At the risk of overstating the case: Is any game worth a loved one’s life?
Dr. Bennet Omalu is a forensic neuropathologist who examined brain tissue from three former NFL players who suffered from depression and who attempted suicide. Two succeeded, and all three died at relatively young ages with old men’s brains.
Omalu found that repeated concussions had left these men — Terry Long, Andre Waters and Mike Webster — with brains showing abnormalities like a doctor would expect to find in demented patients in their 80s and 90s.
The problem was, these guys were 45, 44 and 50 years old, respectively, and they had suffered distressing mental declines over a period of years after leaving the football field.
Does it happen to all players? No. But other signs indicate a problem beyond these three, Omalu said, because of surprisingly robust applications for nursing care among NFL retirees with dementia, a rate dramatically above the national norm.
Omalu spent much of 2007 spreading the word that these cases are not as isolated as we might think, but he said it seemed the NFL simply sent out its defensive team, failing to implement effective preventive measures.
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But Omalu wasn’t done. He has just released his arguments in book form: “Play Hard, Die Young: Football Dementia, Depression and Death” (Neo-Forenxis Books, $15.95).
If football is religion to you, then maybe you can dismiss his findings, rationalizing that religion requires sacrifice. But if the sacrifice is coming from a kid …
When a reporter asked Omalu if, knowing what he knows now, he would let his child play football, he responded with an unequivocal no.
Obviously he wants to draw more attention to the problem among football players in general, from pro to recreational leagues, and to garner understanding for those who suffer the brain injuries and their consequences.
But “another purpose of this book is to educate fathers, mothers, uncles, aunties, grandparents and others who want to decide whether to allow their pre-teenagers or teenagers to play football or not. … It needs to be an informed and educated decision that should not be at whim.”
Long before this, I had a fairly quick debate with one of my two sons about how he would not be playing high school football. I couldn’t see an upside for a guy whose smaller frame would be landed on by human trucks.
He’d been an occasional star in baseball and learned the glory of team sports that way. What more was there to be gained from football?
Now I know.
I do love the pro game. I’ll never forget the first one I saw; it was at Soldier Field. On the first snap, up from the field came what sounded like a thousand human grunts, like you’d expect to hear on Judgment Day. Then came the crash of armor against armor, like these guys were real gladiators.
As I said, it can be like a religion. But maybe in our coliseums, guys are playing the role of the Christians, not the lions.
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