Follow Up: Football + Concussions

There was a lot of press coverage this weekend about the Pro Football Hall of Fame induction ceremony and its refusal to let Junior Seau‘s daughter speak in honor of her dad.  As I blogged before, Junior Seau was a brilliant football star who developed chronic traumatic encephalopathy from the many blows to the head that he received on the field.  He committed suicide by shooting himself in the chest, leaving his brain intact to help researchers investigate the disease.

This weekend he was inducted posthumously into the Hall of Fame.  He had wanted his daughter, Sydney, to make his acceptance speech, but the Hall of Fame, whose largest donor is the NFL, denied this request. Sydney did write a touching speech, which you can read here.

The New York Times has an incisive article that discusses Sydney Seau’s speech as well as the larger issue of the serious health risks football players face whenever they play the game.

Here’s a quote:

In a way, the pageantry of Saturday’s [Hall of Fame] event was overshadowed by the concussions that precipitated Seau’s death, mounting evidence that links playing the sport to adverse health, and a chorus of voices — former players and the news media included — critical of the N.F.L.’s handling of it all….

“There are people who are trying to make the game safer, but you can’t make the game safer because the game is what it is,” [former NFL linebacker Harry] Carson said. “It’s a gladiator sport, and the difference between now and then is now players have the information and they can make their own judgment as to whether they want to play the game.”

Hence the picture above.

Click here for my earlier blog about the court case against the NFL brought by former players, many of whom will go on to develop Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, ALS, and related conditions, all as a result of repeated head traumas they endured while playing football.