I got to thinking about the prognosis of football, so to speak. Now that we've effectively elimated helmet collisions and put in all these new safety rules, what is our sport's future? Are we still doomed because of the negative publicity these past five years, or will the pendulum swing back before too much more damage is done?
Admittedly as I displayed here, I didn't really get it until I thought of it just today from an economic standpoint: regardless of the validity of the science behind brain injuries, the perception among what seems like the vast majority of parents these days is that letting your kid play football is akin to just dropping them on their head, that the result is the same. No high school football talent, means no college talent. Without college football, there's no pro football, and by the time I'm my dad's age, we'll have nothing but pickup games played by old-timers like me.
But is that really what's going to happen? Even in spite of the NFL, NCAA, and NFHS's efforts to make football as safe as possible, one journalist wrote in the Washington Post that his son was one of four boys who showed up for middle school football practice last summer. What is it going to take to get people to come around?
I'd like to think that the "My kids will never play football" crowd is just a very vocal minority. That sure, some athletes will find different sports, but the cultural attachment will keep churning out players for generations to come, just as they have for generations past. But when more and more parents are saying just that, even in spite of the best efforts of the highest governing bodies to address their concerns, what is our prognosis?
I can't remember when and where I read the article by an outgoing AD at a high school in Illinois with a prominent football program, but he said that even in spite of all the criticism and the scrutiny, that the forced evolution of football in recent years would allow it to not just survive but thrive.
Quite honestly, I think that if football does survive, it will be by those parents finding their faith in football again by seeing the positive impact it has on individuals and communities. From all the troubled youth who got into football and got their attitudes and behavior straightened out with the discipline and values the sport teaches, to the fact that football scholarships help send underprivileged kids to college instead of prison, the streets, or sometimes even the cemetery, football is not the boogeyman that many have made it out to be in recent years.
But even for those of us whose playing career was cut short, or who never played at all, for me and most others at some point, football has been a therapeutic release in tough times. Just in my lifetime, from the 9/11 attacks, the economic meltdown in the late-2000s, brutal and ugly times in politics, to personal issues, watching a football game, or better yet attending one, keeps your mind on something positive. A release from the negativity.
This past season served as exactly that for me. A family member had a health crisis and the family drama that ensued has been brutal. But every Thursday putting on the stripes gave me a 5 hour reprieve, filing through the turnstiles at Michigan Stadium gave me a three-hour window when nothing else in the world mattered but what's going on down on the gridiron.
I think we'll be fine in the long run, but unfortunately some irreparable damage has already been done. So what say you?
