
A Former College Lineman Now on the Streets, Looking for Answers, and Help - wallflower
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/08/sports/ncaafootball/ryan-hoffman-a-unc-football-player-two-decades-ago-is-now-homeless.html
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renegadesensei
It's no surprise we are seeing fewer kids playing at the K-12 level as parents
just don't want to take the risk. I don't blame them. Wouldn't want my son
doing it either. Who wants to push their child on career path where there are
good odds you retire in your 30's with brain damage?

Increasingly I am thinking that football is one of those things that people a
hundred years in the future are going to think we were totally crazy for ever
popularizing, sort of like how today we think gladiator fights were horribly
barbaric. I don't know that better equipment and rule changes can solve
everything.

~~~
at-fates-hands
>>> I don't know that better equipment and rule changes can solve everything.

Doesn't matter how good the equipment is, it's your body which is handicapped
from the outset. It's because your brain floats in the cerebrospinal fluid,
there's no way to effectively "anchor" your brain from crashing around in your
head during concussions and hard hits.

Anybody playing contact sports is at risk, and even sports you don't think of
as contact sports are at risk as well. Baseball's not considered a contact
sport, but you see concussions there all the time. The problem in all of these
sports is the players are getting bigger and the sport is moving faster. I
still remember Wayne Gretzky talking about how we finally decided to retire.
He was talking with his father, who asked him if he was going to play one more
year. This was his response:

"Dad, I can't compete anymore. The players are getting bigger and faster every
year." when Wayne retired, he was 6' and 185lbs. \

The AVERAGE hockey player nowadays is closer to 6'3" and is well over 200lbs.
The LA Kings famously had a line where all three of their forwards were 6'3"
and weighed 220lbs the year they won the Stanley Cup in 2012.

Take a look at their roster - they only had 4 guys under 6':
[http://www.hockey-reference.com/teams/LAK/2012.html](http://www.hockey-
reference.com/teams/LAK/2012.html)

~~~
cdr
Gretzky retired in 98-99. It did take 15 years, but NHL hockey implemented
rules to make the game less brutal and it seems to be working. Players
crashing into each other head first is not an inherent part of the game like
it is with American football. Sure concussions occur, but it's got to be a
fraction of what happens in football.

[http://www.wsj.com/articles/professional-hockey-has-
become-a...](http://www.wsj.com/articles/professional-hockey-has-become-a-
gentlemans-game-1425333413)

"Much of the decline can be attributed to fewer players going to the box for
the game’s more violent infractions. Charging, boarding, roughing and cross-
checking are being called at the lowest rates since 2001-02, according to
Stats. It seems that the NHL’s plan to crack down on violent penalties this
season is working."

~~~
at-fates-hands
I agree and would also add that the increased speed of the game has lessened
the amount of bad injuries. Goons have pretty much been eliminated and there'
only room for really skilled guys - which means a lot less hard checking and
chippie play.

Although the occasional rivalry game will produce more hitting and hard
checking. You can see the Wild v. Avalanche this past week or the Flyers v.
Penguins last month which included a ton of PM's and four fights - a rare
occurrence these days.

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brudgers
We moved to Central Florida in 1977. The Bucs were so new they had yet to win.
I would wear my Dave Pear #76 jersey to Junior High.

I couple of years ago my cousin was complaining to my unsympathetic Bucs' fan
ears about his team's [Orioles or Senators, I can't remember] losing streak. I
googled up Dave Pear to out suffering fan him in prose much like this here.

 _Don 't let your kids play football. Never._

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dave_Pear](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dave_Pear)

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rdtsc
Football players = modern gladiators.

One can say other competitive sports are like that too. Maybe the military as
well. But American Football is especially bad for a popular sport. It very
violent. Permanent brain damage is a common side-effects of playing for years.

Americans love it though. One can make a parallel in general on how our
society is inherently more violent than other Western countries. American
football is just one of the facets of that.

It is also interesting perhaps how this gets played vis-a-vis the "save the
children" rhetoric. We've seen article about free range kids' parents getting
harassed by police. How everyone is talking about how special the children are
how they should be protected. And then, pretty much the same people, turn
around and either send their son to play football or watch and cheer as others
run around the field butting into each other head first at full speed.

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ritchiea
I am totally crushed by this. Last season I felt guilty every time I watched a
football game though I enjoyed it anyway. I used the tortured justification
that many people suffer tragic, difficult lives of mental illness without the
fame and fortune that comes with being a football player. That the suffering
is a horrible thing but perhaps increased awareness will lead to rules changes
and better player safety (I suspect the complex helmets and padding are
actually the cause of brutality and concussions in football because the
players use the padding as a weapon and as justification to go to physical
extremes they would not dare try without their armor). But the moral weight of
teenagers and twenty somethings who will never have the economic advantages
that come with a professional career, and who are supposedly in college to
begin the productive part of their life where they grow as human beings, are
suffering in exactly the same way while the NCAA and its Universities profit
from it is too much.

~~~
Goronmon
_(I suspect the complex helmets and padding are actually the cause of
brutality and concussions in football because the players use the padding as a
weapon and as justification to go to physical extremes they would not dare try
without their armor)_

I suspect that helmets and padding are the reason we don't see more deaths at
all levels of play.

~~~
falcolas
Watch some Rugby and get back to us on that one. Same basic mechanics
(tackling, diving, etc), but done with more caution because they aren't
armored tanks.

~~~
arethuza
While not as bad as American Football, rugby is still pretty bad - my son
plays rugby at U16 level and the level of injuries you see are pretty striking
- broken bones aren't exactly uncommon.

Still rugby is a great game and he loves it and I love watching him play.

[Scrums are the really scary bit of rugby as of the risks to players necks -
fortunately he is a No 8. not a prop!].

~~~
ritchiea
The thing is everyone knows these sports are brutal and can lead to broken
bones. It's concussions that are of a larger concern.

~~~
dragonwriter
Concussions are of larger concern largely because we've reduced the problem of
one particular kind of broken bone (to wit, the skull -- which was a fairly
serious problem in football) to a more manageable level with protective gear.

I don't think reducing the impact of concussions by returning to the age of
deaths by brain injuries from broken skulls is a way forward.

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kcole16
Football is by far my favorite sport. Unfortunately, it's just not worth the
long-term injuries it causes to a large percentage of those who play it beyond
high school (and some before even that level).

~~~
brudgers
Do you play in pads for recreation?

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ende
Ive seen this suggested before and it seems counterintuitive at first, but get
rid of helmets. Get the game back to something resembling rugby. Hard helmets
give a false sense of security.

~~~
eric_h
this may reduce the long term occurrence of dementia/permanent brain damage,
but it will most certainly increase the occurrence of immediate death unless
the rules of the game are changed considerably.

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bubbleRefuge
One thing that I think can help is greater emphasis to get
Steriods/HGH/Testosterone out of the game. Grew up in Miami, which is a hotbed
for highschool football and I recall that Steriod usage was rampant back in
the 80's. Players are bigger, stronger, faster because of the use of these
performance enhancing drugs and there is no control whatsoever at the
highschool level.

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Alex3917
Great article. I'd also highly recommend the movie Crash Reel, which is also
about TBIs. It should be mandatory viewing for any student who wants to play
football, snowboard, bike race, etc.

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Dewie
I'd rather have bad knees than a bad brain.

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netfire
"Most never made a dime off the game." The article lost credibility for me
there. You may think the majority of NFL players don't get paid enough for
what they do, but I'm pretty sure no one is playing for free.

~~~
cmurphycode
" Most of those players are not famous. Most never made a dime off the game.
They are relatively anonymous men who played the sport in college and only
later, for some reason or another, have found themselves struggling in life."

College players aren't paid. Most college players never make it to a
professional paying level.

[https://www.ncaa.org/sites/default/files/Probability-of-
goin...](https://www.ncaa.org/sites/default/files/Probability-of-going-pro-
methodology_Update2013.pdf)

~~~
netfire
The quote was made in the context of NFL players. (At least that's how I read
it)

Still, even though college players aren't paid with money, they still receive
compensation (scholarships, financial aid, free tutors, etc). To indicate that
they receive no financial compensation is inaccurate, I think.

~~~
graeme
The article wasn't clear, but I think you've misread it:

"Most never made a dime off the game. They are relatively anonymous men who
played the sport in college and only later, for some reason or another, have
found themselves struggling in life.

Just like their N.F.L. counterparts, Hoffman and those former college players
have been left to wonder: Did football do this?"

The author meant to distinguish Hoffman et al frmo NFL players, who are at
least famous and well paid for their troubles.

Also, the Hoffman did not say the players never received "financial
compensation". Hoffman said they never made a dime off the game, which is
profit. (He's also speaking loosely, as the use of the idiomatic phrase
suggests)

