The objects of football are scoring points and preventing the opposing team from scoring. I’m okay with that. But, the way defenses prevent opponents from scoring concerns me.

Unlike sports where physical contact between two opposing players constitutes a rules violation, contact is encouraged in football. Players seek to hit opponents hard enough to knock them out of the way, and in the case of the person with the football seek to tackle them and/or to hit the individual hard enough to cause them to fumble the ball. As a result, thousands of injuries occur each year.

Football Injuries to Youths

Since many injuries are neither recorded nor reported, there is probably no accurate record of the thousands and thousands of serious injuries occurring each year playing some form of football. But, a Centers for Disease Control Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report article [1] found football injuries to be the #1 cause of Emergency Department visits for persons under age 18 for “nonfatal traumatic brain injuries” related to sports and recreation in the United States for 2010-2016. A verywellhealth.com article [2] lists “11 Common Football Injuries.”

Safety equipment worn by football players helps reduce injuries. Rules changes in recent years also seem to help. The National Federation of State High School Associations in a February 2019 post [3] stated “the risk of serious or catastrophic injuries has never been lower in the history of high school football.” Still, far too many injuries occur playing football, despite the use of protective equipment like helmets with facemasks, pads, etc., and rules that prohibit certain types of physical contact.

Personally, I think it is wrong to participate in a sport where a primary object is to hit and tackle players on the other team. Therefore, I support abolishing football. But, I don’t expect football to be abolished immediately. It attracts huge fan support at the high school, college, and professional levels. Abolishing it at the high school level I’m guessing would in time lead to its elimination at the college and professional levels. And, I support abolishing it at the elementary school and junior high school levels first.

Although high school football currently still has more participants than any other high school sport in the United States, participation in high school football has been declining for a decade according to a Forbes piece [4] that cites data from the National Federation of High School Associations. As persons become more aware of the risks and (in my opinion) the superior entertainment options available, I think football will become less popular.

Why Focus on Football Rather Than Other Violent Sports?

Obviously, there are other violent sports besides football. And, I think they need to be abolished, too. But, they attract far fewer participants than football, so in this article my focus is on football.

For example, a relatively small number of persons participate in boxing or wrestling. Also, sports that are cruel to animals such as cockfighting and bullfighting are rapidly losing their public appeal and their legality.

Injuring an opposing team’s star player seems to be a goal of some football defensive players. Boxing with its emphasis on knocking out an opponent is even worse. But football is much more widely played and watched.

My Hypocrisy

I confess my hypocrisy. I am a University of Kentucky college football fan. As long as the University of Kentucky plays football, I may occasionally attend or watch games. Football can be entertaining and is a social event that attracts thousands of fans to attend or watch games. Even tailgating before games is a popular activity.

Still, it amazes me how persons (including me, I’m sorry to say) can find it entertaining to watch other people seek to tackle their opponents and to cheer when a quarterback is sacked.

When players seek to deliberately hurt others the sport becomes even worse. Fortunately, we fans do generally clap when an apparently injured player gets up and is able to walk. I sometimes say silent prayers for injured players on either team, as I’m sure others do. Furthermore, it’s heartening to often see players from an opposing team gather to offer emotional support to an injured opponent.

Alternative Sports and Alternative Activities

But, it will be great when we progress toward other forms of entertainment. Soccer, which is often called football elsewhere in the world, is apparently the most popular sport worldwide. It would be great in my opinion if soccer, baseball, basketball, and/or another sport replaced football in popularity in the United States.

My preference would be for basketball, which is fast paced, provides much scoring, and is likely already the most popular spectator sport here in Kentucky where I live. I love watching an exciting basketball game where few fouls are committed and those committed are called correctly by officials. Perhaps it is a nice twist that the inventor of the game of basketball, Dr. James Naismith, is one of the people considered the possible inventor of the football helmet.

At any rate, I think we need to take more action to promote safety in sports. Change takes time but it can come. I hope someday soon we come to realize that seeking to deliberately tackle and/or injure another human being (or even an animal) just to win an entertaining game is not appropriate.

Perhaps best of all would be if we treated sports primarily as a source of exercise for physical conditioning, and devoted the majority of our time to more constructive activities such as academics, work, volunteer activities to help others, and fellowship. I think that’s a nice goal to strive for.

ENDNOTES:

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[2] Jonathan Cluett, MD; “11 Common Football Injuries”; verywellhealth; updated June 28, 2019; webpage accessed August 31, 2019; https://www.verywellhealth.com/football-injuries-2548806

[3] Karissa Niehoff and David Jackson; “Injury Risk Lowest in History of High School Football”; National Federation of High School Associations”; February 6, 2019; website accessed August 31, 2019; https://www.nfhs.org/articles/injury-risk-lowest-in-history-of-high-school-football/

[4] Bob Cook; “High School Football Participation Is On A Decade-Long Decline”; Forbes.com; August 29, 2019; webpage accessed August 30, 2019; https://www.forbes.com/sites/bobcook/2019/08/29/high-school-football-participation-is-on-a-decade-long-decline/#69a0924b33de

NOTE:

This piece being submitted to Google Blogger on August 31, 2019 is virtually identical to one the author submitted to Craft News Report, a website operated by his friend Paul Craft, earlier on August 31, 2019. That article was updated from articles the author posted on other websites some years ago.

One Opinion: Some Views of James Edwin Gibson

Saturday, August 31, 2019

Football and Other Violent Sports Need to Cease—But I’m a Hypocrite

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