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Mental health impact on athletes with injury essay
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Contact sports in America, like football and boxing, carry a rich history of the spirit of the game, and the feeling of victory. These games bring us together as we cry out and cheer for our team or fighter as they deliver the winning touchdown, or the knockout that brings them the undisputed champion belt. However, these players are facing injuries that can destroy their career and affect their brain for the rest of their lives. We shouldn’t outlaw contact sports, but we should force safety to become more important. If we want to keep our players safe and continue the tradition of the contact sports we enjoy as a country, then we must evolve our safety in sports, and change the way we view contact sports as a country. Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy, also known as CTE, is a neurodegenerative disease where an excess amount of tau, an abnormal protein, builds up inside of the brain. According to “A critical review of chronic traumatic encephalopathy”, the disease also creates “multiple blockages of the axonal transport to the brain cells, along with white spaces in the brain on a MRI scan.”, as …show more content…
well as “an absence of beta amyloid (amino acids involved in Alzheimer's disease), and other brain cells you need to be healthy.” Originally called “punch drunk”, this occurs after one takes hits to the head, which accumulates over time. This disease was discovered in 2009 by Bennet Omalu, after he examined the brains of former NFL football players Andre Waters, Terry Long, Mike Webster, and several others. After seeing this disease, the dangers for football players began to appear. CTE has many symptoms, like depression, anger, and participation of risky behavior, like sex, gambling, drugs, and alcohol. (A critical review of chronic traumatic encephalopathy, 2015) These increase the risk of player injury or death as it progresses, also creating a situation where the players career may end. CTE also causes dementia towards their early 40’s. This creates memory loss, and can result in death. Overall, CTE and its symptoms put players at massive risks. However, added safety can either dampen the effects of CTE, or rid players of it completely. These are a result of the concussions football players and boxers face. Kyle Turley, a NFL football player who has played for the New Orleans Saints, St. Louis Rams, and Kansas City Chiefs, commented in a New Yorker article about the injuries he faces in football. “I remember, every season, multiple occasions where I’d hit someone so hard that my eyes went cross-eyed, and they wouldn’t come uncrossed for a full series of plays. You are just out there, trying to hit the guy in the middle, because there are three of them. You don’t remember much. There are the cases where you hit a guy and you’d get into a collision where everything goes off. You’re dazed.......Every play: collision, collision, collision. By the time you get to the other end of the field, you’re seeing spots. You feel like you are going to black out. Literally, these white explosions—boom, boom, boom—lights getting dimmer and brighter, dimmer and brighter,” he speaks, “Then, there was the time when I got knocked unconscious. That was in St. Louis, in 2003. My wife said that I was out a minute or two on the field. But I was gone for about four hours after that........When I came back, after being hospitalized, the guys were joking with me because Georgia Frontiere”—then the team’s owner—“came in the locker room, and they said I was butt-ass naked and I gave her a big hug. They were dying laughing, and I was, like, ‘Are you serious? I did that?”(Turley, 2009) Turley has been experiencing these spells of headaches and nausea, which have progressively worsen to the point where he has gone to sleep in bars, having to be taken outside, where he puked everywhere, lost control of his limbs, and the ability to speak until it's over. Players like Turley face the lifelong effects and injuries of CTE, but many players haven’t been nearly as lucky. In 2004, Justin Strzelczyk drove himself to his death when he ran his truck into a tanker truck at 90 mph, going the wrong way on the highway. News originally said that he may have been under the influence, but further examination by Bennet Omalu show that he had CTE. Junior Seau shot himself in the chest in 2012, and Terry Long died from drinking antifreeze in 2005. Both these players committed suicide due to depression, both of which got it from CTE. CTE is a massive danger on player safety, and once their career is over, many are swept from depression by the CTE that put them in the situation in the first place. We need to begin monitoring player safety and mental health more intensively, or else many players will pay the price. CTE is like a beast in the shadows to the NFL, as it causes great risks to the future of the NFL and the future of football itself. In 2012, according to Business Insider Sports (2013), during the autopsy of Junior Seau, the NFL management called Seau’s son, and denounced Omalu skills, saying that "Omalu's research is bad ... and that he is essentially unethical." Seau’s son withdrew permission for Omalu, which is what the NFL wanted. According to PBS Frontline in a 2014 article, 96.2% of former NFL players had CTE, while 78.2% of former football players had CTE. Just recently, on September 18, 2015, PBS Frontline revealed that now 87 out of 91 former NFL football players have CTE. Naturally, the NFL would not want people to know about this, as people would begin to stop watching football as frequently, which would cost the NFL money. The NFL wants to avoid being viewed in a bad light, so to avoid having its tradition and heritage tarnished, the NFL needs to change the way it deals with CTE. However, the NFL is still strong on its stance for CTE. In recent emails uncovered by the Sony Pictures hack, Dwight Caines, the president of domestic marketing at Sony Pictures, wrote to studio executives, saying "Will is not anti football (nor is the movie) and isn’t planning to be a spokesman for what football should be or shouldn’t be but rather is an actor taking on an exciting challenge......We’ll develop messaging with the help of N.F.L. consultant to ensure that we are telling a dramatic story and not kicking the hornet’s nest." This showcases how the NFL has a significant amount of power in allowing what is spread about them. According to Bloomberg, if the NFL were a real company, it would have a market cap of $46 billion, and have a revenue of $7 billion. The NFL brings in an impressive amount of money already, so its power has a great effect on the ability to speak out against the NFL. Aside from football, boxing has a notorious history of injury and death in the ring, but the spirit and thrill of the sport keeps it as one of the most popular sports today, as according to Forbes in 2014, the UFC was worth $1.65 billion. However, religion has a great influence on the mentality of a boxer, leaving the idea in their mind: “Jesus didn’t tap.” According to Jesus Didn’t Tap: Masculinity, Theology, and Ideology in Christian Mixed Martial Arts, the ideology where a boxer pronounces their faith through tests of strength and power are referred to as “muscular Christianity.” This comes from the fact that Jesus didn’t “tap out” when he was nailed to the Cross. Since the ideology came to be, more churches have been adapting to the people they want to attract, even going as far as hosting their own MMA events, which bring in many people (Greve, 2014). This helps spread the popularity of boxing and the words of Christianity, however, this may take boxing too far.
Muscular christianity pushes masculinity after some saw the feminization of our culture. This breeds danger in the ring, as it becomes the feminine thing to tap out of the fight. It’s not only muscular christianity that brings danger, it’s the attentiveness of the ringside doctors and referees. In the video “Death in the Ring (2014),” the video showcases Dennis Munson Jr's slow deterioration in his debut fight at the Eagles Club, but it also shows how the ringside doctor was on his phone, and how he deliberately kept the ambulance from coming for a while, as well as not administering oxygen. Even Munson’s coach was shown slapping Munson in the face before he collapsed. Overall, this shows the lack of safety in boxing, and the risk boxers take into their own
hands. Tradition is an integral part of football and boxing, and the excitement keeps us watching it even to this day. It’s good to have this outlet for excitement on a weekly basis, as it alleviates stress for some. Our side is not asking for the ban of contact sports, but the evolution of them. The excitement of the sports should not have to prevent sports from having to evolve. On top of that, our side understand that if a player consents to a sport, then it’s their choice on what happens to them. However, we do not want these players to suffer needless injuries. When players commit suicide, and the NFL still wants to hide their injuries, because according to this quote from the New York Times (2015), “Suicides by former star players, including Dave Duerson and Junior Seau, have heightened the scrutiny on the N.F.L., which has agreed to pay hundreds of millions of dollars to settle a lawsuit brought by about 5,000 retired players, who accused the league of deliberately hiding the dangers of concussions.” We should be spreading the prevention and increasing the safety of contact sports. For contact sports to evolve, there will have to be some changes. There would have to be increased monitoring of boxers and football players and their existing injuries. Increased padding in boxing gloves should be added, as well as increased padding in football helmets and better grip on the head in order to prevent slip-offs. Football helmets have evolved in the past, so they should be able to evolve further. Instead of the NFL denying CTE’s existence, the NFL needs to partner with more doctors in order to help aid prevention of CTE. In short, tradition does not mean that we have to sacrifice safety for it to be exciting. Safety and tradition can coexist, and will have to coexist if the NFL wants to continue to have a strong reputation. We need to prevent players from getting CTE, and ending their lives early, as many have already taken the same toll. To evolve, people must begin to realize that the deaths and suffering these players have to endure are not natural and should be removed in order to create a more humane game. Excitement and tradition can not stay like this forever if they only bring death and injury to the people who create it, so safety must be a top priority in the world of contact sports.
Playing football comes with great costs, including physical and mental health deterioration, plus the amount of time spent prepping before game day. Which can pose several questions, “Why suffer for a game, is it worth the money? Is it worth the fame? How great is the cost?” I believe that football, should have stricter regulations for the treatment of injuries, along with informing players of just how devastating a concussion can be, along with the other major injuries that commonly occur while playing football.
Injuries are common in most sports that have a contact component attached. Whether it’s at a professional level, or a school level, injuries are always bound to occur in contact sport. This analysis will look into the role headgear could, should and would play, and debates whether it should be made mandatory. Olympic sports such as Ice Hockey, Bicycle Riding and Baseball are just some examples that currently require athletes to wear a form of headgear. However, Australian contact sports such as AFL and Rugby give the option for players to wear headgear for protection. In 2011, 14 year old Ben Robinson was hospitalised after being treated 3 times in a game for head blows in a rugby game . In 1994, professional boxer Bradley Stone died from head injuries whilst boxing against Richie Wenton . Examples like these show the brutality of contact sports. Because of this, my paper will look at the issue of headgear in contact sport and will particularly look at this issue at junior sports level.
Are young children putting their health and even their lives at risk if they partake in the sport of football? Some claim that the American sport is far too dangerous and the risk of concussions and injuries far outway the pros of the physical sport, while others insist that technological improvements and new regulations have made the sport safer. Jonathan Zimmerman, a professor of history and education at New York University, argues in his paper, “We Must Stop Risking the Health of Young Football Players,” that football is a sport that is too dangerous for the youth. He states his belief that technological improvements in helmets and changes in the rules of the sport have had little effect on reducing injuries and that nothing has worked.
For the safety of the players in the present and future, a stricter concussion protocol should be required at all levels of football. Though improvements have been made, the game of football is constantly changing and the protocol needs to keep up with the changes. Today’s athletes are bigger, stronger, and faster than ever before: "Size and physical conditioning techniques in sports at all levels have evolved to create an intense athlete. They 're able to create more force, power and speed than ever before and that leads to harder hits and a greater number of hits" (Neporent). These advances in training have led to a more dangerous sport. The protocol has improved in recent years along with an emphasis on player safety, but the increasing numbers of players with long-term effects of concussions show there is still work to be done.
Children who are active recklessly engage in activities where injuries can occur. Nobody can predict when or how seriously anybody will get injured during an activity, however, the risks of children playing tackle football is prevalent where the dangers are imminent. The game of tackle football on a youth level is dangerous for children since they are developing physically and mentally. According to an article from The Atlantic, “America’s most dangerous football is in the peewee leagues, not the National Football League” (Barra, 2013). According to a journal article, “sports injuries account for approximately 23% of pediatric emergency department injury related visits” (Podberesky, Unsell & Anton, 2009). “Of these sports injury-related
When looking for an argumentative visual I wanted to do something over a topic that was one day going to relate to me. So I chose the topic of young male children playing tackle football. In this PBS Learning Media documentary, a group of doctors persuasively discuss the effects of allowing a male child under the age of fourteen to play tackle football and the head injuries it can cause as well as the later effective of their growth they can encounter if a hard blow to the head was the happen. The documentaries argument clearly stated that allowing your children to play tackle before the age of fourteen is dangerous and should be avoided for the child 's safety. The film also successfully utilized many rhetorical appeals that convinces parents to reconsider their idea of allowing their son to participate in tackle football. The first rhetorical appeal used in the film was pathos, it was a video clip of a child on the ground hurt because of a hard hit to the head. Another rhetorical appeal used was logos when they interviewed doctors from highly respected fields to state their factual
For example, “The N.F.L., which long denied that there was any link between the game and brain damage, has in recent years been promoting what it considers safer tackling techniques aimed at reducing head-to-head collisions” (Larned, CNN). This is important because it helps you understand the action being taken to reduce head to head contact in effort to reduce concussions in football at all ages. This shows that the more we study tackles and new techniques, the more we are able to take concussions out of football. In addition, Victoria Larned wrote, “It suggests that participants weigh potential health risks against the recreation benefits of proper tackling.” This shows that, in fact, many people are aware of the benefits gained by proper tackling technique. If kids are introduced to proper tackling techniques, the game of football becomes safer for both the tackler and the ball carrier. Teaching kids proper tackling will help reduce the amount of head and neck injuries in
Since football’s inception, it has been considered a manly sport. Young boys have been encouraged by their parents to participate in the game. For many boys, it is considered a rite of passage. However, football is a dangerous sport. A study conducted by the Center for Injury Research and Policy found, “an estimated 5.25 million football-related injuries among children and adolescents between 6 and 17 years of age were treated in U.S. emergency departments between 1990 and 2007. The annual number of football-related injuries increased 27 percent during the 18-year study period, jumping from 274,094 in 1990 to 346,772 in 2007” (Nation 201). These reported injuries include sprains and strains, broken bones, cracked ribs, torn ligaments, and concussions. A concussion usually happens when a player takes a hard hit to the head or is knocked unconscious on the playing field, and if not diagnosed and treated quickly, a concussion can result in death.
In my 8 or so years of playing football I’ve often heard coaches liken the job of the linemen to that of a soldier fighting in a trench, pushing, attacking, and struggling for every inch of the battlefield that is the line of scrimmage. Of course, the job of a lineman is far less dramatic and glorious than that description makes it out to be, most of our job is just keeping the defense at bay so the quarterback and the rest of the backfield has time to get a play off. Unfortunately for us offensive linemen, the defense has a much larger bag of tricks when it comes to the actual clash, they can grab, pull, or simply spin by while the O-line is relegated mostly to pushing with shoulder and hand. This can make things difficult if, for instance
While it could be debated if Bettman 's theory is correct, there is no denying that the exposure the NHL has gotten, sending and risking their best players to the past five olympics has no transcended into bringing in new fans or higher television viewer ratings.
The game of football has become safer over the past few years and is helping cut down the risk of injury. Not only are they safer during they play with the new safety technology they will be healthier after they play as well. Aikman praised the NFL for its recent decision to run baseline tests on all players in training camp so the league can later determine if their brains have been damaged from hits to the head.(“Aikman…”). With the new testing players be better equipped and prepared before and after their football careers. Many football players get brain injuries which is why they need to have better safety equipment. In any given season, about 20% of high school players suffer brain injuries (“Lanham”). The safety equipment is becoming way more advanced as well. Helmets are getting better, but it’s more effective at protecting the skull than the brain inside (“Death of Football…”). The Children’s Sports Athletic Equipment Safety Act comes in light of the fact that there are no federal guidelines for both new and used helmets that formally test against the forces believed to cause concussions (“Lanham”). The new safety equipment can’t protect everything thou...
Whether you are an avid spectator of football, hockey, basketball, or NASCAR, you have witnessed a fair amount of violence. In the 2013-2014 football season, at least five different college football players broke their leg, and hundreds of other players at the high school, college, and even professional level have injured a plethora of other body parts in a variety of methods. Hockey is considered one of the most violent sports in the world—the players have violent tendencies and generally release their anger on their opponents—and, unsurprisingly to its audience, results in many injuries. While basketball is not considered particularly violent, audiences are thrilled when they witness almost any sort of injury. Last year, University of Louisville guard Kevin Ware’s compound fracture broke through his skin, exposing his broken bone to everyone around him. Several people took videos of the incident and less than a year later, the video has nearly tw...
It is clear that sports are big deal in our lives. They shape us as individuals and more importantly they promote gender roles and stereotypes that have negative impacts on females. It promotes a paradigm that states males are superior to females when it comes to sports. Co-ed sports can be used as a foundation to break through this paradigm and jumpstart a movement to disease these gender roles and stereotypes we place. Females don’t get equal opportunities as they don’t want to perceive as manly because of this dichotomous thinking we have. They shy away from getting into sports. Using co-ed leagues not only benefits females and promotes them to play sports, it also benefits them as a generation to further this paradigm shift and dismiss
In the sport of boxing the objective of the game is to knock out your opponent without having that done to you. Constantly taking direct hits to the head area can cause a boxer to receive a concussion. A boxing match last 48 minutes with there being 12 rounds, and each round is 3 minutes long. The number of participants has been going up each year for the sport of boxing. In 2008, it has been 18,000 boxers registered for USA Olympic Games. That’s not even counting the number of amateur boxers that is trying to make it professionally. The number of recorded injuries that happens during the Olympic Games are not recorded to protect the athletes, and a lot of athletes are not speaking up about their injury.
Are high school sports beneficial or not for students? I personally believe if a student is in a high school sport they’re forced to prioritize between school and their sport, and at a young age I believe the student would decide to use his time to improve in his sport instead of school. Which in the long run would affect his academics, unless they decide to stay up late and work on their homework to keep up with both school and their sport. But, even like that in time the lack of sleep would catch up to them, and cause them to do even worse in both academics, and sports. High school sports are like the lotto in my opinion, many play but only a few get rewarded for their work. Therefore, high school sports cause more negativity than positivity.