at all costs.

 

WHAT THE GAME DOES GIVE, AND MEAN

What the game of football does give to its participants can be summed up in two words, exuberance and pain. I think that explaining the values of football, the happiness, high spirits, the vitality, and the lavish and elaborate…..often to the point of excess, aptly depicts part of the end result of football.

 

The other part of football, the more important, and the more to the point part of the game of football is the initial, and lifetime of prolonged pain, suffering, and the actually shortcomings that football can mean to former players, both physical and emotionally.

 

Many, many football injuries don’t go away; they simply fester for years under the surface, and with the advancing years resurface and become a huge hindrance to the productive life that a man in the twilight of his productive years is robbed of.

 

 

I played a bit of football, I watch both the Packers and the Lions, and enjoy watching college as well as high school games…..I’m a football fan pure and simple. That said, I do however have the ability to see beyond the Friday night bright lights, the Saturday afternoon of College pageantry, and the Sunday afternoon National Football League marketing of their football product.

 

I understand, (to a degree) the business aspect of the game of football on every level, from the Pop Warner programs that cost hundreds of dollars, to high school and the hundreds of thousands, to the college game, and it’s millions, and to the professionals and their hundreds of millions, I get it! Sports teams cost money to run, and marketing becomes a big deal to everybody.

 

Football games have always caused injuries; from sprains to cuts, pulled muscles, to broken bones, playing the game can be hazardous to the participants. Sporting goods companies are constantly looking for better ways to protect the players; coaches have get-togethers to discuss ways to help reduce some of the violence of their sport.

 

BUT AT THE END OF THE DAY

Football today, almost on any level is a violent contact sport, even the tykes on occasion make contact and see the classic stars in their eyes. Football coaches, athletic directors and school officials on the high school level can meet, and enact all the safety rules that will, in the end make them collectively feel good, they will go back to their schools, and offices, and conduct their business, and the injuries will continue.

 

But surprise, surprise…..it’s not their fault, the culprit is the game itself and how it’s played in the 21^st century. The biggest cause of head and neck injuries is the fact that players lead with their heads, it’s the most natural way to get from point A (where you’re at), to point B (where an opponent is at.)

 

Every other injury, be it knee, foot, ankle, hand, fingers, arms, ribs or back is acceptable, but a neck or head injury is unacceptable, and can lead to a lifetime of misery…..or death. So what do we do to stem the tide of the injuries that happen every fall?

 

The answer is really quite simple (you know me…..uncomplicated and simple), attach cloth flags on either side of a players hips attached to a belt and when a flag is pulled from the belt, the play is over. No more injuries, almost, of any kind!  Of course this new game…..Flag Football would also eliminate the big lumbering players or the short, small, yet slow players like myself, and those players with an attitude would have to find another outlet for the frustration with life.

 

Of course I’m kidding, there’s not a beer company in the world who would hitch its marketing star to a flag football team called the Chicago Cuties, or the Dubuque Dumbbells. But never fear, there is a way out of this dilemma. This solution really is simple, and does make loads of sense.

 

On every level of football below the college ranks start a five year program to re-teach kids how to play, how to avoid injuries, and how to focus on these new rules that can reduce injury to the head and neck. Have the makers of protective head-gear continue an exhaustive research program into producing better and more protective headgear.

 

Start a national organization that will govern every football team in the nation, big school, medium school, and small, in an effort to adopt national playing rules. Eliminate all summer football camps and touch football leagues…..let the kids be kids for at least a couple of months during the summer.

 

 

Establish a national date for the beginning of football practice, an end date, and a national playoff system that would crown a national champion at the end of the season. These are radical changes that probably will never happen, but its fun to write them down…..anyways it’s my blog.

 

WALTER CAMP AND THE BOYS

Walt Camp, John Heisman, Amos Alonzo Staff, Pop Warner, Fielding H. Yost and George Halas all helped to devise the game of football and to them every football player, coach and fan should be respectful, because without them, we’d be left with baseball, basketball, and hockey.

 

But I’m pretty sure that these men never in their wildest dreams thought that (their) game would cause the devastating injuries that it does today. To that end we need to probably make some changes so that some panty waist in Washington doesn’t jump on a band-wagon somewhere and try and outlaw the game.

 

Football means many things to many different people, depending on which part of the country that you are from. I grew up in a football town, Friday nights were golden, first it was all day on Friday, I can’t remember classes on that day, just the football game, and the dance after the game.

 

We’d walk into the dance, which was held in the cafeteria to an almost royal ceremony, whether a victory or a defeat, (which wasn’t very often) and the night was ours. That is what I remember most about the fall times at my high school.

 

Those experiences will be treasured my entire life, for good or for bad it’s one of the feelings that dominated me, and my school. But looking back, those experiences did not come close to my first born or the twinkle in my wife’s eye when I achieved a goal.

 

Football is a good game…..not as good as baseball…..but none the less a good game, a game worth saving actually from itself. Cooler heads need to make their presence felt when the debate begins again, cause you know it will.

 

HAVE A NICE DAY!