strollingbones
Diamond Member
seems doctors are beginning to realize the toll that continual hits to the head causes...
stop seeking the glory days thru your kids...stop letting them play a sport that can have long lasting effects on their brains...
Football, dog fighting, and brain damage : The New Yorker
ne evening in August, Kyle Turley was at a bar in Nashville with his wife and some friends. It was one of the countless little places in the city that play live music. Hed ordered a beer, but was just sipping it, because he was driving home. He had eaten an hour and a half earlier. Suddenly, he felt a sensation of heat. He was light-headed, and began to sweat. He had been having episodes like that with increasing frequency during the past yearheadaches, nausea. One month, he had vertigo every day, bouts in which he felt as if he were stuck to a wall. But this was worse. He asked his wife if he could sit on her stool for a moment. The warmup band was still playing, and he remembers saying, Im just going to take a nap right here until the next band comes on. Then he was lying on the floor, and someone was standing over him. The guy was freaking out, Turley recalled. He was saying, Damn, man, I couldnt find a pulse, and my wife said, No, no. You were breathing. Im, like, What? What?
They picked him up. We went out in the parking lot, and I just lost it, Turley went on. I started puking everywhere. I couldnt stop. I got in the car, still puking. My wife, she was really scared, because I had never passed out like that before, and I started becoming really paranoid. I went into a panic. We get to the emergency room. I started to lose control. My limbs were shaking, and I couldnt speak. I was conscious, but I couldnt speak the words I wanted to say.
Turley is six feet five. He is thirty-four years old, with a square jaw and blue eyes. For nine years, before he retired, in 2007, he was an offensive lineman in the National Football League. He knew all the stories about former football players. Mike Webster, the longtime Pittsburgh Steeler and one of the greatest players in N.F.L. history, ended his life a recluse, sleeping on the floor of the Pittsburgh Amtrak station. Another former Pittsburgh Steeler, Terry Long, drifted into chaos and killed himself four years ago by drinking antifreeze. Andre Waters, a former defensive back for the Philadelphia Eagles, sank into depression and pleaded with his girlfriendI need help, somebody help mebefore shooting himself in the head. There were men with aching knees and backs and hands, from all those years of playing football. But their real problem was with their heads, the one part of their body that got hit over and over again.
Lately, Ive tried to break it down, Turley said. I remember, every season, multiple occasions where Id hit someone so hard that my eyes went cross-eyed, and they wouldnt come uncrossed for a full series of plays. You are just out there, trying to hit the guy in the middle, because there are three of them. You dont remember much. There are the cases where you hit a guy and youd get into a collision where everything goes off. Youre dazed. And there are the others where you are involved in a big, long drive. You start on your own five-yard line, and drive all the way down the fieldfifteen, eighteen plays in a row sometimes. Every play: collision, collision, collision. By the time you get to the other end of the field, youre seeing spots. You feel like you are going to black out. Literally, these white explosionsboom, boom, boomlights getting dimmer and brighter, dimmer and brighter.
parents letting kids play football should be charged with child abuse....
in my opinion....
stop seeking the glory days thru your kids...stop letting them play a sport that can have long lasting effects on their brains...
Football, dog fighting, and brain damage : The New Yorker
ne evening in August, Kyle Turley was at a bar in Nashville with his wife and some friends. It was one of the countless little places in the city that play live music. Hed ordered a beer, but was just sipping it, because he was driving home. He had eaten an hour and a half earlier. Suddenly, he felt a sensation of heat. He was light-headed, and began to sweat. He had been having episodes like that with increasing frequency during the past yearheadaches, nausea. One month, he had vertigo every day, bouts in which he felt as if he were stuck to a wall. But this was worse. He asked his wife if he could sit on her stool for a moment. The warmup band was still playing, and he remembers saying, Im just going to take a nap right here until the next band comes on. Then he was lying on the floor, and someone was standing over him. The guy was freaking out, Turley recalled. He was saying, Damn, man, I couldnt find a pulse, and my wife said, No, no. You were breathing. Im, like, What? What?
They picked him up. We went out in the parking lot, and I just lost it, Turley went on. I started puking everywhere. I couldnt stop. I got in the car, still puking. My wife, she was really scared, because I had never passed out like that before, and I started becoming really paranoid. I went into a panic. We get to the emergency room. I started to lose control. My limbs were shaking, and I couldnt speak. I was conscious, but I couldnt speak the words I wanted to say.
Turley is six feet five. He is thirty-four years old, with a square jaw and blue eyes. For nine years, before he retired, in 2007, he was an offensive lineman in the National Football League. He knew all the stories about former football players. Mike Webster, the longtime Pittsburgh Steeler and one of the greatest players in N.F.L. history, ended his life a recluse, sleeping on the floor of the Pittsburgh Amtrak station. Another former Pittsburgh Steeler, Terry Long, drifted into chaos and killed himself four years ago by drinking antifreeze. Andre Waters, a former defensive back for the Philadelphia Eagles, sank into depression and pleaded with his girlfriendI need help, somebody help mebefore shooting himself in the head. There were men with aching knees and backs and hands, from all those years of playing football. But their real problem was with their heads, the one part of their body that got hit over and over again.
Lately, Ive tried to break it down, Turley said. I remember, every season, multiple occasions where Id hit someone so hard that my eyes went cross-eyed, and they wouldnt come uncrossed for a full series of plays. You are just out there, trying to hit the guy in the middle, because there are three of them. You dont remember much. There are the cases where you hit a guy and youd get into a collision where everything goes off. Youre dazed. And there are the others where you are involved in a big, long drive. You start on your own five-yard line, and drive all the way down the fieldfifteen, eighteen plays in a row sometimes. Every play: collision, collision, collision. By the time you get to the other end of the field, youre seeing spots. You feel like you are going to black out. Literally, these white explosionsboom, boom, boomlights getting dimmer and brighter, dimmer and brighter.
parents letting kids play football should be charged with child abuse....
in my opinion....
