As a father, that uncertainty is a scary thing. While all sports incur risk, the risk in football is like the risk of smoking, not so much a danger out of the blue, but a continual assault on the body. Each and every play, the sound of helmets colliding, wondering if it is part of a dangerous pattern. It’s loud.
All of these thoughts and concerns create a moral dilemma for me because I am a big fan of football. Growing up in Philadelphia I learned from my family that watching the Eagles meant yelling at the TV and each other while furiously pacing. The first time my in-laws ever saw me watch a football game they thought I was a lunatic. The pure joy that I take in watching football is tremendous, and if it was gone it would leave a big hole. But there is a difference now. We are no longer blissfully unaware of the risks to players. Twenty years ago we thought of an ex NFL player as a guy with car dealership who spoke at pee wee football banquets. Now we think of a shattered human being whose mind is no longer his own.
At the start of last season for the first time, I had a few friends — not many, but a few — who gave up the NFL. This was generally announced in Facebook posts warning about complicity in these dangerous working conditions. I did not give up the NFL. After all, these are grown men making their own choices. They are well rewarded for their sacrifices and free to choose to cash in their chips and go home. But there was still a nagging doubt, the understanding that without college and high school and middle school football programs, there would be no NFL.
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