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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

#271

Post by lucaspiller »

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #210
ChuckMcM wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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. Yet the vast majority of the time, this sentiment comes from people who are well-off, e.g. someone with an MIT PhD and an almost impossible-to-screw-up future. There are at least two possibilities. Either people who aren't well-off are just sour grapes, or they deal with a lot more t…

I live in a post-Soviet country - maybe one of the best in terms of GDP. Compared to the US it's basically the opposite end of the spectrum in terms of how much money you need to live - healthcare is free, you can rent an ok apartment on not much more than minimum wage, unemployment is below the EU average, transport is cheap (and public transport is good), food and entertainment isn't expensive.

Yet people still like to complain about how everything is too expensive and how they have no money. People here are miserable and we have one of the highest alcohol consumption and suicide rates in Europe.

I'm not really sure what point I'm trying to make, but as you say happiness is complicated. Giving everyone $X/year more isn't suddenly going to make them happier.

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

#272

Post by jpttsn »

heygrady wrote: post #132
jpttsn wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How? Does nationwide political sentiment turn on HN comments?

Prescribing someone to a "tribe" based on some kind of arbitrary test is divisive. Examples: - People with red hats on are my friends - People that like chocolate ice cream are idiots - People who let their children play football are Trump voters

Pretty sure we're talking past one another here. Thought experiment: if I describe a topic in the forest, and nobody is there to hear it, am I still being divisive?

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

#273

Post by learc83 »

camiller wrote: post #256
learc83 wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. T…

In 2016 (in the US) 1.08 million students participated in high school football while 821,851 participated in soccer. I don't have stats available for middle school, but earlier than that the players don't hit nearly as hard, as they have considerable lower mass and speed. Not sure where your 3x number comes from, but I don't think we need to include YMCA recreational league soccer any more than we need to include fla…

3x is the total number of youth participants in soccer vs total youth participants in tackle football.

I didn't see that your study was high school and college only.

It seems that girls suffer much higher rates of concussions in all sports likely do to less developed neck muscles according to this [1].

So you'd have to compare concussion rate in football vs boys soccer to get a real comparison.

[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/recruiting-insider/wp/20...

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

#274

Post by mmjaa »

schnable wrote: post #54
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…

Football is hardly part of the culture wars.

Of course it is. There is no reason for these antics, if not for the sake of culture.

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

#275

Post by kelnos »

castratikron wrote: post #151
QuotedForTruth wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the point is he isn't "set for life" like some may expect NFL players to be.

If he put $1M in a bond fund, he could probably expect to get around $40k a year on the interest alone. He would only pay 10% capital gains tax on that, which would leave him with $36k. Well above his $25k yearly budget. The bachelor lifestyle is cheap.

Hell, he could put it in a municipal/tax-exempt bond fund and at the very least not pay federal taxes. If he lives in a state that has a state-specific bond fund, he could let it grow tax-free. 3-4% on one of those is not unreasonable. (But he'd probably want to diversify a bit...)

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

#276

Post by Paul-ish »

sjg007 wrote: post #142
meri_dian wrote: post #115

He clearly loves math so the CTE study may just have been the straw that broke the camel's back. He may have been yearning to fully devote himself to math for a while now. Regarding the broader debate that seems to be swirling along the lines of 'should we ban Football or not', I strongly believe we should not. If parents want to prevent their kids from playing football, great, that's their choice to make. But if the…

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.

I think a more nuanced approach, eg the Zack Lystedt law is appropriate until we under stand the science better.

The key part of that law is that athletes must be taken out if they are suspected of a concussion, and they can't play until they are cleared by a qualified professional. Unless and until we find scientific evidence that it is the absolute number of concussions in someone's lifetime, and not back to back concussions without recovery, that cause CTE this seems appropriate.

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

#277

Post by [deleted] »

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.

[deleted]

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

#278

Post by willhslade »

nshelly wrote: post #197
ThrustVectoring wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's set for life if he keeps his expenses at $25k/yr. $1.8MM / $25k = 72. Even if he loses half to taxes, that's still 36 years worth of expenses in assets. If I had that much, I'd retire in a heartbeat.

On the cumulative salary of $1.8m over three years he's looking at an effective rate of around 35%. But he definitely won't lose half of his pension to taxes. That's one of the main advantages is that is spread out over a number of years. The NFL, with all its faults in neglecting players health, was wise to set players up with pensions.

Um, what?

Doesn't the average NFL player have a life expectancy of 53-59, and you can only collect the pension after 55? They can move it foward starting at age 35.

Cynical me says it's a political nothing burger.

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

#279

Post by heygrady »

heyheyhey wrote: post #122
trowawee wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not true. They're both bad, but football has higher rates of concussion. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2140075/

It's a start but USSoccer limits heading up to age 13: http://www.ussoccer.com/about/recognize-to-recover/concussio... "Eliminating heading for children 10 and under Limiting the amount of heading in practice for children between the ages of 11 and 13"

This is an easy step that soccer has taken to reduce the occurrences of brain injuries. Anyone who is confused on this issue should note that any jostling of the brain can cause minor, short-term brain damage. It's bad enough to bounce a relatively soft soccer ball off your head to warrant removing the practice from the sport, especially for younger players.

Other sports, like football, present a much harder challenge. Even if you remove direct head contact as a variable, most aspects of tackling can result in concussions. The reason football is uniquely controversial is that minor concussions are mostly inevitable and severe concussions are commonplace.

By contrast, the most likely way to get a concussion in soccer is to head the ball, which isn't fundamental to gameplay. In any sport, you might run into another player at high speed but that's not typically a core part of the gameplay. Football is controversial because it's hard to fix.

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

#280

Post by kasey_junk »

maxxxxx wrote: post #242
fgonzag wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least in the USA it is in no way FU money unless you are over 60 or something. Assuming you invested it all and didn't spend a single cent, that's 12K a year from interest (generous 7%). You can probably spend 30-40K for 30 years if you decide to dip into the principal. But if you are young, you will have to get a main income source.

You probably can't live on it solely but together with the pension it gives you the freedom to find a job you like even if it's low pay.

Pension doesn't pay out until 55
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