Ken Stabler had Severe C.T.E.

Not to be insensitive nor disregard the inevitable onset of CTE, but the revelation about The Snake's brain and this extraordinarily sympathetic article today in The New York Times will shoo him into Canton Saturday at long (long) last. RIP in the HOF, Kenny.

I read that article too, it seems like these injuries are often the price of playing football whether we like it or not. There was a photo of what I think was Stabler's actual brian...which for some reason seemed a little unsettling to me. I can understand donating your body to medical research, that's certainly a good thing to do...but it seems like an extra step for them to then put his brain on public display through a photo. Maybe that was important to do for comparison reasons, but still...:conf2:

He should have been in Canton a long time ago, he was more deserving of it than Namath.

A very sad story. It mentioned John Mackey. I saw a thing on 60 Minutes about him once and it was sad to see how he was. I like football, but I am glad my son never really got into playing.


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Re: Ken Stabler had Severe C. E. T.

BamainBoston said:

To me, it's just the downside of the job. If your kid's a lawyer, dentist, or doctor, then they're a member of the profession with the highest rate of drug abuse, alcoholism, and suicide.

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That's basically how I feel. If players are aware of the risk (and it is imperative that they understand what they are doing) and still choose to play, I have no issue with it. No different than hanging our with friends who still smoke. The media (mostly that imbecile Nancy Armour) like to write about how we as the public can endorse this game knowing what it does, but I don't see tons of articles written about coal miners and the elements they willingly put themselves in that we willingly accept. I get the difference between doing something for entertainment and coal mining but each party is aware of the risks.

Re: Ken Stabler had Severe C. E. T.

Intl.Aperture said:

That's basically how I feel. If players are aware of the risk (and it is imperative that they understand what they are doing) and still choose to play, I have no issue with it. No different than hanging our with friends who still smoke. The media (mostly that imbecile Nancy Armour) like to write about how we as the public can endorse this game knowing what it does, but I don't see tons of articles written about coal miners and the elements they willingly put themselves in that we willingly accept. I get the difference between doing something for entertainment and coal mining but each party is aware of the risks.

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I am torn. I feel really bad for players of previous eras, who had no idea what their futures might hold if they decided to play. But today's football players all know what they are getting into - at least on an intellectual level. They have been exposed to the data.

That said - they get into it at an age in which their brains are not capable of processing consequences as adults can. That is the part that feels wrong. Yes, they know, but not in the way that they will know in another 10 years. By then, the damage is done and they are likely out of the sport.

Does that mean that we have to protect them from themselves? My personal politics say absolutely not, but I can't help but feel a little guilt for enjoying a game that is killing people.

Re: Ken Stabler had Severe C. E. T.

chains said:

I wonder if a study is going on checking for CTE on brains of people that never played football. I would bet they would find many. ALS and dementia may be the result of concussions, but my mother had dementia and never had a concussion. It is easy to come to a conclusion that football leads to these TERRIBLE things, but it is common in all genders and non athletes

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The article mentions this and says:

"A study by the Mayo Clinic, released last fall, found CTE in 21 of 66 men who played contact sports (mostly football), but found no traces of the disease in 198 other brains of men who had no exposure to contact sports."

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Re: Ken Stabler had Severe C. E. T.

B1GTide said:

That said - they get into it at an age in which their brains are not capable of processing consequences as adults can. That is the part that feels wrong. Yes, they know, but not in the way that they will know in another 10 years. By then, the damage is done and they are likely out of the sport.

Does that mean that we have to protect them from themselves? My personal politics say absolutely not, but I can't help but feel a little guilt for enjoying a game that is killing people.

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I do think it's their early inception that makes it tricky. Most don't know how to do anything else...or don't do anything else as well as they play football, at the age of 17-18. Parenting will play a large part in the next generation of football players. Now that we, the public, are aware; I expect to see parents making changes regarding what sports their kids play.

It's that potent cocktail of being young, focusing solely on the one thing you do well and having a shot at not only being rich but also famous. "I'm young, I can recover after taking a couple of hits." suddenly they are 43 and have trouble with the stairs.

Maybe the awareness campaign should be more full throttle on high-school campuses, where the frenzy really picks up steam?
There will always be families mining their kids talent for the chance at a better life...no matter what it does to his brain...and there will be kids who want to play no matter the risk. Once they are 18...they are old enough to make the conscious decision to join the military and risk life and limb, they should be accountable for their decision to play football....given again what BamainBoston says about pay disparity also being a factor.

TIDE-HSV said:

I think that is basically a dead end, unless they find a way to add padding to the inside of the brain case. The problem is rapid deceleration and the brain rattling around in the skull. No helmet can ever collapse fast enough to offset the deceleration of a hard hit...

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I couldn't find the thread, but I didn't have much time to look last night. I agree it is probably an impossible problem to solve, but I thought the idea they had was a good one. The speed of the game is just too much to overcome, I guess. And this has probably always been true, and is even more so today as players have gotten so much bigger, stronger, and faster.

I'm not for banning the game. But I do still feel bad about it's consequences, and am hopeful my son grows up with no desire to play. Frankly, I wouldn't mind if he wasn't too interested in sports at all, as football is definitely not the only one with these kinds of risks. Soccer is just as bad, if not worse.

Re: Ken Stabler had Severe C. E. T.

BamainBoston said:

Just to be clear, Kenny was 69 years old and died of colon cancer. It's not like we have a rash of players dying on the field. B

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The article written by Nancy Armour on USA Today originally had the title "How Many More Must Die: CTE" in reference to Kenny Stabler's death and I immediately thought exactly what you just wrote. The title was later changed thanks to at least one editor on staff with common sense.

Re: Ken Stabler had Severe C. E. T.

BamainBoston said:

Just to be clear, Kenny was 69 years old and died of colon cancer. It's not like we have a rash of players dying on the field. But we are going to continue to see this as players from the previous era enter their 70s and 80s. We are taking steps to minimize the risk, and once again, I think we need to remember that this is a case of noticing the shiny object while missing the more common occurrences. (think plane crashes vs car wrecks). Thousands of people die in work-related accidents every year, and thousands more are seriously injured.

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Oh, I get that. When I said "killing people", I didn't necessarily mean that they were living shorter lives. What I meant is that their quality of life was greatly diminished. Look at Ali. He is 74 years old and still going strong, but boxing robbed him of a normal life.

BamainBoston said:

I would also note that for a lot of kids, sports are the only place they find structure and responsible adult figures on which to model their lives. Some of us really have no conception of the good that sports can do in a kid's life, because we don't come from those places.

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Not just sports - arts programs have the same effect. My boys are both heavily into the arts, and they have the exact same structure. Coaches, mentors, teammates, goals larger than themselves. There are other ways to get there.

I love sports - my kids do not - but they learned the same lessons.

Re: Ken Stabler had Severe C. E. T.

BamainBoston said:

Yeah, but he also got to be Muhammad Ali.

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Goldman's Dilemma.

I wouldn't say Ali is going strong. He isn't seen often, but he isn't in good health.


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GrayTide said:

The last time I saw him on tv he was shaking badly and could barely talk. The shaking could be something else, but he looked pitiful.

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He has Parkinsons

Ali was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease in 1984. It's thought the blows he took to the head may be the cause.

Ali can no longer speak in public.

I think it's been covered, but some professions are just dangerous, period. Soldiers, firemen, football players, boxers, coal miners. Heck, my dad got an asbestos settlement. Some jobs come with hazards.

Having said that, I think in some ways the potential harm from football is exaggerated. I'd argue that on the amateur level, at least if you are speaking of high school football, the benefits outweigh the risks. Is it really safer to spend those years in front of a computer eating Fritos? They say sitting is as bad as smoking. There are still a lot of things to be learned, but from what I've seen, it is doing things in excess that tend to create these dire consequences.

There's a massive difference between a few years of football, and playing football for decades. Furthermore, the difference grows once you reach a professional level, and there are bigger, stronger people hitting you. The severe problems we are seeing tend to come with a lengthy career in football. There's plenty of people that played high school football and college football that are not impaired. I think we can all agree that becoming a professional can push the body past its limits and that's a choice some people make.

There's also a common sense aspect to this. There are plenty of sayings about "getting hit in the head too many times" or "getting dropped on the head", we know getting hit in the head does damage. That's just common sense. We've all had it though pretty much, anyone who is active has had blows to the head. The key question here is just how many a human being should sustain and how to avoid that. I'd add one last thing. It's still not an excuse for certain behaviors. It's an impairment, but some people are born impaired. It's not an excuse for things like OJ did, or any number of violent people. It's a problem, more research will be done, but ultimately actions have consequences.