In the new movie, “Concussion,” Will Smith gives a remarkable performance as Dr. Bennett Omalu, a brilliantly-educated (Sidney Poitier-like) forensic pathologist who reluctantly concludes that football is causing serious head trauma and disease, and he has to speak out about it in spite of gargantuan opposition and hostility.
Children are playing tackle football daily all over the U.S.A., since football has replaced baseball as the all-American game. Football is one of the biggest financial conglomerates in this country, and, as one character in the movie says, “… professional football now owns Sunday, the day the churches used to own.”
Dr. Omalu’s conclusions—he identified the disease as Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE)—means that football has to either discover an acceptable resolution of the head trauma issue, or wither and die as a viable sport. In the movie, Dr. Omalu said, “… God didn’t intend for man to play football,” since head trauma is the eventual consequence. There have been too many real-life examples of CTE in the news the last few years: Junior Seau, Cookie Gilchrist, Frank Gifford, John Mackey, Ollie Matson, Andre Waters, and recently well-known former Raiders quarterback Kent Stabler, and Mike Webster (mentioned in the movie), are only a handful.
A few days ago, Antwaan Randle El, a relatively famous wide receiver for Washington and Pittsburgh for nine years in the early part of the 21st century, and who retired in 2010, just stated in a serious article, that “I wish I’d never played football.” In the article, Randle El noted remorsefully that he had had a more than decent chance to play major league baseball, getting an offer from the Chicago Cubs before he got drafted to play professional football. He said that now, at age 36, as a result of playing football, he can barely walk up and down stairs and he forgets things all the time. Although he still loves football, he says, he strongly encourages parents not to let their children play the game. He is convinced no amount of padding, new helmets, different coaching or the like can make the game safer. “It’s a violent game by its nature. For football players, it’s being in a car wreck every week” during the season.
He and several other former players sued the NFL in 2013, and that suit was incorporated into a larger class-action case that got settled in 2014 with more than 5,000 former players being awarded in excess of $900 million for their complaints regarding concussions and related injuries. However, even after that, professional football did not solve the problem.
More and more young NFL players (in their 20s) in the prime of their careers, are suddenly retiring from the game, ostensibly to avoid dire consequences as they age. Calvin “Megatron” Johnson, of the Detroit Lions, a great player, just did that at 29-30. Many more will follow suit.
Football is and will continue to be a very exciting game, and this week’s Super Bowl is America’s premier annual sporting event. But there must be some major progress on this issue, otherwise parents in the near future will simply forbid their children from taking up the game, thereby robbing football of its foundation population. Fear moves people—not always in the right direction. But it is effective as a motivater.
Meanwhile, go Panthers. MVP for Cam!
Professor David L. Horne is founder and executive director of PAPPEI, the Pan African Public Policy and Ethical Institute, which is a new 501(c)(3) pending community-based organization or non-governmental organization (NGO). It is the stepparent organization for the California Black Think Tank which still operates and which meets every fourth Friday.
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