OT: Antwaan Randle El wishes he played baseball
Antwaan Randle El, one of the best players in B1G history, and arguably Indiana's finest football player, now wishes he had played baseball instead of football.
"I ask my wife things over and over again, and she's like, 'I just told you that,'" Randle El said to the newspaper. "I'll ask her three times the night before and get up in the morning and forget. Stuff like that. I try to chalk it up as I'm busy, I'm doing a lot, but I have to be on my knees praying about it, asking God to allow me to not have these issues and live a long life. I want to see my kids raised up. I want to see my grandkids."
Wow, if this isn't a damning indictment on where things might be headed with former players.
I still love Michigan football, but when Ditka said he wouldn't let his own kid play football, that convinced me that the sport might be in trouble in the long term.
January 19th, 2016 at 6:19 PM ^
January 19th, 2016 at 6:23 PM ^
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January 19th, 2016 at 6:25 PM ^
January 19th, 2016 at 6:25 PM ^
January 19th, 2016 at 6:57 PM ^
yes, I'm sure high school football players can look at potential consequences of their actions on the football field objectively. Unfortunately nobody thinks stuff like this will happen to them, even if there is more awareness about this kind of stuff than before.
January 19th, 2016 at 11:35 PM ^
January 19th, 2016 at 8:22 PM ^
I'm surprised the article doesn't mention that Antwaan Randle El was drafted in the 14th round out of high school by the Chicago Cubs.
http://www.thebaseballcube.com/draft/research.asp?Y=1997&P=June-Reg&R=1…
He might have gone even higher if he didn't have a football scholarship waiting for him. He played a few games for Indiana, but football practice kept him from ever being a full time player there.
January 19th, 2016 at 11:02 PM ^
January 19th, 2016 at 11:06 PM ^
Wow; I don't know how I missed that.
January 19th, 2016 at 6:27 PM ^
This stuff makes me feel like a dick for being a football fan...
January 19th, 2016 at 7:39 PM ^
http://espn.go.com/video/clip?id=espn:8887023
I felt the same way after watching this OTL segment about Leroy Hoard.
January 20th, 2016 at 7:39 AM ^
Times in South Quad back on the day. Really perceptive guy.
January 19th, 2016 at 6:28 PM ^
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January 19th, 2016 at 7:03 PM ^
Boxing went from one of the country's premier sports to almost entirely irrelevant in the span of a couple of decades. Not a great example. No one is afraid of football being banned. But we'll likely see a reduction in the number of players and therefore a reduction in the product on the field as athletes opt for less dangerous sports.
Especially considering how much more money you can make playing baseball, while also not cutting decades off of your life. At some point the NFL owners will have to pony up more than they are.
January 19th, 2016 at 7:29 PM ^
Boxing hasn't disappeared because of the dangers involved. Blame the greedy people running it.
January 19th, 2016 at 11:44 PM ^
Can't it be both?
People aren't lining up for MMA either? It's more popular, but it's not like it's one of the major sports around the world (or even in the US) from a public perception standpoint.
The brutality in combat sports isn't nearly as popular as it was at one point.
The brutality in football are certainly going to turn people off, but I personally don't see it ever falling like boxing has. Too much money, too much personal allegiance, the entertainment value, etc. - plus, there are PLENTY of people who watch football who aren't looking to watch a big hit.
In fact, I have no way of proving it...but I'd say if you took the % of people who watch football just for the big hit. Versus the % of people who watch NASCAR for a crash, or hockey for a fight, or boxing/MMA for a knockout...football would be the lowest.
Anyway, the people running boxing definitely ruined it...but it really never had a shot in today's culture. Just like golf. Unless there's something we've never seen, like a woman who's going to dominate the PGA...it's just not going to happen for that sport.
Once sport I'm actually surprised that hasn't grown even more than it has...lacrosse. It's super regionalized right now. But lacrosse has many of the things people are looking for in team sports right now. It'll be interesting to see how that sport does over the years.
January 19th, 2016 at 7:31 PM ^
Boxing largely has become irrelevant becuase of (a) the growth of MMA (which is a bloodier, more violent boxing), (b) the lack of really compelling personalities, especially at heavyweight, (c) the growing public perception that boxing is only slightly more legitimate than pro wrestling as far as fixed matches go, and (d) the ability of elite boxers to choose their opponent and the resulting belief that champions duck top opponents, so we never get to see the fights we REALLY want. I don't think it's as a result of people losing their taste for violence or deciding "man, all these punches must be really bad for boxers long term, i'm going to stop supporting this", it's just that many fans have moved onto other things. Not sure boxing's downfall is a particularly good comparison.
January 19th, 2016 at 8:16 PM ^
It also hasn't helped that there are 18 different boxing weight classes, which means unless you're a serious boxing junkie, it can be difficult to keep track of where everyone stands and who the current champ is.
January 19th, 2016 at 9:42 PM ^
"(a) the growth of MMA (which is a bloodier, more violent boxing),"
Bloodier and more violent - but quite likely to cause significantly less brain injury issues.
The worst thing in boxing for brain injuries is glove weight. Bare knuckle boxing is much bloodier, but much safer from a brain injury standpoint.
January 20th, 2016 at 1:27 AM ^
#1 Pay-per-view as the only means of seeing anything close to a championship fight.
As a kid, I watched Muhammad Ali, Joe Frazier, George Foreman, Ken Norton, etc. on network TV. Ordinary Americans could identify with them because they saw them in their living rooms.
Now it costs a significant amount of money to see the fights, and consequently, only the boxing junkies pay up. Which created a mass market death spiral in which ordinary Americans (like me) don't have favorite fighters, and thus no matter the ESPN hype, any fight is just between a couple of guys at best talked about on SportsCenter. (This coming from a guy who paid $25 to see Hearns/Leonard I.)
Who's the heavyweight champ? I couldn't tell you. That response would be unthinkable to a general sports fan when I was a kid in the 70s.
January 19th, 2016 at 7:07 PM ^
January 19th, 2016 at 7:33 PM ^
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January 19th, 2016 at 8:13 PM ^
January 19th, 2016 at 8:19 PM ^
Kinda hard to tell which sport is which in this example....just sayin
January 19th, 2016 at 8:27 PM ^
It's generally known that MMA leads to more "minor" but graphic injuries in terms of cuts, bruising, hemotomas, that sort of thing and that boxing has less of that but more concussions and brain injuries. Boxing gloves are way heavier than MMA gloves and this increased weight leads to more internal head trauma. Also, as you say, the amount of non-striking in an average MMA match is way more than an average boxing match so there's less opportunities for a head trauma shot.
January 19th, 2016 at 8:47 PM ^
I see fewer and fewer HS teams. Some smaller schools have already started having trouble fielding teams. It's a trend that will only get stronger. Schools are going to have a tough time adequately explaining the risks and what they do to minimize them. It's not easy to stay on top of the latest research, but that should be part of their responsibility. Perhaps HS football will be largely supplanted by youth leagues.
College football is in the trickiest position. What the NfL does is straightforward. They offer money to grown men to assume risks. They can quit at any time. Colleges offer an education to HS students. That's their basic mission, but many football players can only get that education if they agree to play football for four years. A lot of scholarship offers go to players they would not accept as students otherwise. Then they sell them on how their degree and connections will give them a great career even if they never make the NFL. It can be an uncomfortable arrangement under normal circumstances. Add in increasing awareness of the risks these players are asked to take. It won't be too long before a school drops football citing this as the reason. It won't be a big time school. It'll probably be one that loses money on football. But it will draw a lot of attention and it won't be the last. It's easy to see some Power 5 schools like Northwestern going that path.
January 19th, 2016 at 9:28 PM ^
January 19th, 2016 at 6:31 PM ^
I'll never forget when I saw an interview with Earl Campbell maybe 5-7 years after his retirement. He had the movement of an 80 year old. Randle-El hits the nail on the head in the article: football players are in a car wreck every week. There's no correcting it with fancy helmets.
January 19th, 2016 at 6:33 PM ^
January 19th, 2016 at 6:41 PM ^
I think they can change tackling, especially in open space, to something closer to rugby as many have suggested, and things seem to already be trending in that direction.
But the helmet-to-helmet hits on every play up on the line, i.e. the repetitive sub-concussive hits that are most strongly implicated in CTE, I just don't see how those ever get addressed. Maybe we just land at better long-term health care benefits for NFL retirees. IDK, man. It's sad the way these guys get wrecked.
January 19th, 2016 at 6:49 PM ^
Could additional padding (like those oversized helmets a couple of guys wore) help with subconcussive hits? They might not do much for the really high-speed hits to the head, but I could maybe see them helping reduce the impact of the minor blows.
January 19th, 2016 at 9:21 PM ^
got nuthin' on this guy
January 19th, 2016 at 11:30 PM ^
January 20th, 2016 at 4:25 AM ^
January 19th, 2016 at 7:29 PM ^
I am no expert on how the laws pf physics intersect with CTE and consussions - even though I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night, but seriously just a thought - if we keep adding more padding, etc., will it make people more reckless and encourage more helmet-to-helmet hits ("they are more padded, so safer, right"), or could the answer be to get rid of all the helmets, padding, including shoulder pads, and even cleats so as to slow down some of the players and not encourage such physically punishing hits??? Just a thought, as like most on here I would hate to lose the game we all love.
January 19th, 2016 at 7:38 PM ^
Well, if they keep cracking down on targeting that should hopefully offset any tendency to be even more reckless. Clearly, though, they need to establish coherent guidelines (beyond "It's only a penalty if a Michigan guy does it").
January 19th, 2016 at 8:48 PM ^
It's shameful how inconsistently targeting is being called. It is a rule that has immense potential to protect players and make the game safer. But the way it has been going over the last season, I can't imagine the rule continuing to exist. People will not stand for it if the enforcement is arbitrary and carpricious.
January 19th, 2016 at 8:00 PM ^
I actually think the "get rid of the pads" (or move to rugby style minimist padding) approach has a certain degree of logic. People will be way less inclined to headhunt and lead with their head if there's nothing there giving a sense of safety. I don't see it happening in our current world, but it does make a kind of sense.
January 19th, 2016 at 8:11 PM ^
The only real way to do this would be to start at the lowest levels and allow the younger kids to learn the rugby type of tackling. If we converted to less padding over the off season in the NFL, NCAA, and maybe even high school I think we'd see a lot of pretty gruesome head injuries.
January 19th, 2016 at 8:29 PM ^
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January 19th, 2016 at 8:08 PM ^
January 19th, 2016 at 6:45 PM ^
January 19th, 2016 at 9:30 PM ^
January 19th, 2016 at 6:35 PM ^
CTE is a major problem. Unless a biological agent is developed that can offset the pathology of a brain sloshing around in someone's head, I think the game is in big danger. Knowing what I know now, my kids would never have played football.
It sounds like the path that Randle-el is going down isn't going to be a fun one....hopefully things turn out well for him.
January 19th, 2016 at 6:54 PM ^
IMO, the only way they are going to be able to keep football remotely like it is is if someone figures out a "stem cell cocktail" that allows brain and nerve cells to regenerate.
January 19th, 2016 at 7:29 PM ^
January 19th, 2016 at 8:46 PM ^
Stem cell therapy probably wouldn't work in this instance
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