Malcolm Gladwell asks some uncomfortable questions about America’s Game.
At the core of the C.T.E. research is a critical question: is the kind of injury being uncovered by McKee and Omalu incidental to the game of football or inherent in it? Part of what makes dogfighting so repulsive is the understanding that violence and injury cannot be removed from the sport. It’s a feature of the sport that dogs almost always get hurt. Something like stock-car racing, by contrast, is dangerous, but not unavoidably so.
After you are done reading that article, check out a series of articles on ESPN on what happened to Pittsburgh Steeler legend, Mike Webster.
When he was finished, Webster had broken most of his fingers, suffered permanent damage to five vertebrae, and effectively ruined his knees, right shoulder and right heel. More troubling were the constant headaches that began to dog him in his last few seasons with the Steelers. The record books dutifully note his 245 regular-season games, but there were nearly 100 more, taking his 19 playoff games and more than 75 preseason games into account. Factor in the grueling training camps in Latrobe, Pa., and practices throughout the season, and it’s probable that Webster endured more than 25,000 violent collisions.
Webster’s oldest son, Colin, tells the story of the doctor, who, upon examining an MRI of Webster’s, asked if he had been in a car accident.
"Yeah," the old center said, "about 350,000 car accidents."
Despite this, Webster was never treated by team doctors for a concussion, according to medical records submitted in the case. The Steelers’ trainers, too, note he never complained of concussion symptoms. Still, it is probable, based on discussions with doctors and former players, that Webster suffered a significant number of head injuries during his career that today would be classified as concussions.
I’m not going to rise to the bait regarding dog fighting and professional football, because I think it clouds a pretty clear issue regarding whether it is possible any more to be an ethical sports fan.
Football players at every level know they are risking their health; dogs do not. The comparison is not a fair one.
Mike Webster’s case, while tragic, is anecdotal and becomes less pertinent every day; he played his college ball in the early Seventies, when the players were smaller and lighter, the game slower, and the protective equipment was substantially of lower quality. There really is no fair comparison between a 1975 NFL helmet and a 2005 NFL helmet. Not to mention the impact of the short passing game on play selection, introduction of the headslap rule, etc. Add in changes in economic incentives and the length of the average career, and you’re dealing with a tragic example but a useless comparison.
Mike Webster isn’t Darryl Stingley: this isn’t a case where a rule change will prevent a readily-identifiable problem with a human face.
It’s good to see Gladwell collecting the other cases, if for no other reason than for these questions to stop being about Mike Webster. But honestly; if Michael Vick had never been caught, would Gladwell be bringing up dog fighting in this article?
There are plenty of good reasons to stop watching/caring about NFL football: public funding of stadiums, ticket prices, heart disease/divorce/bankruptcy/addiction rates among former players, alleged involvement of organized crime, the social costs of gambling, the social costs of manufacturing professional football players, and the low social value of former football players as celebrities and politicians.