My husband and I were talking about this and wondering if there is privilege part where a Black player wouldn’t have been allowed to yet like this? I don’t really know but I always appreciate digging critically into this ritual of “Americanness.” Men screaming at each other with millions of people and dollars invested in this violence is just quintessential USA.
The repeated trauma to the brain has been documented and continues to be researched. It does horrible things to the players, who often die young, have radical personality changes, anger issues, and more. Some former players are now leaving their brains to science after they die so that research can be done. No helmet design that exists, prevents this. I actually used to like watching football but I can't watch it at all anymore.
I'm not saying this is the cause of the rage display, btw. Just that it's a reason not to participate in football as a viewer or especially as a player. Pro football takes young people who may not have a whole lot of other hope of changing their circumstances and starts them destroying their brains as children. Only a small percentage even make it to the NFL or anything close to it, but they've already done damage by that point.
"The team then looked at the relationships between these estimated impacts and CTE in 631 male brain donors who had previously played football. Results were published on June 20, 2023, in Nature Communications.
On average, the brain donors had played about 12 years of football and died at age 60. About 28%, or 180 of them, didn’t have evidence of CTE in their brains. Another 163 had low-stage CTE, and 288 had high-stage CTE. As seen in previous studies, the number of reported concussions wasn’t associated with CTE incidence or severity."
Thanks for sharing this. I found some of this when I went down the NFL rabbit hole a bit this week, and it looks like there is also a relationship bw brain damage and violent behavior as well. (Much of my research was on the prevalence of domestic violence by football players).
I did not come across these particular stats on CTE, though. Oof. I came across plenty on the racism of an org that is made up of 70% Black players who mostly take the hits, while coaches and owners who make billions are nearly all white--but I didn't think about how that impacts many kids and young men who never even make it to the NFL.
AGREE. I saw that his brother on their podcast apparently was like, "This is what happens when you have passionate individuals...you dont become the best tight end by being a reasonable person, you become the best by being a f*ing insane" and like UMMMMM what?! YIKES. Boys will be violent and explosive boys?!
You're making this sound much much worse not better, my dude.
Exactly. It's like, tell me that the NFL isn't a cesspool of toxic masculinity and violence without telling me....
Like, you'd hope that a healthy and respectful relationship between two adult men would *prevent a grown-ass man from charging into his mentor/coach and screaming in his face. The example that this sets to boys is WORRYING
The way we discussed it went something like this: “when you are good at something, they tell you to “give it all you’ve got”, but they don’t tell you when to stop. Especially boys. They don’t teach you how to handle your emotions, only to hide them, because they tell you that feelings aren’t valid and it’s a red flag or a weakness of yours show, especially if you are a woman. We crave sociopaths who feel nothing and just work without examining the pressures, public and private, and how those fall on individuals let alone teams. We don’t question if we really want to live in a society of sociopaths who never let emotion show, ever. Is it a red flag, or is it a conversation about what it would take for us to respond the way he did in our own lives? We are never allowed to crack, clearly Travis isn’t either and isn’t it interesting to be held to the same standard for once? For demanding a man explain himself after an outburst? How often does that happen?
I’m not giving Travis side-eye for losing his temper in front of a camera on the biggest night of his life, on the biggest stage imaginable, with THE largest audience he has ever had, and I’m not giving him credit by saying wow that’s the only time we’ve seen him slip. We say this would play out differently if he wasn’t white, and may not have even been noticed if he wasn’t dating America’s Sweetheart. The conversation we need to have is a much bigger one about capitalism and mental health and performance that we as a society aren’t yet ready for.”
My husband and I were talking about this and wondering if there is privilege part where a Black player wouldn’t have been allowed to yet like this? I don’t really know but I always appreciate digging critically into this ritual of “Americanness.” Men screaming at each other with millions of people and dollars invested in this violence is just quintessential USA.
Interesting question—Serena Williams certainly wasn’t allowed to!!
The repeated trauma to the brain has been documented and continues to be researched. It does horrible things to the players, who often die young, have radical personality changes, anger issues, and more. Some former players are now leaving their brains to science after they die so that research can be done. No helmet design that exists, prevents this. I actually used to like watching football but I can't watch it at all anymore.
I'm not saying this is the cause of the rage display, btw. Just that it's a reason not to participate in football as a viewer or especially as a player. Pro football takes young people who may not have a whole lot of other hope of changing their circumstances and starts them destroying their brains as children. Only a small percentage even make it to the NFL or anything close to it, but they've already done damage by that point.
Chronic traumatic encephalopathy - https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/how-football-raises-risk-chronic-traumatic-encephalopathy
"The team then looked at the relationships between these estimated impacts and CTE in 631 male brain donors who had previously played football. Results were published on June 20, 2023, in Nature Communications.
On average, the brain donors had played about 12 years of football and died at age 60. About 28%, or 180 of them, didn’t have evidence of CTE in their brains. Another 163 had low-stage CTE, and 288 had high-stage CTE. As seen in previous studies, the number of reported concussions wasn’t associated with CTE incidence or severity."
Thanks for sharing this. I found some of this when I went down the NFL rabbit hole a bit this week, and it looks like there is also a relationship bw brain damage and violent behavior as well. (Much of my research was on the prevalence of domestic violence by football players).
I did not come across these particular stats on CTE, though. Oof. I came across plenty on the racism of an org that is made up of 70% Black players who mostly take the hits, while coaches and owners who make billions are nearly all white--but I didn't think about how that impacts many kids and young men who never even make it to the NFL.
Tbh, it’s not being discussed enough and the way people are laughing it off or worse, applauding Kelce for his “passion”, is deeply worrying.
AGREE. I saw that his brother on their podcast apparently was like, "This is what happens when you have passionate individuals...you dont become the best tight end by being a reasonable person, you become the best by being a f*ing insane" and like UMMMMM what?! YIKES. Boys will be violent and explosive boys?!
You're making this sound much much worse not better, my dude.
I've seen a LOT of "this is just their relationship" (Kelce and coach) which... makes it worse, not better.
Exactly. It's like, tell me that the NFL isn't a cesspool of toxic masculinity and violence without telling me....
Like, you'd hope that a healthy and respectful relationship between two adult men would *prevent a grown-ass man from charging into his mentor/coach and screaming in his face. The example that this sets to boys is WORRYING
The way we discussed it went something like this: “when you are good at something, they tell you to “give it all you’ve got”, but they don’t tell you when to stop. Especially boys. They don’t teach you how to handle your emotions, only to hide them, because they tell you that feelings aren’t valid and it’s a red flag or a weakness of yours show, especially if you are a woman. We crave sociopaths who feel nothing and just work without examining the pressures, public and private, and how those fall on individuals let alone teams. We don’t question if we really want to live in a society of sociopaths who never let emotion show, ever. Is it a red flag, or is it a conversation about what it would take for us to respond the way he did in our own lives? We are never allowed to crack, clearly Travis isn’t either and isn’t it interesting to be held to the same standard for once? For demanding a man explain himself after an outburst? How often does that happen?
I’m not giving Travis side-eye for losing his temper in front of a camera on the biggest night of his life, on the biggest stage imaginable, with THE largest audience he has ever had, and I’m not giving him credit by saying wow that’s the only time we’ve seen him slip. We say this would play out differently if he wasn’t white, and may not have even been noticed if he wasn’t dating America’s Sweetheart. The conversation we need to have is a much bigger one about capitalism and mental health and performance that we as a society aren’t yet ready for.”