Malcolm Gladwell

#76
#76
Fortunately for Jerry Sandusky and I, we won't be explaining our sins to therealUT when it really matters
 
#77
#77
VolsNSkinsFan said:
Fortunately for Jerry Sandusky and I, we won't be explaining our sins to therealUT when it really matters
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You will be explaining yourself to an all-knowing god? You really do buy into children's stories, don't you?

But, back to the topic: if 59% of high school football players suffer brain damage as a result of playing football, should they be allowed to play?
 
#79
#79
therealUT said:
You will be explaining yourself to an all-knowing god? You really do buy into children's stories, don't you?

But, back to the topic: if 59% of high school football players suffer brain damage as a result of playing football, should they be allowed to play?
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There is more proof of god than this concussion theory u r so ready to accept....that brain signal change could be the concussion symptoms themselves and not any real.changes or damage as you claim.....the people doing the tests even said they were not sure if their was permanent damage or not.

My daughter has absence seizures and her signals are abnormal.....they don't know what caused them and they usually stop when she reaches puberty and once again they have no clue why so they don't understand everything to do with the brain and are making educated guesses at best.


My dad played football from a little kid through high school...my dad and all his old high school teammates are still going strong... I will trust that more than these study groups whose funding is based on their findings.
 
#82
#82
volbeast33 said:
I will trust that more than these study groups whose funding is based on their findings.
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Saw a segment on Sportscenter earlier where they interviewed Jim McMahon. He said he probably wouldn't remember the interview 10 minutes after it ended and that he has to have his address programmed into a GPS in case he forgets how to get home. I'd love for you to tell him how ridiculous you find concussion studies.
 
#83
#83
DynamiteMcGhee said:
Saw a segment on Sportscenter earlier where they interviewed Jim McMahon. He said he probably wouldn't remember the interview 10 minutes after it ended and that he has to have his address programmed into a GPS in case he forgets how to get home. I'd love for you to tell him how ridiculous you find concussion studies.
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I know a few guys like that too and they chose to partake in several recreational substances like Jim mcmahon did also.....I would use a better example than him.
 
#86
#86
Seau, like Dave Duerson, shot himself in the chest to preserve the brain so that they could be studied for effects of head trauma suffered from, surprise surprise, injuries sustained during football.
 
#87
#87
Buzz Bissinger has now provided a preview of what he will be arguing for in the debate tomorrow night:
In more than 20 years I've spent studying the issue, I have yet to hear a convincing argument that college football has anything do with what is presumably the primary purpose of higher education: academics.

That's because college football has no academic purpose. Which is why it needs to be banned. A radical solution, yes. But necessary in today's times.

Football only provides the thickest layer of distraction in an atmosphere in which colleges and universities these days are all about distraction, nursing an obsession with the social well-being of students as opposed to the obsession that they are there for the vital and single purpose of learning as much as they can to compete in the brutal realities of the global economy.
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If the vast majority of major college football programs made money, the argument to ban football might be a more precarious one. But too many of them don't—to the detriment of academic budgets at all too many schools. According to the NCAA, 43% of the 120 schools in the Football Bowl Subdivision lost money on their programs. This is the tier of schools that includes such examples as that great titan of football excellence, the University of Alabama at Birmingham Blazers, who went 3-and-9 last season. The athletic department in 2008-2009 took in over $13 million in university funds and student fees, largely because the football program cost so much, The Wall Street Journal reported. New Mexico State University's athletic department needed a 70% subsidy in 2009-2010.
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This is just the tip of the iceberg. There are the medical dangers of football in general caused by head trauma over repetitive hits. There is the false concept of the football student-athlete that the NCAA endlessly tries to sell, when any major college player will tell you that the demands of the game, a year-round commitment, makes the student half of the equation secondary and superfluous. There are the scandals that have beset programs in the desperate pursuit of winning—the University of Southern California, Ohio State University, University of Miami and Penn State University among others.

I can't help but wonder how a student at the University of Oregon will cope when in-state tuition has recently gone up by 9% and the state legislature passed an 11% decrease in funding to the Oregon system overall for 2011 and 2012. Yet thanks to the largess of Nike founder Phil Knight, an academic center costing $41.7 million, twice as expensive in square footage as the toniest condos in Portland, has been built for the University of Oregon football team.
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I actually like football a great deal. I am not some anti-sports prude. It has a place in our society, but not on college campuses. If you want to establish a minor league system that the National Football League pays for—which they should, given that they are the greatest beneficiaries of college football—that is fine.

Call me the Grinch. But I would much prefer students going to college to learn and be prepared for the rigors of the new economic order, rather than dumping fees on them to subsidize football programs that, far from enhancing the academic mission instead make a mockery of it.

Buzz Bissinger: Why College Football Should Be Banned - WSJ.com
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I have a feeling that the debate tomorrow night is only the beginning of a very deep, very serious, and very concerned discourse concerning the future of college football in America.
 
#88
#88
I love football. I love watching it, I love the atmosphere, I love what it takes in terms of character and self-discipline for someone to be an excellent football player.

At the same time, there's no way that I can deny that it is our modern version of gladiator warfare, lions and tigers and bears, oh my; barely-controlled violence presented for the excitement and entertainment of the masses. The more dangerous and violent it is, the more we love it. Boom!

--and then we do the hushed respect while the golf cart stretcher totes the unmoving player off the field, hoping and praying that we'll see a little hand flap, showing that (maybe) the spinal cord is intact.

One of my kids had repeated concussions in middle and high school by virtue of being the tall player on the soccer team who was frequently (and deliberately) taken out by the opposing team. We visited many ER's throughout the southeast during her playing years. It most certainly affected her learning at times, and we also found that there was no way to know when a concussion had resolved. Everything would seem fine, weeks and months of enforced boredom waiting it out, and then she'd give it a try, go up and head the ball, and bang, cross-eyed with pain and barely able to walk off the field. That was very real pain, a symptom of something wrong. She wanted to play, and couldn't.

Sports-related traumatic head injury has nothing to do (or shouldn't) with guts, or toughness, or wanting to win, or being a tough guy. The fact is that there is no way to know what's going on with your brain after an injury until something is obviously wrong. And with the beating that football players' brains take, starting from 6th or 7th grade on, we're liars and/or living in denial to pretend that this isn't a very real problem.

Take a look at Muhammed Ali. IMO, that's not Parkinson's. That's dementia pugilistica. (It's in Wiki.)
 
#89
#89
volbeast33 said:
I would be more impressed if they actually studied the brains of players that lived long healthy productive lives instead of just the ones that had emotional breaks.
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You're right, if only the healthy ex football players would shoot themselves in the chest so we could study their brains...for some reason we always get the sick ones who do that...
 
#90
#90
dukes_of_maggard said:
You're right, if only the healthy ex football players would shoot themselves in the chest so we could study their brains...for some reason we always get the sick ones who do that...
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There have been others die from natural causes.....there have been three people from loudon within the past year commit suicide......suicide itslef is not proof of football related issues.
 
#91
#91
DynamiteMcGhee said:
Seau, like Dave Duerson, shot himself in the chest to preserve the brain so that they could be studied for effects of head trauma suffered from, surprise surprise, injuries sustained during football.
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Duerson.....there is no proof whatsoever seau did.....if they prove it then I will believe it....but don't just assume that's the cause......most of these studies come to a conclusion and work back words to prove how they feel....find an expert that starts with a blank slate and comes to a conclusion based strictly off the evidence....when they use word like likely or probably is far from fact and just theory.
 
#92
#92
therealUT said:
Buzz Bissinger has now provided a preview of what he will be arguing for in the debate tomorrow night:


I have a feeling that the debate tomorrow night is only the beginning of a very deep, very serious, and very concerned discourse concerning the future of college football in America.
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If that doesn't say the guy just does not like football then I don't know what does.
 
#93
#93
therealUT said:
Do you think that a 13-year-old should be able to consent to partake in such risk-laden activity?
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How risky is football for a 13-year old? I'm not so sure that it is. It gets risky at the university level where everybody hits like a truck.
 
#94
#94
n_huffhines said:
How risky is football for a 13-year old? I'm not so sure that it is. It gets risky at the university level where everybody hits like a truck.
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I am not sure how risky it is for 13-year-old children; however, it is certainly risky at the high school level. When a study comes out that claims that 59% of high school football players experience negative brain changes (i.e., mild brain damage), it is risky.
 
#95
#95
therealUT said:
I am not sure how risky it is for 13-year-old children; however, it is certainly risky at the high school level. When a study comes out that claims that 59% of high school football players experience negative brain changes (i.e., mild brain damage), it is risky.
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They said it caused mild brain wave changes but no actual functional damage.....brain damage is a stretch
 
#96
#96
volbeast33 said:
They said it caused mild brain wave changes but no actual functional damage.....brain damage is a stretch
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Do you remember when I quoted the following, from the actual study?

The models relating the left and right middle frontal gyrus (MFG; Table 3 and Table 4) are of particular interest because neuropsychological tests have indicated that changes in MFG activation are related to measureable decreases in verbal and visual working memory that have been documented in concussed indivdiuals.
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Instead of reading an article about the study, why don't you actually read the study?
 
#98
#98
volbeast33 said:
Send me the webpage
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therealUT said:
Could you please quote where they state that the findings are 'inconclusive'?

The name of the study is: Biomechanical correlates of symptomatic and asymptomatic neurophysiological impairment in high school football.

It can be found in the Journal of Biomechanics, Volume 45, Issue 7.
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Here you go.
 
#99
#99
therealUT said:
I am not sure how risky it is for 13-year-old children; however, it is certainly risky at the high school level. When a study comes out that claims that 59% of high school football players experience negative brain changes (i.e., mild brain damage), it is risky.
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I haven't seen the study? How thorough was it? Is it assuming that they would walk away from HS with 0 brain damage without football? I'm pretty sure I would have done some very stupid stuff if I hadn't been busy with football.
 
#100
#100
therealUT said:
Here you go.
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Ok finally read the real report and what you are claiming....they are saying that concussions happen from adding up all the hits a player has and the one that gives outward symptoms is just a culmination of all the hits added....the study is not meant to show any future brain damage to the individual person.
 
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