Cake or Death: Holding Up Over Time

[Goaldeje]

You ever watch a movie for the first time and absolutely love it? Then you watch it a couple of years later, or even a decade later and can't figure out what the hell you liked about it so much? Movies that get worse with subsequent viewing? Twenty years later, you watch and think, "What was I thinking"?

Meet the Parents is like that for me. Thought it was very funny when it came out, but now when it comes on TV, I might watch a minute or two waiting for something funny, finally changing the channel because it just doesn't happen.

I have a feeling the sequels have something to do with that, to be fair. Haven't actually seen either of the sequels, mind you. Just a feeling.

Robocop is a fun action movie, but let's face it. The futuristic scenes haven't held up well.

I wonder if football is headed down that same path...

More Here...

 

[Neophyte]

Good read, brother. Thought provoking.

 

[the Omniscient]

I enjoyed the read. I cannot relate due to the fact that I have no children. I sit back and say 'well, if I had a kid and he wanted to play football, then have at it.' Now I know the circumstances may be different if I had a child. After all, I am very very protective of my dogs.

I agree with Neophyte, this is thought provoking. Never thought about this angle before. I do believe technology will advance enough in the short term future to protect our athletes from the concussions. I believe that both the NFL, and now the NHL (currently under fire), are going to find solutions. It is vital to their business.

 

[Goaldeje]

I think they will try, Omni. Just not sure if they will be able to sanitize the sport to keep the spirit intact while maintaining safety.
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[servumtuum]

Very well done, G., and as has been expressed thought-provoking. I had no sons myself so didn't go through that particular gut-wrenching decision making process but I do remember as a child both my parents coming down on the "no" side of contact sports. Granted I was small for my age but did participate in track in grade school and early junior high school-I was kind of like Brandon Banks, way little but quick, not record-setting but competitive in sprints. My size eliminated the idea of high school football entirely so it didn't arise at all.

As far as the future of football, I think it will remain as a professional sport-but with some changes. As you mentioned there are moves being made to limit the long-term dangers of concussions, something I do see trickling down to the public school level in the not too distant future for those who do participate. We've come a long way from the leather-helmet days of a few decades ago and, history being what it is, change is inevitable and, from my perspective not capable of being judged using currently accepted criteria simply because those will change as well. Whatever differences football goes through in the future will be, I think, accepted by those living then as just a matter of course in the historical evolution of the game.

"What happens to the sport of football if more and more parents steer their children away from football and towards other sports for their child's safety? If the kids make it to the college level and then through a miracle of God, make it to the pros and get rich and are set for life, is it worth it?

Not to me as a parent.

I know this is a football site, and I know a lot of you may disagree with me. But I am charged with protecting my children until they are capable of doing that for themselves. There is simply not enough information out there for me to reach a definitive conclusion that would allow me to sleep at night.

Again, I don't think I'm alone.

So what happens when the talent pools are steered towards other sports? Football as we know it right now in 2011 may be about to be changed. A lot.

I wonder if we will look back in twenty years with horror and disgust at the gladiator sport we cheered on so vociferously, and think, "What was I thinking"?

This eloquently written part seemed to me to be the crux of your post-"What will happen?"

Is it possible that twenty years from now we ask ourselves "What we were thinking?"-of course, then again maybe not. If, however, we do-we will be both asking and answering the question simultaneously-the asking of the question will have been caused by changes in our perspectives and therefore the criteria we use to determine what are judged as "right and proper" things.

If you want to know my true answer to " What will happen?"-if I'm still around, ask me in twenty years.

 

[Goaldeje]

Absolutely true, Serv. And thank you for the kind words. And here's hoping we're both around in twenty years to ask each other!

I agree there can and will be a lot of changes. My concern is the lack of attention the lower levels of football are paying this issue at all right now. I'm sure there are activist parents who are concerned, and are probably sneered at much in the same way that athletes who took themselves out of games for a concussion were sneered at even just two years ago.

I guess my point is that we have a long way to go, and haven't come very far yet,
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[China]

Well, I think there will always be those parents that allow or even encourage their kids to play, despite the dangers. Why? I'm sure there will be various reasons ranging from ignorance (both the plain and willful kind) to poverty. If there is a chance their kid could get a scholarship worth 10s or 100s of thousands of dollars with the possibility of hitting the lottery and making millions in the pros, people will do it. To them it will be worth the risk.