Biological Theory Of Football

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Recommended: The effect of violence in sport

Violence has for a long period of time reared its ugly head during sporting activities. Undoubtedly questions have been raised on whether football and other violent sports contribute to making human beings more civilized or they propagate the innate violent nature of human beings that has characterized their way of life. Several theories have been proposed to try to give an explanation to this peculiar human behavior. Among these theories are the biological, the psychological and the social learning theory.
Biological theory asserts that aggression is an inevitable component that is part and parcel of human relations (Maguire 2008 p 54). Based on this view some biologists and ethnologists have propounded that human beings are naturally killer …show more content…

However, it is not as physical as it was in times past. History is replete with incidences of brutality among the football fans that has led maiming of fans and in most cases resulting to death. Football in Brazil is regarded passionately. During the 1950 World Cup, Brazil competed against Uruguay in the finals and lost. What followed was devastating. First, Uruguay was handed the World cup without an award ceremony. Furthermore, a Brazilian fan committed suicide, three others succumbed to heart attacks, and Brazil never took part in the games for a period of two years. Ultimately Brazil had to change their uniform from white to yellow and green shirts. Between 1999 and 2008, forty two people reportedly succumbed to death. In the year 2012 alone there were 29 football related deaths. The deaths involve the fans who may either be struggling to get a place in the stadium to watch a match or the clashes of rival fans following a match …show more content…

Chronic traumatic encephalopathy (C.T.E) is a medical condition describing brain damage that affects the players that have been exposed to direct head impact. The diagnosis of the condition was first made in 2002 in a Pittsburgh player. Statistical figures have shown the seriousness of the harm that comes from games that impact and violence is involved. In the period of 1982 to 2009, statistical figures released by National Centre for Catastrophic Injury Research revealed that close to three hundred fatalities were victims of the impact of football in high-school. The results only represented injuries that occur over a long period of time. Further still, statistics indicated that there was over three hundred and thirty cases of instant damage on the brain coming from the impact in the period spanning from 1984 to

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    He Appeals to Logos when he writes, “Over the past two decades it has become clear that repetitive blows to the head in high-impact contact sports like football, ice hockey, mixed martial arts and boxing place athletes at risk of permanent brain damage….Why, then, do we continue to intentionally expose our children to this risk?” He continues by writing, “If a child who plays football is subjected to advanced radiological and neurocognitive studies, there can be evidence of brain damage at the cellular level of brain functioning…. If that child continues to play over many seasons, these cellular injuries accumulate to cause irreversible brain damage, which we know now by the name Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy,” a disease founded by Dr.Omalu in 2002. C.T.E can cause “major depression, memory loss, suicidal thoughts and actions, loss of intelligence as well as dementia later in life.” C.T.E has also been linked to “drug and alcohol abuse as children enter their 20s, 30s, and 40s.” Dr.Omalu Appeals to Ethos when he writes, “As physicians, it is our role to educate” and “protect the most vulnerable among

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  • Malcolm Gladwell's Essay 'Offensive Play'

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    Gladwell describes how the effect of contact to the head can have on the neurological system. He shows in his article that players that play in the league can suffer from brain damage that is similar to Alzheimer or dementia. This damage is called chronic traumatic encephalopathy and it occurs when individuals suffer from many concussions or any other form of head injury. This damage has a lasting affect and can cause people to die at an earlier age then which they should. The life expectancy goes down for people with chronic traumatic encephalopathy. In this article it talks about many play...

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  • How Playing Football Can Lead to Developing CTE

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    CTE stands for chronic traumatic encephalopathy. CTE is a progressive neuro- degenerative disease which had not been found in football players until recently. It was stated in the episode, “Repetitive brain trauma starts this cascade of events in the brain that changes the way tau [protein] looks and behaves. It goes awry, it starts destroying the integrity of the brain cells.” Doctor Omalu’s discovery was the first hard evidence which proved playing football could cause permanent damage. This finding was not well received by the NFL and Omalu was met with attacks by the MTBI committee and the NFL as a whole.

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  • Malcolm Gladwell Analysis

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    Gladwell provides research conducted by Anne McKee a neuropathologist who is involved in the detection of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (C.T.E) on football players which was caused by head trauma. Using the research of McKee who is deeply involved with C.T.E allows the reader to better understand C.T.E. First we are presented on how by autopsying a brain of a person who had received a diagnosis of dementia. McKee discovered that this patient was a boxer in his early days and due to many hits in the head he developed C.T.E. Unfortunately, this person was diagnosed with dementia but ultimately he had C.T. E “which is a progressive neurological disorder found in people who have suffered some kind of brain trauma”. (Offensive Play). We are also presented with a research done by Kevin Guskiewicz director of the University of North Carolina’s Sports Concussion Research Program. Guskiewicz carefully monitors North Carolina’s football team with sensors on the player’s football helmets. These sensors allow Guskiewicz to measure the force of the impacts the players receive while playing football. Guskiewicz compared the hits to the head a payer receives to a car accident: “if you drove your car into a wall at twenty-five miles per hour and you weren’t wearing your seat belt, the force of your head hitting the

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  • Pros And Cons Of Youth Football

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  • What´s Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE)?

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    Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) is a neurodegenerative disease attributed to single, sporadic, or repetitive brain trauma, including concussions and subconcussive hits (Baugh et al., 2012; Wortzel et al., 2013). This disease was originally referred to as dementia pugilistica, and nicknamed “punch drunk,” because individuals suffering from this disorder would present symptoms that were similar to someone’s mannerisms while being intoxicated (Wortzel et al., 2013). This “drunken” behavior is thought to be attributed to the cognitive, mood, and behavioral alterations as a result of the repetitive hits to the brain over an extended period of time. Because individuals suffering from this disease are often exposed to conditions that allow them to sustain blows to the head multiple times, the populations most often examined in these studies are athletes (football, boxing, rugby) and/or individuals in the military (McKee et al., 2009). Individuals can be symptom free for several years (Baugh et al., 2012). The onset of symptoms are sometimes seen about eight to ten years after an individual retires from their sport, which roughly equates to someone aged thirty to fifty yeas old (Baugh et al., 2012; Wortzel et al., 2013; Karantzoulis and Randolph, 2013). As with all diseases, symptoms can range from mild to severe. Researchers have found a positive correlation between the number of brain injuries sustained during a length of time playing a sport and the severity of symptoms (McKee et al., 2009).

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  • The Dangers of Playing American Football

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