But the emerging science around head injuries in football — and the long-term effects of repeated concussions – is forcing players, team owners and football fans to come to grips with the idea that the sport they love may be extracting a much higher price than anyone knew.
7 comments:
I think it’s pretty interesting that there is a play currently in production that outlines the issues of this controversy. However, I don’t really like this article, because it acts as if these risks from playing a highly violent contact sport were unknown until recently. It shouldn’t be surprising that repeated head injury earlier in lie will lead to issues later on, and some pretty major ones like early onset Alzheimer’s. The article does mention the discovery of such diseases in boxers in the 60’s, and so I fail to see the distinction between an injury acquired from boxing and an injury acquired from football. Biology probably fails to discern a difference as well. I appreciate the attention to the issue that this play is giving, and would be interested to learn more about the specifics of the show. Regardless, for now, we have to look at these injuries as a real problem. It is absolutely wrong to profit off of people who are essentially throwing a good portion of their life away, often times unknowingly.
One of the most frustrating things about head traumas is that you can't really understand the impact, the effect on your life until you have one. I had a concussion in February of my senior year. Suddenly I was a STEM student who could no longer perform drawn out mathematical functions, and - worst of all - could no longer understand biology. I had already been accepted to college to be a biology major. While I moved onto bigger and better things, the sheer loss of part of my working memory challenged my ability to succeed academically, and in doing so challenged the foundations of my identity. Almost two years have passed, and I take daily medication to treat my hypersomnia - an aftereffect of the concussion that leaves me almost constantly tired. I have emergency pills on hand in case a near-disabling migraine hits. I am at the mercy of the smallest changes in weather, mood, and the shape of my pillow. In sports, this risk is taken knowingly (or as comprehendingly as it can be without firsthand experience) and often repeatedly. Is it worth it?
My concussion occurred during the final dress rehearsal for my final high school production. In producing a play, things move and fall and you trip. The risk of head trauma is real. But I'd still take that fall again, because I did it doing what I love.
I feel as if, in theatre, we blatantly avoid writing on the subject of sports. Especially football. Sure, we'll use it as a character trait -- see Biff and Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman -- but in popular (and specifically) live theatre I haven't seen much about team sports and athletics. Of course, one could sum the reason up to the fact that the theatre doesn't lend itself to camera pans of entire football fields, and that playing an intense game of soccer on stage just isn't as entertaining as it might be with the direction of film. I found this article and the play it talks about to be fascinating because the playwrights have avoided putting the act of the game onstage while still talking about issues extremely essential to the sport. I'm not a huge football fan myself, preferring hockey to anything else, but I could find myself wanting to go see this play on account of its delving into the psychology of bloodthirstiness and the effects of football on player's mental health.
This was a very interesting article to read. We so often think of sports like football to just be the norm in life, and we forget the trauma and injury that many of the players go through just so we can enjoy the game. It got me wondering how similar this is becoming to sports of the long past like the arena with gladiators. People got together to watch men kill each other and had fun. Obviously we have moved on from that, but how much have we? People are still drawn to sports, the more dangerous the better. I have heard people so often say that one of the reasons they love hockey so much is because the players can beat each other up. In football it is like they are constantly beating each other up in hopes of letting one player with the ball through. It is nonstop damage that they are knowingly doing to themselves.
As someone who doesn't necessarily care to watch sports, I wouldn’t be heartbroken to see it go away, but as the fans said at the end of the article, it would be hard for a lot of people, not to mention the athletes who suddenly don’t have a job.
I type this comment as I am getting ready to watch the Patriots in the Superbowl, so I think we know right off the bat that I am a football fan. I have always watched football with my family, and when I was young, I used to play it every day at recess. My mother never let my brother or me go out for a team specifically for the reasons listed in this article. She was always worried about head injuries and the like, which we understood and were fine with. However, there are football players who I believe would not be deterred by the facts in this article. Yes, it is absolutely terrifying how awful the effects can be, especially on the brain, but when you love your sport, you don’t let those kinds of things hold you back. Ever. The article brings up the idea that the fans might be at fault, which I personally think is silly. As quoted, there is no one who watches football to see men tackled down. We watch it for their successes; we watch it for when they get up, and when they accomplish their goals. Just like any other sport or hell, performance of any kind.
As a football fan I find this subject of this play and article really interesting. I think that football is an amazing sport and I like it for the drama and the suspense and the thought that goes into each play. In my mind its allure is very similar to that of going to see a great new play. When I read the title of the article I thought that it was going to be similar to one I had seen on the Green Page in the past that had been attacking people preference of sports over drama. I was happy to see that it was instead about the meeting of the two subjects on the stage. Brain injuries in football have been a subject of great controversy in the past couple of years. Many people wonder whether playing and promoting the sport is worth the risk, so I am excited to see this plays perspective on the subject.
As both a theatre person and someone who has grown up in a city that has a ton of Super Bowl rings this has been a question that I am always asking people. The conclusion that I have drawn is that it is simply entertaining almost in the same way a theatrical production is. When you walk into a football stadium or a theatre there is automatically a different energy. This is energy of excitement and eagerness to wait to see what happens on the field or when the curtain goes up. Once the game or production begins the audience is automatically drawn into the action. You are following characters or players as they tell you a story. In theatre that is a story of an event. In a football game you are also watching live a story, but this is a story that is rehearsed that no one knows what the outcome is going to be. This brings a very big thrill, a similar thrill to seeing a show for the very first time. As you can see theatre and football aren’t actually that different.
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