Brant Gumbel of Real Sports has done a couple programs showing the impact of pro football on the players after the game is over for them. The concussions and harm done to them have serious and long range implications. John Mackey was touted as a tough hard hitting football player. He is unable to communicate and is the poster boy for anti football people. It is common to have hip and knee replacement . The life of a cripple awaits.
Once you have a concussion ,you are 3 times more likely to have another.
In high school we have about a half million football injuries a year. In 1996 2 highschoolers died of heatstroke, 9 were permanently paralyzed.
Could it be made safer.? Could helmets be made better to prevent concussions. ? Ut seems there have not been great strides in protection.
By the way I have been a fan of boxing and football for many years. But, I always have had a nagging feeling that it was wrong to hurt people for amusement.
Are they forced to play football at gunpoint? If not, then it’s their decision and who are you to tell them you won’t “allow” it?
Play with lawn darts instead! 
Great strides are being made in sports medicine and protective equipment. Look at the helmets they wore 40 years ago versus today.
Until they start forcing people to play football, I don’t see a problem. You know pretty much from the first three minutes of playing football that it’s going to hurt.
What’s wrong with getting hurt? It used to be a source of pride. And please with the “2 highschoolers died of heatstroke” statistics. That could have happened with band practice.
When I heard questions as to whether football should be allowed as I kid, I thought it was outrageous. Since then, I don’t know. Kids think they are invunerable and are making choices that will affect them negatively for the rest of their lives. I know a fair number of adults who had their backs and knees screwed up in high school, and would not have played if they fully understood the consequences.
I give you kudos for trying to start an interesting debate, but I just don’t think this one has legs. For one thing, the object of football isn’t to hurt people; it’s merely a symptom of the way the game is played. For another, as has been said, participation in this violent game is voluntary. Anyone who elects to play football has tacitly accepted the risks. And not everyone who plays football is debilitated beyond the point of living a healthy life.
If we were to ban an activity because it had risk of injury, we’d be creating a mighty long list.
Riding horses? Everyone probably remembers Christopher Reeves accident. Any barn I’ve been to posts warnings about the inherent dangers of Equine activities. Ban it.
Hockey? Flying pucks create risks of breaking your eye socket. Ban it.
Basketball? Knee injuries are going to make it hard to walk in your old age. Ban it.
Baseball? Ray Chapman died playing the game. As did a minor league coach, Mike Coolbaugh. Ban it.
Golf? Many longtime pro’s have nagging back injuries, and anyone who’s ever had a back problem knows how painful that can be. Ban it.
I could go on and on. Do I need to?
This one time, at band practice…
And that’s not to mention the Chris Simons of the world.
Kids think they’re invulnerable, it’s true - but so do athletes in general. They know the risks and “have to” ignore them. And many willingly do so, or else they wouldn’t try to come back from injuries. I think greater attention is required from coaches at all levels as far as paying attention to concussions. That’s the biggest thing, and I’m not sure it’s taken seriously enough at any level.
And there will always advances in equipment. I hope they can keep up with the advances in training that are making players faster and stronger than ever.
Research has shown that concussions in youth athletes have prolonged effects, so having kids play contact sports with a risk of concussion is different than adults. Even college students, with still developing brains, are at risk.
Chris Nowinski wrote a great book: Head Games, which I highly recommend (no relationship to the author or interest in the royalties).
I won’t let my kids play football, ice hockey, lacrosse or rugby, but YMMV.
Maybe I was just a rough and tumble child growing up but all sorts of activities I engaged in put me at risk of losing life or limb though those risks weren’t all that high. I did suffer one concussion when I fell off my bike and hit my head on the curb. I played football through middle school and suffered minor injuries, ice hockey during those same years, and wrestled my way through high school. By far wrestling resulted in the fewest injuries of the sports I played.
I remember during football practice someone knocked me on my back and I hit my head so hard that laid on the ground with my eyes shut for fear that they might have been knocked out. I’m all for making better helmets.
When I first started playing football I had just moved to Texas. I went from living in relatively cool or mild climates, Germany and Colorado, to Texas and the first summer just about killed me. Playing football in 95+ humid weather was just plain brutal for someone not used to the climate. One practice I had to ask to take a water break to avoid passing out and I caught some shit from my team mates because I guess I was just supposed to tough it out. Incidentally we did get a water break when I asked but the coach didn’t exactly do anything about me taking shit from the rest of the team for asking for it.
Despite this I don’t think football is too dangerous. I think it’s probably a lot safer today then it was 50 years ago.
Marc
Kids who want to crack their skulls are going to find a way to do it, so we may as well give them a consistent set of rules to do it in and supervise them by.
Careful – that kind of argument lends itself to reductio ad absurdem. (E.g., gladiatorial combat with real swords.)
That’s nothing compared to the casualties you’d have in the ensuing riot if you tried to ban it. 
With that being said, yes it could be safer, yes extra focus should be put on how football effects younger kids who are still growing and devloping.
The latest Real Sports deals with pro ball from the viewpoint of 3 wives. One has a 35 year old husband who she dresses like a child ,brushes his teeth and has to put his pain pills in his mouth. He is mentally ok but his joints have been destroyed. he is unable to ever work again.
Another wife and her football gladiator knew football was a temporary life. They both went to law school while he was playing. However he was knocked out 11 times while playing football. When he retired he became violent and crazy. She has not seen him for 2 years. He went to the streets and has been nailed for drunk driving but failed to show in court.
Earlier programs showed the early dementia and inability to take care of themselves. If you think these risks are worth taking, I suggest the risks should be more common knowledge.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8C0lhv6sNjA Heres more. Perhaps the HGH and steroids have made it too dangerous. Huge and fast will increase the collisions intensity.
I wonder if the improvement in equipment is ironically making things worse. In a recent interview, Patriots coaches lamented how players these days don’t know the basic fundamentals of the game, like how to tackle. They talked about how players would rather lay a "big hit"on an opponent rather than wrapping them up with their arms. I would theorize that if you’re wearing a leather helmet, and small shoulder pads, you’re going to think twice about laying “the big hit”.
I’ve played hockey all my life. When I was a kid, the youth leagues didn’t require facemasks and the pros usually didn’t wear helmets. Now, in the NHL helmets are required and in youth leagues, high schools and colleges, facemasks are mandatory.
While the facemask has probably saved parents some big dental bills, there’s a school of thought that it has made the game more dangerous. Even in a sport where fighting is the norm, there used to be a “gentlemen’s agreement” that slap shots should be kept low. Now sticks and pucks bly higher than ever. I’d be interested in seeing some statistics on this.
Fighting to the death with swords should be legal, if both parties are consenting adults. (Though I’ll stick with rattan and a steel helmet, myself.)
If we’re going to talk about injuries, I guess it’s really hard to justify boxing as a sport. As far as I know, it’s the only professional sport with an inherently high risk of concussion that doesn’t require head protection. People want to see a knockout – somebody deliberately concussed hard enough to knock him unconscious. Stupid, brutal excuse for a sport.
Only if you allow it to. The law clearly states, in every jurisdiction where the law is worth respecting, that murder cannot be justified on grounds of implied consent. Even assisted suicide is usually illegal, and gladiatorial combat can’t even be considered to have that level of consent.
Football, or any other contact sport, quite obviously does not structurally have the participants acquiescing to having the other players actually try to KILL them.
I don’t see anything wrong with the state regulating contact sports where necessary (as it has with boxing) but in most cases sports make an effort to regulate themselves. If they fail to do so, there’s a place for the state.
I know that thought is out there, but it is wrong; in fact, it’s preposterous. The facemask has not only saved a lot of dental bills, but has saved thousands of children and young adults from partial or total blindness.
Prior to the mandatory adoption of CSA-approved face shields, CHA hockey alone averaged 250-300 eye injuries per year, of which thirty to fifty resulted in permanent blindness in at least one eye. After the adoption of face shield eye injuries essentially vanished; the average number of injuries per year dropped to two or three, without exception occurring when a player was not wearing their shield. The same thing happened when CSA and UL full shields were adopted in junior hockey and NCAA hockey. There is no case I am aware of of a person properlywearing a certified face shield receiving a serious eye injury. It’s impossible. (They do happen with the half-visors, which are of extremely limited value, but fortunately not permitted in minor hockey.)
http://www.safety-council.org/info/sport/hockeysafety.html
If the NHL adopted a requirement for full, certified face shields, there would be no eye injuries in the NHL. And I’m just talking the eyes, not even other forms of facial injury.
I appreciate the “there used to be a gentleman’s agreement” position, but it’s just not a terrible convincing one. Gordie Howe was infamous for carving up faces with his stick, and there’s never been a time in modern hockey history when people tried to keep shots low. Violence in hockey, including sticks above the waist, were just as bad thirty years ago or fifty years ago as they are today, and it’s easy to see if you can find tapes of old games; they’re nasty as hell with the sticks.