CTE The Dark Side of Football

[CrimsonTheory]

I know Audio is inching closer to leaving CFB behind because of the NIL and all that nonsense but for me, if or should I say when I leave football--altogether---behind, it will be because of the CTE. There are times I feel guilty watching these men put, not just their present day healthy but the long-term health at risk by playing such a violent sport.

 

[Padreruf]

My 10 year old grandson is into golf. Thank goodness!
Although he is talking about football next year.
we will see.

Hit him in the head with a golf club if he picks up a football...you can play golf until well into your 70's or 80's.

 

[Crimson1967]

My son is 26 and wrestled for ten years from middle school through college. He now coaches part time at a youth club. He has talked about his aches and pains he has, specifically his ankles crackling when he walks. He had at least two concussions that I know about and I am sure he had more from all his years of practices.

I wasn’t blessed with athletic skills and never played organized sports much beyond being a bench warmer in little league. But I have had a number of incidents in my life where I have hit my head hard. I wonder if that will lead to problems. I am 56 and starting to have issues with recall and short term memory.

 

[TIDE-HSV]

Playing sports into your HS and college years definitely takes a toll on your body. Granted, I was a baseball player and didn't have to deal with the amount of head jarring football does. But the years of playing and practicing baseball is rearing its ugly head at 48. My knees and ankles pop, creek, and crack and when the weather changes they ache. I can't throw baseball or football with my kids very long because of a worn out rotator cuff.

I'm also showing late effects, at 37 years older than you. I haven't had a right rotator cuff for many years. Despite that, I played weekly basketball with guys 30 years, and more, younger than I until age 62, when my outside shooting (only reason anyone chose me) started to fall off. I'd just trained my deltoids to do the job. However, I've had several concussions, the worst of which put me in a daze for two days. But, I'm in my mid-80s with still a fair memory. I've read before that the constant small shocks to the brain, as in playing on either side of the LOS actually had more effect than a few major...

 

[92tide]

I'm also showing late effects, at 37 years older than you. I haven't had a right rotator cuff for many years. Despite that, I played weekly basketball with guys 30 years, and more, younger than I until age 62, when my outside shooting (only reason anyone chose me) started to fall off. I'd just trained my deltoids to do the job. However, I've had several concussions, the worst of which put me in a daze for two days. But, I'm in my mid-80s with still a fair memory. I've read before that the constant small shocks to the brain, as in playing on either side of the LOS actually had more effect than a few major...

did you have any head hits from kayaking? i had several glancing blows over all of the years running the ocoee, but i had two very nasty ones on the back of my head, one in the woodall shoals runout and one on the tallulah gorge. the one on tallulah nearly knocked me out. i rolled up and was able to get into the eddy and lean on the bank for several minutes until i stopped seeing stars

 

[DzynKingRTR]

I have had 2 pretty nasty concussions.

 

[selmaborntidefan]

I've had moral/emotional hangups on the sport for years, because I will admit having some problems watching SOMEONE ELSE's kid give me fun running that risk while secretly glad my own never wanted to play. (This "unrestricted free agency" and "stay in college, make big bucks" is pushing me the rest of the way out the door).

I can't link it due to paywall, but several years ago, the 1986 NY Giants had their 30th anniversary of winning Super Bowl 21. The story stuck with me because one of the things I'd never heard of at one of those gatherings was they were all trading information on "good doctors to see" for their after career effects - and comparing who had what wrong with them. That's not - to me at least - what a reunion of a championship team should be. Some of these guys couldn't say, "Remember when we beat so-and-so," because they don't even know they're alive, and it was pretty bad.

The other one that got me is one day in March 2019, the guy from our pathology lab asked me if I had any Styrofoam containers that are inside the shipping boxes, and I gave him one.

A few days later, he let me in on why he needed it: the brain of former NFL player "Lam" Jones was in it and being taken for CTE study as he had just died. That was one of those circle of life moments, where you're providing the transport for the brain of a guy you used to watch play on TV when you were a kid.

 

[GrayTide]

IIRC, Ken Stabler died from cancer, but an autopsy revealed he had CTE.

 

[TIDE-HSV]

did you have any head hits from kayaking? i had several glancing blows over all of the years running the ocoee, but i had two very nasty ones on the back of my head, one in the woodall shoals runout and one on the tallulah gorge. the one on tallulah nearly knocked me out. i rolled up and was able to get into the eddy and lean on the bank for several minutes until i stopped seeing stars

Oddly not. The closest I came was in Hell Hole. I was surfing and an idiot with a bunny on a spring glued to the top of his helmet plunged into me. He was incompetent and had been causing problems all the way down the river. I saw him in time and threw my torso away from me. Instead of contacting my head, he crushed my left rib cage, breaking four ribs and displacing the bottom one. I only kayaked twice after that - once running the Nolichucky with no problem and the Ocoee once. Some moron renegade rafter covered in tattoos ran over me in Double Suck and I had to roll out from under his raft. They said they could hear me screaming at his passengers over the rapid noise that he was going to kill them. I continued canoeing a few times after that, mostly tandem with my wife, on the Nanny and the like, and up in Canada and Minnesota, but I was through with kayaking. I had to rent a hospital bed for four weeks and had to have assist to sit up. Couldn't cough, sneeze or laugh...

 

[CB4]

Playing sports into your HS and college years definitely takes a toll on your body. Granted, I was a baseball player and didn't have to deal with the amount of head jarring football does. But the years of playing and practicing baseball is rearing its ugly head at 48. My knees and ankles pop, creek, and crack and when the weather changes they ache. I can't throw baseball or football with my kids very long because of a worn out rotator cuff.

Same. After playing baseball in HS and coaching for 8 years my rotator cuff is shot. At 63, I don’t think I could go five minutes playing catch. Both knees are looking at total replacement in the next five years.

 

[CajunCrimson]

If kids want to play, and parents let them, and then, when they are adults they choose to continue, knowing the risk, we have to be okay with that. You can educate. You can influence, but free will has to have a place.

Many people do bad things to their bodies for free.

Many of these kids escape bad lives, and find a path because of the game.

 

[B1GTide]

If kids want to play, and parents let them, and then, when they are adults they choose to continue, knowing the risk, we have to be okay with that. You can educate. You can influence, but free will has to have a place.

Many people do bad things to their bodies for free.

Many of these kids escape bad lives, and find a path because of the game.

That is where I am at, too. Football is physically brutal, but it has also changed the lives of countless people in positive ways by providing a college education to those who would otherwise not have had that opportunity. Professional sports aside, because so few actually get to make money playing the game, this game has enriched the lives of individuals and families all over America.

 

[Padreruf]

Same. After playing baseball in HS and coaching for 8 years my rotator cuff is shot. At 63, I don’t think I could go five minutes playing catch. Both knees are looking at total replacement in the next five years.

My wife has had 2 knees, 2 hips and 1 shoulder replaced...arthritis does a lot of damage apart from sports -- she played club basketball and tennis...

 

[Crimson1967]

Former Tennessee Titan Frank Wycheck dead at 52. He died after a fall and hitting his head. His family said his brain would be studied for CTE.

He worked as an announcer for the Titans but quit that in 2017 due to lingering head issues from his playing days.

 

[B1GTide]

Former Tennessee Titan Frank Wycheck dead at 52. He died after a fall and hitting his head. His family said his brain would be studied for CTE.

He worked as an announcer for the Titans but quit that in 2017 due to lingering head issues from his playing days.

Sad. I believe that he retired from the NFL because of concussion issues.

 

[Crimson1967]

A couple people mentioned soccer. I was poking around and stumbled across this article.

Timbers legend Jimmy Conway had Stage 4 CTE, study finds

Conway died in 2020 at age 73 after battling dementia. A post-mortem study of his brain found the most severe form of the brain disease known as CTE.

www.oregonlive.com

.

 

[Crimson1967]

Former Tennessee Titan Frank Wycheck dead at 52. He died after a fall and hitting his head. His family said his brain would be studied for CTE.

He worked as an announcer for the Titans but quit that in 2017 due to lingering head issues from his playing days.

His family confirmed he was in Stage III CTE at the time of his death.

He was 52.

 

[DrollTide]

Former Tennessee Titan Frank Wycheck dead at 52. He died after a fall and hitting his head. His family said his brain would be studied for CTE.

He worked as an announcer for the Titans but quit that in 2017 due to lingering head issues from his playing days.

I wondered what happened to Frank Wycheck. I am saddened about this.

He was the analyst when the Titans were just awful (I suppose some things never change), but his gentle voice and demeanor were always a pleasure even in the worst of times. One time, the Titans were just trying to take a knee, losing badly, deep in their own territory at the end of a half, and managed to fumble it. Frank did one of those quiet, very sad groans, and said something like "that sums up the Titans this season, unable to even get a knee off". It made me smile, because of the connection he had with his listeners, his disappointment about the state of his team.

 

[dtgreg]

It's a rough world and a rough country but this country is rich enough now that we don't need to put up with how rough it currently is.

When your choice was MLB or working in the lead mine and dying before your 40th BDay, well, easy choice. We don't need to turn and hide our eyes from the destruction of these sports we love. At the end of the day, the freedom to choose to play outweighs a lot of other considerations. All we can do is educate and try to protect children as much as possible.

 

[NoNC4Tubs]

Golf and tennis are fairly safe from concussions...LOL.

Not if I'm tee-ing off in your direction...