GMP Senior Editor Joanna Schroeder had the opportunity to be a part of a roundtable discussion with former NFL players Luther Elliss, Winfred Tubbs, and Keith McCants along with financial advisor Ed Butowski on Huffington Post Live to discuss whether the NFL is doing more harm than good in players’ lives.
What do you think of the NFL and other sports where head injuries are likely? How about the ways in which pro sports players—unless they’re superstars with big endorsement contracts—are cut off from income once injured or retired and left to fend for themselves with no education about finance?
Would you let your son play football, given all of the documented health issues associated with a career in football?
Also read: Would You Let Your Son Play Football?
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I want to say for the record that I love football – I loved going to high school and college games, and I could get behind pro football if it didn’t do so much damage to men’s bodies that we just want to forget happens. And I want to support these guys like Keith whose bodies are failing because of what they sacrificed… For our entertainment.
Reform the NFL!
Nothing in our soceity shows the disposability of men more than th N.F.L. (athough Div. I college football isn’t that far behind ) You often hear them refered to as ‘Gladiators’. Well,if I remember correctly, weren’t Gladiators those men who fought to the death in the ancient arenas for the entertainment of the masses?It must feel great when your young and living ‘in the moment’(I think that’swhy all the players said that they’d do it again if they had the chance to relive their life). The only thing that HAS changed over the minellinia is other men figuring out how to make BILLIONS (8 to be exact) of profit off those disposable male bodies. As with any corporation, don’t expect anything to ‘be done’ about it until the bottom line is negetivly effected.
(athough Div. I college football isn’t that far behind )
I don’t know.
1. Similar risk of injury
2. Not being paid for it if they are on scholarship. This plays out in the form of college athelets that get caught up in scandals over gift giving and other favors. And it doesn’t help that some scholarships/athletic programs actually forbid working jobs so you have a kid that can’t work to make money putting his life on the line for the name of the school and not getting paid for it in anything other than the chance to make it to the pros.
The only thing that HAS changed over the minellinia is other men figuring out how to make BILLIONS (8 to be exact) of profit off those disposable male bodies.
Actually the idea of profitting from the disposal of male bodies isn’t a big change either. When it was men being tossed to their deaths in the gladiator pits it was often done by an emperor that was offering up that violence as a way to win favor with the crowd, aka The People.
The type of profit may be different but the concept is still just a matter of pumping men up with ideas of glory and fame so they can risk their lives for someome else’s gain. This is why when that last round of strikes happened a few years ago when the owners were trying to claim a bigger peice of the profit I basically said they could claim a bigger piece when it’s the owners getting bashed around for a minimum of 15 Sundays a year.
Me personally I think football is a good game. In fact I think there is more of a strategic aspect to it that most people consider. Think about it you have pieces on a chess board that can only move in limited ways just like you have players that can only move in limited ways. But football brings a physicality that makes people question its benefit.
Danny, I played football in High School and loved it! It was a feeling out there that no other sport could match. We were taught to run through the other player , wrap our arms and take him to the ground. You never left your feet, never lowered your head and led with it. Same way when you blocked, you led with your chest, arms tucked in front, and slid him off to your sholder. My last year in high school (as far as my ability took me) , they started to teach us’California’ rake blocking , where you lead with your head down low and come up ‘raking’ him wth your facemask.