Malcolm Gladwell: Why College Football Should Be Outlawed

Guys, we're maiming our players in the name of school spirit.

But seriously.  He seems alright with pro football "as long as the risks are explicit, the players warned, and those injured properly compensated."  I somehow doubt that kids coming to a D-1 school to play football are unaware of the risks.  Proper compensation?  $200,000 in tuition.

I've never understood this argument. At some point, people should just accept that football is dangerous and move on. If you don't want to get hurt, don't play. I'm sure many people will be willing to take the risk of injury to play the game they love. 

but it's common knowledge that football players (and many other sports) accept the risk of injury every game while all colleges offer the ability to get a college degree for free (ok not all; Saban). I can't see any lawsuits going anywhere with this just because no one is forcing anyone to play and the risk of injury is extremely well known nowadays

I desperately wanted to play football in high school in 1955.  I had had two prior rather serious concussions, one as a result of a bicycle accident where I was unconscious for 9 hours in the hospital; and another diving into the knee of another baseball  player trying to catch a pop fly.  Even back then my General Practitioner doctor wouldn't let my parents let me play.  The seriousness of concussions is not new.

Gladwell doesn't know what he's talking about. As usual.

Malcolm Gladwell is trash pop-psychology/sociology.  God, I can't believe this motherfucker gets paid to write/talk.  Just looking at a picture of him makes me want to break my screen.

Gladwell's nothing but a damned Chicken Little...reminds me of the idiots selling books and dithering on and on about Y2K in the late '90s, only instead of planes falling out of the sky, now it's football disappearing because of lawsuits and the mass of football fans "realizing" that everything they knew about football is wrong.

The dude couldn't get into grad school but now he flits from topic to topic, studying each for a few months and then pontificating as though he's some expert. 

The people listening to and believing him are the equivalent of those who stockpiled ammunition, water, batteries, and canned food for the anarchy that Y2K was going to bring.

One of the items I caught over the weekend dealt with a current class action suit started or in large part organized through Lomas Brown and is the first to cite the Saints bounty program as evidence of a lack of protection on the part of the NFL.  http://www.usatoday.com/sports/football/nfl/story/2012-04-16/Saints-bounty-lawsuit/54317976/1

One of the points from the panel on that discussion felt the single largest hurdle is going to be uncovering direct evidence of a conspiracy to withhold information and educate the players on the dangers of concussions and intentionally withheld information.  

Pending any additional change in the scope, I am going to venture to guess that the only real changes will be a few additional hold harmless forms for high schools, colleges and professional ranks.  At the end of the day, players want to play the game and should know the risks.  I have had at least 3-4 concussions from high school through college and a few since that during my time in the Army, Krav classes, etc.  That is on top of dislocated shoulders, seperations, broken bones etc. If you play hard, things happen.  

We're going to have laws against playing? I'd love to see these enforced on playgrounds across America. Sorry, kids, you'll have to jump off a swingset or play basketball on blacktop or play whatever other dangerous games kids play these days.

If football goes, boxing/MMA and hockey are obviously out the window as well, and obviously rugby won't ever become popular on this side of the pond.

Sounds like a solid plan, really.

Edit: Also goodbye skydiving, bungee jumping, rockclimbing, every sport in the X Games, skiing, snowboarding, NASCAR, and on and on and on.

This fool can think think all he wants. Never is going to happen. Never. Period, end of story.

If it does happen, than I guess we're living in the second coming of the Soviet Union.

"As long as the risks are explicit, the players warned, and those injured properly compensated, then I'm not sure we can stop people from playing. A better question is whether it is ethical to WATCH football. That's a harder question."

I love football, therefore my ethics could be in question, if that's what he's getting at. Nice.

I never played, but I am pretty sure the folks on the field where I am or on the television I am watching understand what they face, and at least intellectually, those of us watching the games, live or on television, understand the risk of serious injury. Considering the voluminous amount of research and constant coverage, this is a hard aspect of playing the game to ignore.  Some choose to play anyway.

I am pretty sure if I were watching 22 players on the field who did not understand that they could be hurt playing a game, then I would perhaps feel bad for enjoying the sport, but as this isn't the case, then to say that there is an ethical question at all doesn't hold water, in my opinion. Further, I don't sit in my seat or on my  couch hoping for someone to get injured - THAT is unethical, in my estimation. They aren't sending drones out there,  but self-aware people capable of assessing the risks. They choose to play. 

To me, it's watching people achieve goals, both individual and communal, and taking pride in these achievements. It involves the risk of injury, but unless that's what you're there  to see, then I see no issues. 

We should just outlaw any risky activity.  We could then just sit at home on the floor (sitting on the couch increases the risk of a head injury from a fall) and turn into puddles of goo.

Individual freedom is way overrated anyhow.  It's best if the nanny state dictates how we live our every moment.

Listen,  Gladwell is a really good writer. His ideas aren't incredibly original, though, and this one isn't either. I would argue that there is a really good case for football to be seperated from college, but that won't happen because of the percieved benefits of having a football team. Isn't this argument saying that 18 year olds are incapable of planning for the future? Thats true, but it doesn't make them any less accountable for their actions. 

would be that this is the kind of argument smaller schools (you know which ones I mean) like to make to explain why a school like Michigan isn't as good as they are, because it likes sports (ewwwww), and they have "better" priorities.

To me, it's ridiculous. In all fairness, many of these athletes might not have another path to college, even for monetary reasons, and use football to get a free education. Also somewhat cynically, they usually become the most monetarily successful alumni, and can donate accordingly. They were students once, as well. Even outside of the context of an academically strong school like Michigan, where football still helps spread our name, increase applications, etc., think of a counterexample. Look at a school like Middle Tennesse State - who has heard of it for anything, academic or athletic? Look at OSU, then. While we might not like them, they have managed to build a big name for themselves based on basically football alone, with some recent basketball success. I guess my point is that if athletes can go to college for free, and schools benefit as well, and everyone knows the risks inherent, what's the problem?

I wrote a blog post about this in the aftermath of the Saints bounty scandal. Essentially, I do think there is water to the arguement that football is on the track to become this centuries boxing. Injuries will force parents to shuttle their kids into safer activites. 

Also, wouldn't the schools be open lawsuits based on tricking students into thinking that this is safe, or at least not pressing the need for safety. Yeah people LOVED smoking back when the cigarette companies advertised that they were healthy for you, or at least hid the pertinent healthcare information. 

I dislike Gladwell. I love football. I do think he may be onto something. 

I'm ready to be corrected on this, but the worst brain damage cases (maybe it's just the ones that get the most attention) are for players who had been in the NFL.

I think the NFL's model is a big part of the problem.  The season is too long -- almost twice as long as college when exhibitions are included, and the players are too big and strong.  It's been years since I could really enjoy watching the NFL -- it just seems like too much of a meat grinder.

If they were to ask me, I'd say cut the regular season back to fourteen games and eliminate exhibitions entirely.  Football is dangerous enough that it seems absurd to play a whole lot of games that don't count in the standings, and a shorter season means fewer collisions and less damage.  It's a bit of a balancing act, there's a lot of demand for the NFL's product, but I think less would be more here.  Then I'd suggest they add at least one more bye week so players get another chance to heal up during the season.

One thing that we might have to consider would be weight limits.  You can't make players slower but you can measure weight and say this guy is too big.  That might reduce the force of a lot of collisions.  I would say that the league has to really be on top of performance-enhancing drugs too, both because of the way that artificially enhanced brawn make for more forceful collisions, and because the PEDs can have really nasty side effects on players too.  The players union needs to be ready to cooperate here.

Another thing that needs to be rethought is youth football.  We've got kids playing tackle football at nine, years before the brain case is completely formed (at around age twelve) and I can't wonder if that might be contributing.

The one smart thing that the NFL has done is replace the artificial turf with real grass or more grass-like surfaces.  I suspect that a lot of damage was done by guys hitting the turf hard -- the old turf didn't have a lot of give to it.

My guess is that football can probably be saved, but we need to be mindful that football is violent, and that body and brain can only take so much punishment.

I realize that this statement should probably be prefaced with a lot of caveats and potential for backtracking, becuase there's a number of ways it could come back to bite me, but the truth is, I'm prepared to take that hit to make what I consider a positive change in our society happen.

Barring outright and baldfaced profiteering-based lies: I am sick of a society that operates from a makework for lawyers and public officials standpoint, and in doing so absolves people of personal responsibility.

"I didn't know that running into another person as hard as I could/playing with explosives/not reading the directions for my nail gun could cause me injury", is not a fair reason to make law, policy or a judicial decision. It is not a fair reason to award funds or rights.

We have become a society wherein common sense is no longer considdered common. It is leading to a state of common lack of sense.