Heard today an interview on NPR with Chris Nowinski, a former major league football player who suffered concussions during his career, went on to wrestle, and suffered head injuries there, and eventually put two and two together and began to work to reduce head injuries in football. He wrote a book: Head Games: The Football Concussion Crisis. He is also a co-founder of the Sports Legacy Institute dedicated to solving this concussion crisis. This is a real eye opener. Players with severe injury have been sent back into a game within minutes of a head-to-head collision. “I’m fine,” they say, and the coach sends them back in.

Nowinski also says a great deal of the problem is in youth sports, where the whole mystique of head-butting begins. He said adult players boast of having a great time playing a kid’s game and getting paid for it, and he says the opposite is true – kids are playing an adult sport without protection.

Major players have suffered memory loss, poor impulse control, early dementia, and some have committed suicide. One murdered his wife and children before killing himself. The determination on the part of many players to suck it up, ignore injuries, continue playing and maintain an image of manly invincibility has destroyed a good number of former athletes.

When I was a kid in high school I went to many scholastic football games because I was in the marching band and played the cornet. (I have a photo of myself in my uniform that is so ghastly, I won’t entertain you with it.) In all the time I sat in the stands with the band waiting for half time so we could do our stuff on the field, and, this being Chicago and this being winter, freezing my tush off, I would watch the game and NOT ONCE other than knowing that whoever had the ball was important, did I understand what was going on. I had a mental block that was monumental. I did better with quantum theory than I did watching this game.

Later, married to Jay, I was “privileged” to listen to the games every weekend. I say listened, because I never watched the screen. I learned a valuable lesson about time. “Two minutes left to play,” I soon realized, meant at least another hour or more. “Well,” Jay would say, with an evil grin, “let’s get the game started.” It’s a little like now, when Ed puts on the latest Gene Autry film festival, or Randolph Scott, or Audie Murphy, and lately he is watching every Palladin re-run because it reminds him of his yout’.

I know MyBloggers has a reasonable number of fans, who love the sport. Please know I am in awe of your commitment.

xx, Teal