Is Football Any Better than Dogfighting?

rollhead · October-15th-2009, 06:24 PM

Personally, I think dogfighting is more humane.

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2..._fact_gladwell

One evening in August, Kyle Turley was at a bar in Nashville with his wife and some friends. It was one of the countless little places in the city that play live music. He’d ordered a beer, but was just sipping it, because he was driving home. He had eaten an hour and a half earlier. Suddenly, he felt a sensation of heat. He was light-headed, and began to sweat. He had been having episodes like that with increasing frequency during the past year—headaches, nausea. One month, he had vertigo every day, bouts in which he felt as if he were stuck to a wall. But this was worse. He asked his wife if he could sit on her stool for a moment. The warmup band was still playing, and he remembers saying, “I’m just going to take a nap right here until the next band comes on.” Then he was lying on the floor, and someone was standing over him. “The guy was freaking out,” Turley recalled. “He was saying, ‘Damn, man, I couldn’t find a pulse,’ and my wife said, ‘No, no. You were breathing.’ I’m, like, ‘What? What?’ ”

They picked him up. “We went out in the parking lot, and I just lost it,” Turley went on. “I started puking everywhere. I couldn’t stop. I got in the car, still puking. My wife, she was really scared, because I had never passed out like that before, and I started becoming really paranoid. I went into a panic. We get to the emergency room. I started to lose control. My limbs were shaking, and I couldn’t speak. I was conscious, but I couldn’t speak the words I wanted to say.”

Turley is six feet five. He is thirty-four years old, with a square jaw and blue eyes. For nine years, before he retired, in 2007, he was an offensive lineman in the National Football League. He knew all the stories about former football players. Mike Webster, the longtime Pittsburgh Steeler and one of the greatest players in N.F.L. history, ended his life a recluse, sleeping on the floor of the Pittsburgh Amtrak station. Another former Pittsburgh Steeler, Terry Long, drifted into chaos and killed himself four years ago by drinking antifreeze. Andre Waters, a former defensive back for the Philadelphia Eagles, sank into depression and pleaded with his girlfriend—“I need help, somebody help me”—before shooting himself in the head. There were men with aching knees and backs and hands, from all those years of playing football. But their real problem was with their heads, the one part of their body that got hit over and over again.

baksheesh · October-15th-2009, 06:48 PM

Yeah, well in medieval times they would have been trying to smash your head in with a mace!
What goes around, comes around...

Monte Smith · October-15th-2009, 08:02 PM

Oh boo hoo! Oh boo hoo hoo! There are sports that are physical and people get hurt and they die! Oh God, when will it stop, oh no, oh boo, oh boo hoo hoo.

rollhead · October-15th-2009, 10:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Monte Smith

Oh boo hoo! Oh boo hoo hoo! There are sports that are physical and people get hurt and they die! Oh God, when will it stop, oh no, oh boo, oh boo hoo hoo.

The village gutless wonder weighs in.

lonely-at-the-top · October-16th-2009, 01:09 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rollhead

But their real problem was with their heads...

I guess you might say that about a lot of people....

claude · October-16th-2009, 09:00 AM

So, where's the political/world issues/world events angle on this?

lonely-at-the-top · October-16th-2009, 10:30 AM

problems with the head may well be a world-wide thing, I'm afraid

jesus marion joseph · October-16th-2009, 12:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by claude

So, where's the political/world issues/world events angle on this?

Helloooooo! NFL Europe, duh!

Al in NYC · October-16th-2009, 02:08 PM

A little later in the New Yorker article there is this:
"Turley said that he loved playing football so much that he would do it all again."

I think that a lot of us who played, at all kinds of levels, feel the same way. I wouldn't give back my experience of 2 years as the worst player on perhaps the worst high school team in the state of Michigan for anything. In this I'm not sure that football is any different from many other dangerous, strenuous, yet fun and thrilling activities that people, particularly men, take up, from skiing to auto racing to boxing to jumping dozens of feet up in the air on a skateboard or a bicycle.

Last Sunday I saw a 60 Minutes piece that echoes the New Yorker article cited by Rollhead (and was apparently ripped off from a Dan Rather HDNet story), and it was indeed sobering. Seeing the great John Mackey as a total invalid was heartbreaking, seeing the damaged brain samples of the late Wally Hilgenberg was scary as hell, and the story of the permanently injured high school kid was horrible. The former player they interviewed though, Ted Johnson, said pretty much the same thing as Turley: yeah, I was damaged by it, but I'd do it all over again. But the woman I was watching it with asked me why I liked this game, and why in the world did you ever play it? I had no immediate answer.

But then the football story was followed by a story about men in winged suits jumping off of cliffs and sailing at hundreds of miles an hour right next to the cliff face. Not something I would ever do in a million years, particularly with my flatlander's fear of heights, but I understood why they did it, and it brought home the answer to the hanging question from the previous story. Because it was fun, dammit, perhaps the most pure fun and excitement I ever had or will have in my life. Football, hockey, and auto racing were my cliff flying - not nearly as daring to be sure, and not something I'd do anymore (well, perhaps I'd reconsider with the racing...), but memories I'd much rather have than not.

Was it foolhardy? Perhaps. I was never even close to being a good player, and I was lucky to get out with a slightly bent little finger, an ankle that occasionally gives out, and a knee that sometimes swells up in damp weather, but I definitely don't regret it. Ask my cousin who boxed for several years, or my uncle who played baseball until his knees gave out and sailed across the Atlantic twice and down the coast of South America on a two-man boat (and once lost the other man) and they'd tell you the same thing about what they did.

But, rather oddly, it is this very manifestation of free will that Gladwell doesn't quite seem to understand. When he says, in relation to boxing injuries, "Yet boxers continue to box. Why? Because people still go to boxing matches." I think he is missing something crucial about the boxers themselves. Simply put, most boxers love the sport. And very few are getting paid millions of dollars, or even any dollars at all, to do it. Most kids who play football love playing it, or there wouldn't be thousands of them showing up to play at various levels up to high school. They certainly aren't in it for the money, and only the tiniest fraction of them will ever get to play at the NFL level, or even play major college football.

Having said all of that, I am hoping that the NFL really does take this seriously, use their considerable resources to do some real work on concussions and brain injuries, and come up with ways to lessen their occurrence in the game. I've often thought that in some ways we were better off before the advent of the hard-shell helmet. My father and grandfather were both taught to block and tackle with their shoulders and arms, but that was back in the leather helmet days when a head blow was ineffective and may have meant time on the sidelines. By the time I played we were constantly admonished to "stick your head in there." In short, to use our hard helmets (and our heads) as a weapon. The football helmet, I think, gives one a false sense of indestructibility, and the further you rise in the game the more that sense pervades. I know we can't go back now and effectively study people from the leather helmet era , but I would be curious to see if the range of brain injuries is anywhere close in other heavy collision sports, like say rugby, that are played with little or no head protection.

Enforcer · October-16th-2009, 02:24 PM

Yes.

steve(thelil) · October-16th-2009, 02:44 PM

I think the degree of voluntariness differentiates the sports. So the real question is : Is dogfootball any better than dogfighting?

Answer: Flag dogfootball is better than dogfighting. OK, Full contact tackle dogfootball probably is better than dogfighting, but you have to give the dogs sufficient water during warm weather practices or all bets are off.

jesus marion joseph · October-16th-2009, 04:52 PM

Monte Smith · October-16th-2009, 05:34 PM

Good point, JMJ.

How about bear-baiting? Bear-baiting used to be the thing in Shakespeare's time. Now, like a lot of the 16th century, it can only be found in Muslim countries.

me wag · October-16th-2009, 07:20 PM

Maybe they need to put antlers on the helmets.

rollhead · October-17th-2009, 10:05 AM

I know that all the candy-asses (Monte, JMJ) who have posted here on this subject think this is funny, but as someone who played varsity football (in addition to boxing) for a number of years, I realize -- first hand -- that concussions aren't funny.

One my best friends is suffering the consequences of being a golden gloves boxer in his youth -- you might think it is funny to be punch drunk -- but he and his family don't think so. As the New Yorker article, or similar articles have stated, long-time football players are up to 19 times more likely to eventually suffer from dementia.

And if someone doesn't think that this is a political issue, either is an idiot or doesn't understand the definition of politics.

ABC had a nice piece on this yesterday.

http://abcnews.go.com/video/playerIndex?id=8849289

sonic1 · October-17th-2009, 05:33 PM

There is a blatant difference between football and dog fighting. It's called free agency. Dogs are forced into that sport. Football players go willingly. And sometimes they paid a shitload. Boxing is closer to dog fighting, but still involves choice by all participants.

I pretty much have no interest in sports in general. It's like watching ants. Monotonous.

Uli · October-18th-2009, 03:39 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sonic1

There is a blatant difference between football and dog fighting. It's called free agency. Dogs are forced into that sport. Football players go willingly. And sometimes they paid a shitload. Boxing is closer to dog fighting, but still involves choice by all participants.

.

No dog gets to choose it's owner. The other half of the crazy muthers think the dog is their child.

Monte Smith · October-18th-2009, 04:22 PM

I don't know why this occurs to me, but the Stade Francais rugby team plays in pink Lycra uniforms.

jesus marion joseph · October-18th-2009, 09:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Monte Smith

I don't know why this occurs to me...

Probably because you're a candyass.

Monte Smith · October-19th-2009, 07:10 AM

Well there's that.

Tom Storer · October-19th-2009, 07:36 AM

I'm not even a candyass. I'm a pre-candyass. Being a candyass is too damn dangerous. It should be regulated!

clinthopson · October-19th-2009, 11:11 AM

I wonder what the post playing conditions of Rugby and Aussie Football players are.

They beat the crap out of each other without wearing any kind of protection, except maybe cups.

The NYer article suggests that maybe because of the heavy padding, the players take more chances. A good point.

baksheesh · October-19th-2009, 11:37 AM

I can't believe this is being seriously debated! Dogfighting is unbelievably vile, and in the UK it's becoming a real problem, with guys training their dogs to be vicious etc. The result is a huge rise in dog on human attacks. The training methods themselves are disgusting, the fights are brutal and bring out the ugliest aspects of human nature.
American football can be dramatic at times, like many sports, but it can also be desperately dull. Like boxing, it's a choice whether you want to play it or not, and I don't think anyone is not aware of the long term health risks associated with these sports.
No sob stories for crying out loud. It's like that bullshit where soldiers are starting to complain about various things. Free choice, take the consequences like a big boy, or don't do it, and don't risk that shit happening to you.

Kevin Bresnahan · October-19th-2009, 01:08 PM

Is Football Any Better than Dogfighting? Ask Michael Vick. He, more than anyone ought to know.

rollhead · October-19th-2009, 01:47 PM

Two Buffalo Bills had concussions yesterday --QB Trent Edwards and TE Shawn Nelson.

baksheesh · October-19th-2009, 01:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rollhead

Two Buffalo Bills had concussions yesterday --QB Trent Edwards and TE Shawn Nelson.

Well, that's what you get for playing football.

rollhead · October-19th-2009, 01:51 PM

Watch CBS News Videos Online

baksheesh · October-19th-2009, 01:54 PM

See post #27 for my reaction to the CBS story. No sympathy whatsoever, but some of those collisions look absolutely hilarious - particularly the one where your man's helmet gets broken by the impact!
And the guy saying he didn't know any better!
Snrf! Snrf!

sonic1 · October-19th-2009, 01:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rollhead

Two Buffalo Bills had concussions yesterday --QB Trent Edwards and TE Shawn Nelson.

Dude, you picked football? Over boxing where most regular boxers end up half brain dead? Football is innocuous compared to quite a few sports.

I used to do bodywork with a lot of athletes, and by far the worst harmed were boxers and hockey players.

Imagine football on high heals, dudes armed with sticks. That is hockey for ya.

And again agreed with above sentiments, even those don't nearly come close to dog fighting. Just to help you feel like a piece of shit for comparing football with dog fighting:

Yeah, that is why I can't stomach the comparison. I didn't even pick the worst picture.

rollhead · October-19th-2009, 02:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sonic1

Dude, you picked football? Over boxing where most regular boxers end up half brain dead? Football is innocuous compared to quite a few sports.

Dude -- why don't you go jerk off on some guys, or do your dancing with the stars, routine, dude.

Dude, I won't point out the obvious idiocy of comparing a dog with a human being because you are so lame you can't comprehend that, dude.

Dude, are you a functional illiterate, or are the words "dude" and 'lame' simply among the handful of words you know?