Given the endless stream of media coverage concerning concussions, sub-concussions and their longterm impact on the brain (I read this particularly captivating/mega-depressing article on the subject recently on Grantland), is it fair to postulate the following:
Will Memorial Stadium, in its current capacity as a football venue, be "Done in 21?"
Let me rephrase the question: Using 21 years as a convenient over/under, when will Memorial Stadium cease hosting football games?
Let me rephrase again: When will Cal football no longer exist?
I want to make clear that I am targeting Berkeley specifically. I have heard the talking heads blabber about how no amount of neuroscience will ever scare away Southerners from their football -- at least, not in significant numbers. But isn't it fair to argue that, if any institution were to get rid of football due to health concerns legitimated ad nauseum by freaking science, it would be UC Berkeley?
Two decades sounds about right to me. Will the school abandon ship anytime soon after sinking $321 million into the renovation project? No, probably not, unless a player dies on the field.
(Could you imagine the fallout if this injury
hadn't ended as miraculously well as it did? I was in the stands when that happened and was prepared to never watch another down of football for the rest of my life if Jahvid had died -- and I was not alone among my fellow patrons in those terrifying moments in wondering whether that had actually happened.)
But two decades from now? I could see it happening.
I'm not sure how I'd feel about it either. Over the last couple seasons, I've noticed that the NBA has supplanted college football as my favorite sport. I like that I don't feel the same pangs of guilt when I watch LeBron drive to the hoop as I do when watching a DB crush a defenseless receiver over the middle. It was fine when we all thought the worst that could happen is he would have a bad back when he got older. But now we know the worst is SO. MUCH. WORSE! We're talking depression, loss of motor control, dementia, suicide. I'll miss football when it goes away, but I think it is for the best.
(Yes, when. This is a not an "if" question. The only way football survives is if it literally becomes flag football. And I don't imagine the NFL will continue to bring in billions of dollars in annual revenue if the players are wearing shorts with bright flags hanging off their waists.)
I'm getting married in roughly nine months. I look forward to starting a life with my fiancé and one day having a kid. If he's a boy, would I let him play football, knowing what we all know now? Absolutely, unequivocally no effing way. While we're on the subject of parenting, I also wouldn't give him a gift basket filled with syringes of heroin on his 12th birthday. Shocking, I know.
Someday, in the next 10 to 20 years, I'll take my kid to Memorial Stadium. We'll sit in the stands and cheer for the Golden Bears until we're hoarse. The sun will set over the San Francisco Bay, and we'll take in every minute of it.
But we will be watching a college soccer match.
Done in 21? Maybe I'm being optimistic, but I'm taking the under. The alternative just seems barbaric.
Football will never completely cease to exist, at least not in the "red states". When overwhelming data links the number of weapons in people's hands with the amount of violent crime and deaths by guns, and yet the red-faced screamers rant and rave about "takin' my god givin' second amendment rahhts over mah dead body" you know that science and facts do not work on a large swath of the American populace.
ReplyDeleteMore evidence of this: Romney and Obama are in a dead heat in national polls. (BTW, I caught on your link to the So. Utah game that Utah State plays at Romney Stadium in Logan, Utah. Nice tax deduction, Willard).
Getting in your car and driving remains the single most dangerous thing (by a long shot) that anyone does on a given day, including play football, and yet we all still do it. Automobile deaths are the price society pays for not having to get around on a horse-drawn carriage.
Your analogy to driving a car is interesting, but I disagree. Driving a car is POTENTIALLY dangerous. You may get in an accident or you may not. Playing football, science is proving, is ALWAYS dangerous. You will get hit in the head, those sub-concussions add up, and you do serious damage to your brain. I think you could better equate it to smoking. We all know it's bad for us, we all know that it absolutely is damaging out lungs, but some of us (not us) still smoke. I wonder if at some point the surgeon general will put a warning on all things football-related?
DeleteI think I agree with you that smoking is a better analogy than driving.
DeleteIt'll be interesting to see if anything happens technologically to improve safety. I can't think of anything that wouldn't greatly restrict mobility out on the field. As we know, the "safer" the helmet got, it really just became weaponized (I think I'm stealing that term from some article I read but oh well) and more dangerous than when guys had leather strap-on helmets. Doesn't Aussie Rules football have no helmets? I wonder if they suffer as many brain injuries as NFL players? All interesting points to ponder.
Yeah, my fiancé was re-watching Bend It Like Beckham yesterday, and I found myself grimacing a little when one of the girls heads in a goal. I was thinking of the potential for a sub-concussion. And then I realized, whoa, reign it in. I have to believe that the occasional bumps in the head that happen in minimal-contact sports like soccer aren't going to destroy people's lives. At some point (and I don't know where that point is, but it's out there somewhere), Adam Carolla's book title "In Fifty Years We'll All Be Chicks" becomes true.
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