Reader Digest Version Global
Homepage >

Football Safety: Why I Broke Up With the Sport

A sportswriter and longtime fan won’t be tuning in anymore. The reasoning behind his decision is a must-read for anyone who loves the game.

By Patrick Hruby from sportsonearth.com

Football Safety: Why I Broke Up With the SportMichael J. Minardi/Getty ImagesDave Duerson, NFL safety, shot himself at 50.
I can’t watch football because of Gil and Michelle Trenum. Two years ago, their son Austin suffered a concussion during a high school game. An alert trainer pulled him off the field. ER doctors checked him out. He went home. He seemed OK. A day and a half later, he hanged himself.

There was no suicide note. Austin was a happy, healthy kid. A good student. Popular and well liked, the type of guy you hope your daughter dates.

The Boston center physicians examined his brain. They didn’t find CTE, but they did find a multifocal axonal injury, damage to fibers that connect nerve cells. Doctors strongly suspect the injury led to Austin’s sudden, inexplicable decision. Gil and Michelle have since become advocates for concussion safety. Grieving parents seek them out, anguished calls and e-mails from people they’ve never met. The Trenums are the bravest people I know. Still, they hurt. They live with a hole. It will never be filled.

“Even when we have a good day, we still know he’s gone,” Michelle says. “We can be happy. We can laugh with our friends. But we still know.”

Boys and young men—whose brains are still developing—are more vulnerable to football-induced head trauma. Last year, the NFL placed certified athletic trainers in press boxes to watch for concussions, while NFL Players’ Association executive committee member Scott Fujita called for sideline deployment of independent neurologists. Can high schools or Pop Warner leagues afford the same safeguards? According to the National Athletic Trainers’ Association, only 42 percent of high schools in 2010 even had access to a certified athletic trainer educated in concussion care.

Robert Cantu, MD, a leading sports concussion expert, says in a new book that children under 14 years of age shouldn’t play collision sports under current rules, an argument he suspects will “tick some people off.” However, I wonder if Cantu goes far enough. College football is a multibillion-dollar, taxpayer-subsidized business. That’s a lot of public investment in head trauma.

Football’s popularity seems to grow every year. How long will that last? My colleague Will Leitch recently asked in New York magazine if following football was morally wrong. “There are no big TV contracts or player salaries without fans tuning in. We’re all part of the problem,” he wrote.

Are we? Am I? I know only this: There’s definitely a problem, an ugly one, and I’ve seen too much of it to keep watching.

1 |2 |3 |4 |5

Your Comments

  • Daphne Davis

     I like sports. My favorite sport is track and field. I also like basketball. Sylvester Toe Jr. has an older sister, Cassandra. Sylvester Toe Jr. was a boy in my dad’s church. I was born in 1987. My older sister, Elizabeth, was born in 1985. My dad was born on November 23, 1945. Morgan Bruner has an older brother, Thomas. I have an older sister, Elizabeth. Alex Clark has a younger brother, Greyson. Alex Clark was a girl in my church.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Barry-Levy/1091577549 Barry Levy

    Funny thing is that Rugby plays a similar violent game without pads and helmets and nobody is that concerned, and then their is boxing, which has spawned Mixed Martial arts combat, and that is hugely popular.

    So let’s ban 16 oz. soft drinks, and salt, and lets just control everything, and surprise people will still have problems and die.

  • JYK98

    Thank you, Mr. Hruby, for writing this timely article.  I haven’t been able to watch football for years ever since I found out how horrible the lives of ex-players are except for the very few.  Not everyone retires rich, and often many become destitute and unable to work due to football injuries.  And NFL seems content to continue the use-and-discard policy.  Just think of the wasted lives of these young men in the name of sports.

    • http://www.facebook.com/blackprogressivejr Melvin Satterwhite Jr

      They had a choice to engage in this sport and I do not see anyone putting a “gun” to their heads and forcing them to play. You feel for these players but they did know the risk of playing.

  • Dmuellenberg

    If the author doesn’t want to watch football, then that is his right, just like it’s my right to watch or play football if I want to. That’s the definition of a free country. If we try and ban any sport that may cause an injury, then we are talking about every sport. Yes, football is more violent than most, but as the author pointed out, players know the risks involved. I don’t understand how former players can blame the NFL for their injuries when they knew it was a violent sport and injuries are part of the game. Players aren’t playing it just for entertainment, they are playing it for the big money they make, but again, it’s a free country and it’s their choice. 

  • http://www.facebook.com/rudolph.furtado Rudolph Andrew Furtado

    Every sport has its negative aspects which can be detrimental to the sportspersons health .”BOXING” and Mumhammed.Ali have become famous for the ill-eefects of a sport and the same is the case in “AMERICAN FOOTBALL”.Just because a sport is more dangerous than another sport doesn’t mean that it should be banned or boycotted. Isn’t motogp or Formula-1 dangerous?

  • cv

    I feel the same way about boxing. I wish there would be no boxing anymore

  • Bryson’s Nana

    I know first hand what can happen to football players.  My 17 year old brother died from two brain concussions he received while playing high school football when his helmet came off during a pile-up on the field.  He didn’t die right then……he started having very bad headaches about two weeks later.  My mother took him to the doctor.  The doctor misdiagnosed him as having a sinus infection.  Did my brother tell the doctor about the helmet coming off?  That we don’t know because my brother did not want my mother go in with him while he saw the doctor.  Unfortunately, my brother died while in an ambulance on the way to the hospital after collapsing during  a scrimage game on a Saturday morning about two weeks after seeing the doctor.    My brother’s autospy report showed two brain concussions……..one in the back of his head, and one in the front over his left eye.  Had my brother lived, and had he been able to survive the extensive brain surgeries that would have been necessary in 1962, the doctors told my parents he would have been left in a vegetative state.  While all sports carry some degree of danger, I feel that football in one of the most dangerous sports today.  Yes, many improvements have been made to helments, pads, etc.  However, I don’t feel it is safe for the brain to be bounced around in the skulls of the players.  Damage will be done!  Did my son play football while in high school?  No way!  Will my grandson be allowed to play when he is in highschool?  I certainly hope not!