Will there come a day without football?

[rogdochar]

Anyone heard of Mutton Busting? It's like Rodeo for kids where they hop on a sheep and hold on for dear life. I'm not kidding.

... so, no bull, just kidding, eh TLB = nice one.

 

[gingerlover]

No he's not. How many football players have committed suicide while still in the league? Professional athletes, actors, drug addicts, etc. are defined by their profession or addiction. Once that's gone, unless they fill this void with something else meaningful in their lives, depression typically sets in which of course can result in suicide if it's not properly addressed/treated. Is CTE a contributing factor to suicide? Probably, but it is not the reason.

I've lost track of all the interviews I've heard from former athletes where they talk about how depressed they are that they can't play anymore. Many of them never fully come out of it.

 

[rogdochar]

Football players kill themselves for the same reason the Hollywood actors and actresses/musicians do. They get past their prime and miss the paychecks and the glory.

Not true for persons with CTE. Suicide is their mischosen but unstoppable action, in most cases, because the dying brain that has defined who they are makes them no longer that capable person. Their brains (neural functions) start actually dying in vascular supply, in actual nerve fibers dying, thus connections are dying. Imagine your frustration attempting to take a "must-do" roadtrip with more & more of the highways washed out, more unserviceable? Your CTE brain is turning to mush. Your executive function (ability to carry out most any complex task) is not there anymore because of an ongoing advancing degeneration of your brain's tissues.

Persons with undamaged brains cannot understand age-triggered CTE symptoms. To relate to you what your brain organically turning to "mush" is :
1) Neuropsychiatric disorders = psychosis, random bouts of delirium & progressive dimentia
2) Cerebrovascular accident = micro-strokes throughout his brain
3) Ocular = optic nerve dysfunction + fouled visual processing center. This yields "glitches" in vision yielding stationary images that move, objects appearing in exaggerated large size. These come & go lasting about 1 minute.

CTE leads to personality changes, always for the worse. Brain rage (not roid-rage), cognitive impairment (making you gradually "stupid" to those around you.) There is vertigo, ataxia to the point of stumping the toe of your shoe on level flooring, new clumsiness due to dysfunction in proprioception - putting your glass back on the counter but hitting it & sloshing water out, etc.

No telling how Alzheimer victims' suicides would skyrocket if it were not for the awareness areas of their brains being destroyed early on in the arrival of symptoms.

TBI (traumatic brain injury) is typically from one single acute concussive blow to the brain, but it can produce brain dysfunctions similar to CTE dysfunctions. These are what many of our veterans return with. It gets lumped in with PTSD, and that's a disservice to them. Too bad veterans don't have an advocacy organization as wealthy-motivated as the NFL is for their game "heroes".

 

[GatorStud]

Gotta love liberal peanut gallery infusion... let
me blame you for my decision

 

[TheBigClaw]

People love racquet ball, I don't think its lack of popularity stops them from playing.

Apples and oranges..

 

[stephenPE]

I've lost track of all the interviews I've heard from former athletes where they talk about how depressed they are that they can't play anymore. Many of them never fully come out of it.

The deal in pro football is their careers are over MUCH sooner than most other occupations. Hard to let it go. But as the story concussion pointed out............those guys were suffering badly with the head injuries and too many killed themselves to find relief.

 

[Jake from State Farm]

Another Global Warming Thread!

 

[Swamp Donkey]

I have CTE, global warming, and gluten intolerance, unless its a pizza.

 

[InstiGATOR1]

Yeah or if retired professional football players continue to kill themselves due to the excessive brain trauma experienced over a career. But if you want to blame everything on a political ideology, don't let me stop you.

If you are willing to allow facts to intrude in your discussion, I did find this:

A study performed at the CDC’s National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health compared the mortality by suicide of former NFL players to that of the general population. The findings were published this month in the American Journal of Sports Medicine.

From a database of 3,439 NFL players who played at least five seasons in the league between 1959 and 1988, only 12 suicide deaths were found. The researchers estimated that there would be 25.6 suicide deaths among people of the same age, race and sex in the general population. When looking specifically at “speed” positions — quarterbacks, running backs, wide receivers, tight ends, defensive backs and linebackers — the risk of suicide was significantly less than the US population.

Here is the link to the entire article:

http://www.postandcourier.com/sport...cle_49e5108a-809c-59d7-97ef-2df445d18d97.html

 

[NavetG8r]

Well, it's certainly looking like there may be a day without UF football if things keep going like they have recently...

 

[Captain Sasquatch]

I'm not speaking for Kap, he spoke for himself. I'm just spreading the message to curtail the idiocy. And the information about CTE is readily available, not my fault you're too lazy, ignorant, or dumb to find it yourself.

 

[Gatormac2112]

I'm not a liberal, I think Kaepernick can go jump off the Empire State Building and Global Warming is a bunch of hooey. But CTE is real people, and its consequences are extremely bad. Do I want football to stop? Hell no! Do I think it should be banned? Nope. Its a decision each individual has to make for themselves just like whether to box, race cars, or join the military. Each has its dangers. But if you don't believe serious brain trauma can happen playing football then you're not very bright. Just this year one of my best friends husband killed himself: he played at Alabama and in the NFL and had been battling with many of the things rog listed in his post above. And he wasn't simply "missing" fame, money and glory. He was suffering from something far worse than feeling sorry for himself. CTE is real.

I believe parents are responsible for deciding whether or not the risks are worth it....for the average high school player the risks are not worth it. They will never get the big paycheck, so why do it? And even if they did make it, is money worth the potential brain damage to your child? I hope not.