From Jennifer Mascia, a post she wrote back in February:

Over the weekend, former “Dateline” host Stone Phillips wrote in to tell us of a story he recently published on his web site, Stone Phillips Reports, about the first study ever done on head impacts in youth football. “Hard Hits, Hard Numbers” includes interviews with Virginia Tech researchers who placed instrumented helmets on seven and eight-year-old football players and collected data on more than 750 hits to the head over the course of a season.

The details are jarring: the researchers found that some head impacts in youth football are equal in force to some of the bigger hits seen at the college level. And 3.5 million kids ages 6-13 play tackle football, compared to just 2,000 NFL players. “Nobody expected to see hits of this magnitude,” said lead researcher Stefan Duma.

Mr. Phillips brought the results to our attention, he wrote, “because I played football through college, had a couple of concussions and believe this issue is of importance to millions of families.”

Which echoes what Jean Fugett, the former Dallas Cowboys tight end, said about young boys playing football in Saturday’s column: “I don’t think anyone should play tackle football before high school. Kids’ bodies are not ready.”

 

Did you see this?

Gary Plummer hopes the death of his former teammate Junior Seau sparks a change in the way the NFL sends its players back into society….

Plummer, a former Cal star, played professionally for 15 seasons, starting with the Oakland Invaders of the USFL from 1983-85. He played with the Chargers from 1986-93 and the 49ers from 1994-97. Plummer estimated he endured 1,000 concussions over his career, which he acknowledges is a startling number.

Said Plummer: “In the 1990s, I did a concussion seminar. They said a Grade 3 concussion meant you were knocked out, and a Grade 1 meant you were seeing stars after a hit, which made me burst out in laughter. As a middle linebacker in the NFL, if you don’t have five of these (Grade 1 effects) each game, you were inactive the next game.

“Junior played for 20 years. That’s five concussions a game, easily. How many in his career then? That’s over 1,500 concussions. I know that’s startling, but I know it’s true. I had over 1,000 in my 15 years. I felt the effects of it. I felt depression going on throughout my divorce. Junior went through it with his divorce.”

Since leaving the 49ers broadcast booth a year ago, Plummer has been enjoying retirement, and he typically saw Seau six times a year, including at a charity golf tournament two weeks ago.

 

Are the new studies about concussions, the new reports (Sonjay Gupta, for instance), and the recent revelations of football players who seemingly committed suicide as a result of football injuries (Dave Duerson, Junior Seau) … are these making you rethink or even have a conclusion about permitting your son/s play football?

Jonathan Anker:

When I heard about Junior Seau’s stunningly tragic suicide at just 43 years old the other day, I couldn’t help but immediately wonder what toll the game Seau loved and dominated may have played in his death. To be clear, there is absolutely no proof or even indication right now that the cumulative effect of all Seau’s gridiron collisions contributed to any kind of depressive thoughts or degenerative mental condition. We don’t know why he killed himself. We may never know.

But we do know it’s happened in other instances. After former Chicago Bears standout Dave Duerson committed suicide last year, an analysis of his brain revealed he suffered from a trauma-induced disease found in at least 20 other football players who have passed away, according to the Sports Legacy Institute.

Former Philadelphia Eagle Andre Waters was 44 when he killed himself in 2006. Studies found his brain, according to Sports Illustrated, “resembled what one would expect in an 85-year-old man in the early stages of Alzheimer’s.” [Read more...]

From HLN:

“Tough times don’t last, but tough people do.”

That’s what Coach Pat Summitt used to preach to us in practice all the time. As an adult, I find myself using that message in my daily life. That was the special thing about Coach Summitt and her lessons: They weren’t just lessons for the court — they were lessons for a lifetime.

She took pride in graduating all her players and turning them into productive women of society. She couldn’t care less if we went on to play basketball professionally, as long as we had a solid education. I think that’s why she and my grandmother got along so well. They both knew education was going to be my playbook for life.

Coach also knew the challenges we would face as women and prepared us for them, using the game of basketball. For example, we all experience doubt in our lives, especially playing sports, but Coach Summitt didn’t want to hear that. She would tell us that we had to quiet that “negative voice” on our shoulder that was saying, “You can’t do it.” She told us to knock that crafty little creature off and push forward. At the time, that metaphor seemed pretty weird to me, but like all her messages, I now get it. Every day I wake up with purpose and try not to let cynics or doubt cloud my thoughts. That’s the Coach Summitt way.

Not only did coach give us metaphors to build on, she also led by example. As hard as she wanted us to work in games, she worked twice as hard to prepare. That’s what I respected about her. I remember right before one of our Final Four matchups she was up watching tape until 4 a.m. to be ready for the other team. When I saw what she was doing for us, I knew I could not disappoint.

Jamie Moyer becomes the oldest MLB pitcher to win a game. Here’s the story from the link:

Jamie Moyer showed there remains a place for a vintage lefty in a young man’s game as the 49-year-old became the oldest pitcher to ever win a major league contest.

He threw seven strong innings and Dexter Fowler hit a two-run homer to help the Colorado Rockies beat the San Diego Padres 5-3 on Tuesday night.

Moyer (1-2) was sharp all evening as he picked up his 268th career win, tying him with Hall of Famer Jim Palmer for 34th on the career list.

Relying on a consistent cutter and mixing in a 78-mph fastball, the crafty pitcher gave up just six hits and two runs — both unearned — as he kept the Padres hitters at bay and off balance.

“Today, for me, just like it’s been my previous two starts — going out and trying to give my best effort,” Moyer said.

That’s been a winning recipe for Moyer over a career that’s stretched nearly a quarter century and included 689 games.

Mercy, from AP:

SEATTLE (AP) – Russ Berkman’s dream came true when he won a lottery for four passes to Wednesday’s practice round at the Masters golf tournament in Georgia. But the Seattle-area resident’s stomach turned when he found his dog, Sierra, had eaten them.

Berkman told KJR radio on Tuesday he was determined to go. His girlfriend told him he had to make Sierra puke.

He induced vomiting and recovered a gooey glob. Then he went to work trying to put about 20 vomit-covered pieces back together.

He says he recovered about 70 percent of the tickets. He took photos and explained the situation to the Augusta National Golf Club as “my dog ate my Masters tickets!”

They reprinted Berkman’s tickets and had them waiting for him in Georgia.

 

Tim Dalrymple, who recently wrote a book on Jeremy Lin, reflects on whether or not God cares about sports, and if God does, how.

Isn’t it degrading to suggest that God cares about sports?  Isn’t that anthropomorphizing?  Are we, like the ancient Greeks with their stories of gods who did all sorts of silly and petty and naughty things, really supposed to imagine that God dons a cheese-wedge upon his head and roots for the Packers?

With war and famine, death and disease, doesn’t God have better things to do?  Aren’t sports beneath his dignity, unworthy of his time and station?…

Jeremy’s spiritual mentors and teachers have generally been Reformed.  The books he cites as favorites are from John Piper and C.J. Mahaney, and Jeremy’s reflections on his life and career consistently refer to a close and careful divine sovereignty.  It’s what theologians have called providentia specialissima, God’s most fine-grained care in the minutiae of our lives. [Read more...]

The NY Knicks, evidently, won’t be featuring Jeremy Lin as much now that they have a new coach.

The great lesson of Linsanity — at least, as we understood it in February — is that expertise can be flawed and impressions faulty.Jeremy Lin taught us not to assume too much, especially as it pertains to Jeremy Lin.

Yet as we survey the ever-changing, perpetually dysfunctional Knickslandscape, it is hard not to draw one hard conclusion: It’s the end of Linsanity as we know it.

The sudden and surprising change in head coaches almost ensures it.

Lin blossomed because he played in a system that perfectly suited him, for a coach who believed in him and needed him. Lin restored the aesthetics and the excitement to Mike D’Antoni’s frenetic offense and restored faith at Madison Square Garden. [Read more...]

50 years ago tonight, Wilt Chamberlain, the Big Dipper, scored 100 points in one basketball game. He averaged over 50 points that season. Yikes. Those games between Wilt and Bill Russell were amazing contests of will and skill.

A half-century ago, Wilt Chamberlain scored 100 points in a single game, one of the landmark achievements in sports and a record that seems all but unbreakable.

The next highest NBA single-game mark is Kobe Bryant’s 81 points in 2006. Bryant’s total included seven three-point field goals, a shot that did not exist in the NBA until 1979.

Chamberlain’s 100-point outburst in the Philadelphia Warriors’ 169-147 victory over the New York Knicks was part of his remarkable 1961-62 season. He averaged 50.4 points per game along with 25.7 rebounds, the lone 4,000-point, 2,000-rebound season in NBA history. Only twice was the Big Dipper held under 30 points, both times by the Boston Celtics’ Bill Russell, his main nemesis throughout the bulk of his 14-year NBA career.

“[Wilt] came with a body and an ego perfectly sculpted for dominating his game,” wrote Gary M. Pomerantz in his book, Wilt, 1962. “The ego was essential. … In 100 points there was a hubris but also a symbolic magic. In our culture the number 100 connotes a century, a ripe old age, a perfect score on a test. … One hundred was a monument.”

 

This piece, from Tyler Cowen and Kevin Grier, speculates on how football could end, and I would predict — with no claims to anything other than speculation — that football will end. It is dangerous physically and lawsuits are on the rise, and at some point high schools are going to say the jig is up and pull the sport.

Anyway, what do you think?

The NFL is done for the year, but it is not pure fantasy to suggest that it may be done for good in the not-too-distant future. How might such a doomsday scenario play out and what would be the economic and social consequences?…

The most plausible route to the death of football starts with liability suits. Precollegiate football is already sustaining 90,000 or more concussions each year. If ex-players start winning judgments, insurance companies might cease to insure colleges and high schools against football-related lawsuits. Coaches, team physicians, and referees would become increasingly nervous about their financial exposure in our litigious society. If you are coaching a high school football team, or refereeing a game as a volunteer, it is sobering to think that you could be hit with a $2 million lawsuit at any point in time. A lot of people will see it as easier to just stay away. More and more modern parents will keep their kids out of playing football, and there tends to be a “contagion effect” with such decisions; once some parents have second thoughts, many others follow suit. We have seen such domino effects with the risks of smoking or driving without seatbelts, two unsafe practices that were common in the 1960s but are much rarer today. The end result is that the NFL’s feeder system would dry up and advertisers and networks would shy away from associating with the league, owing to adverse publicity and some chance of being named as co-defendants in future lawsuits…. [Read more...]