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Ravens OL John Urschel, 26, retires abruptly, two days after CTE study

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Re: Ravens OL John Urschel, 26, retires abruptly, two days after CTE study

#211

Post by root_axis »

ApolloFortyNine wrote: post #158
heygrady wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Feeling camaraderie is not exclusive to football. I felt that same thing being in the marching band and playing soccer. It is a good thing for young people to belong to a team and work together to achieve a common goal. Because it's possible to experience the benefits of camaraderie without the risks of brain damage, it's sensible to question if football is too dangerous for children.

I made a response answering this over here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14867607 Basically, Football works you harder physically (strength), which makes the camaraderie that much stronger (you all overcame the same adversity).

Physicality is just one aspect of teamwork and camaraderie. Ever played in a (good) band? The levels of shared precision and intimacy required to synchronize on complex pieces of music for hours is difficult to put into words and certainly not to be taken lightly as far as camaraderie goes, you have to rely on the competence of your bandmates on a level that is relatively uncommon compared to most sports.

Re: Ravens OL John Urschel, 26, retires abruptly, two days after CTE study

#212

Post by LeifCarrotson »

pnathan wrote: post #196
ineptech wrote: post #34

Has "whether you let your kids play football" joined the long, long list of boolean values that separate members of the Red Tribe from the Blue Tribe? If not, I think it's inevitable that it will. Someone will try to get their school to close its football program, someone else will complain that the health dangers are exaggerated by the liberal media because football is a red-state passtime, and pretty soon it'll be…

Hard for me to say, as I live in Seattle, but American football love is definitely non-partisan here. But certain sports carry too high a risk for me to support my child getting into them before 16ish. They must have a glimmering of a perspective on what life means before choosing to engage in activities that are significantly likely to permanently damage themselves for life. Particularly for football , there are bra…

> skiing, running, or mountain biking, that is fine

Perhaps it's not a red or blue split, but those sports you listed are definitely on one side of a major class divide. Basketball and football are moving towards the other. And while I understand that a competition between some farm hicks and big-city boys can bring two groups together, access to sports like skiing is fairly exclusive.

Re: Ravens OL John Urschel, 26, retires abruptly, two days after CTE study

#213

Post by jacquesm »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #184
brandall10 wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's worth reading his 2015 article "Why I Still Play Football": https://www.theplayerstribune.com/why-i-play-football/ . Regarding mathematics as a career and his outlook on the financial issue - "I have a bright career ahead of me in mathematics. Beyond that, I have the means to make a good living and provide for my family, without playing football. I have no desire to try to accumulate $10 million in the bank; I a…

That is the secret to happiness as far as I am concerned; measure your days by how much you've learned not by how much you have earned. Interesting to know about the retirement 'vest' of 3 years. If he lives another 60 years that is a bit more than $1.25M.

> measure your days by how much you've learned not by how much you have earned.

That is a beautiful quote.

Re: Ravens OL John Urschel, 26, retires abruptly, two days after CTE study

#214

Post by Hannan »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #184
brandall10 wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's worth reading his 2015 article "Why I Still Play Football": https://www.theplayerstribune.com/why-i-play-football/ . Regarding mathematics as a career and his outlook on the financial issue - "I have a bright career ahead of me in mathematics. Beyond that, I have the means to make a good living and provide for my family, without playing football. I have no desire to try to accumulate $10 million in the bank; I a…

That is the secret to happiness as far as I am concerned; measure your days by how much you've learned not by how much you have earned. Interesting to know about the retirement 'vest' of 3 years. If he lives another 60 years that is a bit more than $1.25M.

> If he lives another 60 years that is a bit more than $1.25M

Over $7 million if he can get 5% annually.

Re: Ravens OL John Urschel, 26, retires abruptly, two days after CTE study

#215

Post by ovulator »

qq66 wrote: post #166
yelnatz wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are those guaranteed? Do you lose endorsements when you quit playing?

Each contract is individual, but generally, endorsement contracts have a lot of termination clauses, so Bose could and will end the deal soon, unless Urschel's brand is so unique (MIT math PhD and NFL player? Nothing like it) that they decide to keep him on.

I think MIT math PhD former NFL Player has just as much marketing power as MIT math PhD backup center. So I could see Bose keeping it for a year. He probably has more star power announcing his retirement than all of his NFL career so far.

Re: Ravens OL John Urschel, 26, retires abruptly, two days after CTE study

#216

Post by learc83 »

dragontamer wrote: post #138
learc83 wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Boxing, MMA The biggest difference is that most parents don't sign their kids up for Boxing in kindergarten. I was a big kid (I'm 6'5" now), and I live in the south, so of course my parents signed me up to play football at 6. In other sports where kids start very young, like soccer, the contact injuries are usually a result of accidents. You aren't trying to slam into people at full speed.

Its pretty common to use your head to physically stop or even change the direction of the ball in Soccer. There are accidents of course, but the standard norms of Soccer still don't seem very healthy for the brain. I'm aware of the "Football towns" across USA. Basketball is bigger in my area though, which might be why I hear more about Basketball-related injuries.

Youth soccer in America has rules against heading the ball. Under 11 can't do it at all, and there are time limits and incidence limits for kids older than that (though it probably needs to be outright banned for minors).

In addition to concussions, football players are also believed to receive repeated microtrauma from running into each other repeatedly, which contributes to CTE.

Football is a full contact sport. In games and in training, you are repeatedly slamming into people at full speed. There is nothing comparable in soccer or basketball outside of accidents (which by nature of being accidents happen much less frequently).

Re: Ravens OL John Urschel, 26, retires abruptly, two days after CTE study

#217

Post by evilduck »

sosborn wrote: post #170
sjg007 wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dude. Multiple blows to the head causes CTE. And it starts as early as high school which is when tackle football starts. At this point it is immoral and unethical to have tackle football in schools.

It isn't immoral or unethical to have sports where long-term injury can occur. Using that metric we would have to ban all sports. What is unethical is not educating the participants of the risks. We need to push for more studies and education, not bans.

We (society) typically require someone reach a certain age of consent before we allow participation in life-altering activities. e.g. drinking, smoking, driving, enlistment, marriage, tattoos, etc.

A 13 year old jr. high schooler who wants to play for their school's football team isn't able to fully assess and weigh the risks of long term brain injuries from an activity. Maybe parental education and consent is enough for some people, but at the same time, we flat out don't allow parental consent to buy cigarettes at age 13 either even if there are parents that would allow it.

Re: Ravens OL John Urschel, 26, retires abruptly, two days after CTE study

#218

Post by camiller »

Azkar wrote: post #180
cr0sh wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A couple or so year ago, Budweiser (or one of the other large beer companies) had a display at the grocery store I frequented depicting the concept of large anthropomorphic robots playing the game. Imagine high-speed, large scale robo-soccer - for football. I am not a sports fan in general, but I would watch the hell out of such a game if it could be created. Especially if everything was fully autonomous, and teams w…

You should check out Rocket League.

Or the "so bad it's good" movie Robot Jox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robot_Jox

Re: Ravens OL John Urschel, 26, retires abruptly, two days after CTE study

#219

Post by mcgrath_sh »

dragontamer wrote: post #52

Football may get a lot of study recently, because its one of the most popular sports. But Basketball injuries can ruin you for life as well. I have a cousin who has severe amnesia after getting knocked out during a Basketball match. Its like years of his life were wiped away after his concussion. He was a straight-A student too, these sorts of things are severely damaging to your student career. Brain injuries exist…

Any head injury in all sports (or not sports for that matter) are incredibly devastating. That being said, what happened to your cousin (I am sorry about that) is an anomaly in basketball. Most basketball injuries are to legs then hands/arms. Concussions are rare in basketball. Not so much in football.

In my view, there is a very big line between head and spine injuries and any other physical issues long term. Today, people can have artificial hip and knee joints that are acceptable for every day life. If an athlete wants to destroy his legs in exchange for millions, I have no real issues with that. I start to struggle when these guys are doing lasting, unseen, and irreparable damage to their brains. It has become harder and harder for me to watch football over the last 5 years. I watch 85-90% less football than I used to. Most of this time has gone onto watching soccer (which does have some concussion issues of its own) and basketball. I don't think that LeBron James is comprising his future each play he runs. I did feel that way while watching each down in an NFL game.

Re: Ravens OL John Urschel, 26, retires abruptly, two days after CTE study

#220

Post by learc83 »

camiller wrote: post #204
raverbashing wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Love how some misinformed fact like that appears out of thin air, then becomes "truth"

Would you be ok with "nearly as bad" "Based on the national estimate, the majority of concussions resulted from participation in football (40.5%, n = 55 007), followed by girls' soccer (21.5%, n = 29 167), boys' soccer (15.4%, n = 20 929),..." So 40.5% of concussions in football and 36.9% in combined boys/girls soccer. source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2140075/

Looks like there are about 3 times more kids playing soccer than tackle football. I'd say a 3x lower concision rate isn't close to "nearly as bad".

In addition to concussions, football players are also believed to receive repeated microtrauma from running into each other repeatedly, which contributes to CTE.

Football is a full contact sport. It is inherently more dangerous. Collisions in soccer happen accidentally. They happen intentionally in football.

In addition there are new restrictions on heading the ball in soccer for younger kids, which will likely make the game a bit safer.

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