Friday, January 30, 2009

A Response

I guess I have a lot to say and my pride won't let this get buried in the comments.

In the brain injury article comments Chris wrote:

The thing is, how much should we really be bothered by it for players today? This should be a situation considered much like smoking. No one knew about this before. Now we do. There should be warnings, but largely these guys know what they're getting themselves into. They're being paid millions of dollars to sacrifice their bodies and make names for themselves. Even the low men on the totem pole make more than 5x the average salary in the US.

But really, it isn't as simple as slapping a warning on a sport for a number of reasons. If it were then safety really wouldn't be a consideration at all, beyond whatever minimum teams decided were necessary to protect their investments. While our society considers the individual supreme, it is also balanced against reasonable regulation. We do not allow reckless endangerment to oneself. Masking that endangerment in a sporting activity does not make it any more legal, even if society somehow finds it more acceptable.

Arguing that the monetary reward for self-destruction is sufficient is ... well, subjective, to say the least. Given enough money we could find people to attempt anything. How about a $50 million duel to the death? I guarantee the line would be out the door.

Laws regarding workplace safety make no distinction for compensation. We don't typically condone the high mortality rate of coal miners because they make so much more than shopkeepers, but instead demand as stringent health and safety measures possible without crippling the industry.

Furthermore, if football is inherently dangerous then we are guilty of exposing minors to unnecessary risk. Football players don't spring wholly formed at the age of consent to embark on a college [sic] career with NFL dreams. They play pee wee and junior high and high school football. At what point do bodily collisions begin to have a deleterious impact? 50 pound collisions? 100 pound collisions? Their consent to play lies with their parents, not with them, and typically big time football players don't come from backgrounds of the greatest education and worldly wisdom. By the time these kids reach the age of consent they are completely programmed.

I love football, and am certainly not arguing it has no place. But this is the real world and these are real world considerations.

5 comments:

  1. I agree with some of this, but not all of it. The part about the kids coming up in the game is of course questionable. I don't know how I would address that. Regarding getting paid, I agree with what you said, but will note that my comments were regarding them being willing to take on the risk for the increased compensation, not saying it's okay for the employer to allow it.

    However, this I do not agree with:
    >>>>>But really, it isn't as simple as slapping a warning on a sport for a number of reasons. If it were then safety really wouldn't be a consideration at all, beyond whatever minimum teams decided were necessary to protect their investments. While our society considers the individual supreme, it is also balanced against reasonable regulation. We do not allow reckless endangerment to oneself. Masking that endangerment in a sporting activity does not make it any more legal, even if society somehow finds it more acceptable.<<<<<

    (Side note: Is there a way to change color/text in the comments section?)

    We don't allow it in some instances, but we decidedly do in others. There is no question that smoking causes negative health impacts, yet it is legal. Some states (PA) allow motorcycle riding without helments. Alcohol consumption is legal.

    In each case, there are very clear warnings to the users about the health related impacts. If football does the same thing - warns its players - that this is a consequence of their actions, how is that different?

    (This gets to the children playing argument, since the three examples above are all age restricted. I'm not arguing that point...consider in a vacuum that no one would play football until age 18, at which point we allow them to play with those warnings.)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Yabbut, they're not exactly being compensated for increased risk-- they're being compensated for the fact that they are gifted athletes, composed of some pretty astonishing inherent physical traits and a willingness and ability to hone these traits into an NFL-caliber player.

    It's incredibly difficult to sort out the chicken or the egg problem of risk in NFL football-- which, it can be argued, is absolutely yards (no pun intended) different from playing even at the college level, much less as a pee wee or whatever it's called. The players create the game and the game creates the players, you know?

    I totally agree with Patrick's point about players not being well-prepared in terms of educational background and worldly wisdom. Imagine being 20 years old; a very important-looking person offers you the keys to the golden city, and oh yeah there's the money too, and your whole family has their hopes pinned on your success. Are you now going to sit down and coolly assess the risk of possible brain injury? Of course not! You are going to take the money and run, son!

    Which is why it should be up to others to look out for you. There are plenty of people making untold sums of cash while you beat your body to a pulp; it's only right that someone look out for your interests.

    What this means in a practical way-- that's where I'm out of ideas.

    ReplyDelete
  3. >>>>>Imagine being 20 years old; a very important-looking person offers you the keys to the golden city, and oh yeah there's the money too, and your whole family has their hopes pinned on your success. Are you now going to sit down and coolly assess the risk of possible brain injury? Of course not! You are going to take the money and run, son!

    Which is why it should be up to others to look out for you.<<<<<


    Why? When did we become a society where no one takes responsibility for making their own choices and accepting the consequences of them?

    As of right now, plenty of people can claim ignorance and that's fine, there's nothing wrong with it. But if they stick a big, fat warning label on football about what happens as a result, why should someone else bear the responsibility of someone's actions?

    ReplyDelete
  4. >> Why? When did we become a society where no one takes responsibility for making their
    >> own choices and accepting the consequences of them?


    Alright Chris, if you want to play ignorant: explain to me how we can continue to ALLOW high school football, and Pop Warner football, to be played, *if* it is demonstrated that ordinary participation in tackle football routinely results in brain injury?

    You write as if college football players spring full-blown from the brain of Zeus.

    ReplyDelete

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