My Chief Concerns: The Elephant in the Room and on the Field
By author
Recently it was revealed that former Bengal Chris Henry, the young receiver who was recently killed as a result of falling out of a truck, had chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) — a form of degenerative brain damage caused by multiple hits to the head. This is troubling on many different levels and poses significant problems not only for the players, thier families, the league, but for you and me too.
Repeated blows to the head are the only known cause of CTE, researchers say. Concussive hits can trigger a buildup of toxic tau protein within the brain, which in turn can create damaging tangles and threads in the neural fibers that connect brain tissue. Victims can lose control of their impulses, suffer depression and memory loss, and ultimately develop dementia.
If young football players, especially receivers, are suffering from brain damage, however small, every game doesn’t something have to be done? Of course it does, but what? What can be done to prevent the players from suffering from CTE and yet still preserve the sanctity and violence of the sport you very much love? None of us want rule changes, right? I don’t want to watch two hand touch.
More after the jump…
Is paying the players even more significant amounts of money going to solve the problem? Is it fair? Is instituting a better disability plan the solution? I don’t have the answer, but we need one.
If Congress can get up the “butt” of baseball and other sports due to the “harmful effects” of steroids, then what can/will Congress do to our beloved game of football regardng brain injures? It is not such a slippery slope. Can you see our Government regulating the rules of the game?
The reality is short of creating better equipment, (which they have); rule changes are the only solution or we can just ignore the problem entirely. Am I wrong?