OPEN COURT: Examining football’s darker elements

What’s that old saying? You know, about how most people love the taste of sausage but would really rather not know anything about how it’s made.

Well, when I was a teenager, I worked in the meat department of our local grocery store. A big part of my job was, you guessed it, making sausage. And let me tell you, folks, whoever came up with that saying wasn’t lying.

I’ll do you a favor and spare the details — suffice to say that I have a completely different perspective on bratwurst now. Yet it still doesn’t stop me from enjoying one of my dad’s outstanding barbecues. Nobody grills quite like him.

It’s a strange, almost disorienting gap in my thinking. I’d like to think I’m a logical individual, but too often, the things I enjoy most are in direct conflict with my sane, rational side.

Take football, for instance.

Like most Americans, I absolutely love football. High school, college, professional — it doesn’t matter. I’m lucky enough to have a job where one of my main duties is to watch and write about football.

But there is no escaping the fact that those men are literally putting themselves in serious danger for our entertainment.

In the most recent issue of The New Yorker, Malcolm Gladwell — our nation’s preeminent nonfiction writer — detailed just how brutal football can be. It’s not breaking news when someone tells us that football is dangerous. It’s obvious to anyone who has ever watched more than five minutes of any football game. These are massive individuals crashing into each other at high rates of speed.

Gladwell’s article, on the other hand, struck a deeper nerve.

His central thesis was a bit weak. Gladwell asks whether professional football is that different from dogfighting — the crime that gained extra noteriety when NFL star Michael Vick was recently convicted. The short answer: yes, it is. Nobody forces anyone to play in the NFL, and no football coach tortures a player when he misses a block or drops a pass.

However, his exploration of the level of brain trauma suffered by many football players was shocking.

Few of us truly understand just how many brain-related issues football players are forced to deal with during (and after) their playing careers. It’s not just the bone-crushing highlight hits that put players in danger, either. Gladwell’s article argues that the most devastating damage is done due to the culmination of smaller hits these players absorb every day in practice — hits that don’t necessarily seem that bad at first glance.

Gladwell writes: “At one point, while he was discussing his research, [University of North Carolina Sports Concussion Research Program director Kevin] Guskiewicz showed a videotape from a 1997 college football game between Arizona and Oregon. In one sequence, a player from Oregon viciously tackles an Arizona player, bringing his head up onto the opposing player’s chin and sending his helmet flying with the force of the blow. To look at it, you’d think that the Arizona player would be knocked unconscious. Instead, he bounces back up. ‘This guy does not sustain a concussion,’ Guskiewicz said. ‘He has a lip laceration. Lower lip, that’s it. Now, same game, twenty minutes later.’ He showed a clip of an Arizona defensive back making a dramatic tackle. He jumps up, and, as he does so, a teammate of his chest-bumps him in celebration. The defensive back falls and hits his head on the ground. ‘That’s a Grade 2 concussion,’ Guskiewicz said. ‘It’s the fall to the ground, combined with the bounce off the turf.’”

Scarier still is that there doesn’t seem to be a solution in sight.

As long as football exists, injuries — especially brain injuries — will be an unfortunate result. As these current players age, their risks for Alzheimer’s disease, dementia and other brain problems are exponentially larger than that for the general public. I don’t care how much money these guys make; you can’t put a price on brain trauma.

Of course, football isn’t going anywhere. The NFL is the largest sport in this country, by far. Even people who don’t like football attend Super Bowl parties every year. And many of the best memories I have with my dad are the times we spend talking about the Denver Broncos.

Hopefully, someone is in the process of developing better helmets, but that won’t do much in the grand scheme of things. Potential football stars will continue to risk their health for seven- or eight-figure salaries, and we’ll continue rooting them on.

I suppose there isn’t much we can do beyond firing up the grill and watching some football. Anyone else want another bratwurst?

nprevenas@gvnews.com | 547-9747