quote:
Football isn't going anywhere unless evidence comes up the brain damage is just too severe to let any kids play. You have to remember the cultural connection to football, especially college football. It's more about the tradition and ritual than the actual game played on the field.

You just foretold the future in a very ironic way. I listen to NPR almost every day. I can tell you with fearless certainty that the ultra-liberals are currently salivating at the prospect of killing football. This BECAUSE of its tradition and ritual. Too much of the flag in it. Too much of the '50s. That it reeks to them of violence and primitivism is the actual impetus; that it's emotionally tied to the America of old is the fuel to their rage. I speculate that their allowing it as an avenue for underpriveleged minorities is the only reason they've yet moved farther on their crusade.

NPR news almost never addresses sport. Generally it doesn't even discuss the World Cup until after the final match. It will invest 60 seconds telling you who just won the World Series. It may present a five minute essay on current trends for a Superbowl party. It will invest 15 to 30 seconds telling you who won the college football championship the night before. This is pretty much it. I've been listening to it for 20 years now.

But every time a football-related injury makes national headlines NPR is on it. Almost every time a football-related crime makes national news NPR is on it. There is a simmering campaign there against football and I fear the worst.

There doesn't need to be more evidence regarding concussion to shut down high school football. Massachusetts or Oregon will do it first. They will argue that no child under 18 has the life experience and/or mental maturity to make a decision of such serious consequence on his own, AND that no child should be the subject of parental consent in this matter because no child should ultimately suffer brain damage because his parents might have been dolts. The same reason the state can say your child has to be in school until he's 16: so your dumb arse can't keep him home to milk the chickens and make him grow up socio-economically disadvantaged because you were an idiot.

Mark my words. It's coming. I give it ten years max. I expect a bill in a state legislature in less than five.

I need not point out that killing high school football is killing football as we know it. I mean, what then? We go back to 1890? A bunch of college boys who want to play football show up and try out and get to work?

I hope I'm crazy. But I think I know what I'm talking about. There are educated, intelligent, influencial, and even powerful people in America who hate tradition for sedition's sake.