The Power of the Football World:

IS THIS THE ONLY WAY OF DOING THINGS??

THE NFL- (Mega Company) Very Powerful. The NFL front office is known to be a money hungry office. With players getting fined for everything from wearing socks the wrong way all the way to murders and domestic cases. Of course these disciplined amount varies but they believe taking money in fines is the best way to get their point across.

OWNERS- Top 1%s, these are the powerful Men with enough money to bring a NFL teams to your city. NFL owners have to be on the same page as NFL and its financial rules, along with their Coaches and team personnel. Very important.

COACHES- NFL Coaches are paid top dollar to WIN or LOOSE, based on recent news. Some African American coaches were offered double there salary to Loose games, most likely for draft Capital or higher picks. But the correct way to hire a coach is based on qualification not color of skin. HIRE MORE BLACK COACHES!

TEAM PERSONNEL - Qualified Professionals, are use for Team doctors, Trainers, and Sports medicine interns. Also have to be in tuned with Coaches directly, then the coaches report to the owner of the franchise. On the other hand, there are also camera crew and photographers who are also at this level. Media is normal stationed by city, media personnel don’t usually travel with the team during away games.    

ATHLETES- Top 2%s of all athletes in the world. These professional gain and lose the most in this whole process. Why? Because NFL athletes dedicate their lives to reaching such goals. When most athletes get there, the average lifespan in the NFL is 3.5 years. More players are retiring at a younger age due to the more we know as a nation with concussions and CTE.

CONSUMER- FANS FANS FANS, can’t have a NFL league without the fans. This is where most of the revenue comes from. The most successful teams have GREAT fan bases to supports them.

AA

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The academic article I choose for my topic football was based on the study between the impact of football on the student athletes with educational impacting disabilities. Football has always been a sport that anyone can play. Blacks, whites, Hispanics, tall and short, skinny and fat, finally smart or slow everyone can truly play the sport. Personally, I do not have any disabilities other than dyslexic moments. Meaning, growing up I use to confuse my B’s and D’s when they were lowercase. Along with mixing up numbers occasionally, I prove to grow out of this thankfully. But the question that arise is what if I didn’t? What if it just got worse as I got older?

Well, I do not have an exact answer, but this academic article made me realize that those people are out there and many of them are still successful with their disabilities. In this study, within the article they have one division one program and nine random athletes selected from this division one program. Amongst these athletes’ researchers found out just from individual interviews that the average age of these athletes were 19.66 years of age. Also, with those two students was diagnosed with ADHD growing up, while one other student was diagnosed with Dyslexia. Now that we know 1/4 of those division one athletes selected have learning disabilities, it’s important to know that out of nine players tested for this private study. Approximately two of the young men were starters while the other two were backups and have seen some playing time already.

This is big because who says someone with a disability can’t be successful at the highest level of amateur football there is a.k.a. the Division One level. The main reason for this research in the first place is to show the positive effects of football. More specifically, how people who have trouble learning in the classroom can still be dominate on the gridiron. “Football helps participates focus, mature, and become better men in the process.”

United States of Football

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The documentary I chose to watch on behave of the word “football” is (The United States of Football). This was an academic documentary to update and spread awareness of the cause and effects of the NCAA And the NFL. The doc shows the view of football on every side, every level, along with providing a lot of great facts that were needed to know. In the first minute of the short doc, a quote popped up on the screen reading “I’m a Big Football Fan but…If I had a son, id have to think long and hard before I let him play football” -Barack Obama.

This sticks out to me because this is the former president of the United States, but also a huge sports fan who has played multiple sports in his day. Along with Obama saying this, many former NFL Hall of Famers are saying the exact same thing when asked the given question. Personally, this was more impactful hearing this from ex-HOF because these players have made it to football “heaven” as far as the highest accolades being achieved. Yet they will be quick to tell reporters they would never allow their children to play the sport that have changed a lot of lives good and bad.

Something that was very disturbing to learn about during the viewing of (United States of football) was the study of athletes at the pop warner, high school, and college levels. The study shed light on how many impacts are hard enough to be label as a concussion or close to one at least. The research has some interesting results when compared to each other, meaning the biggest hit reported between all three levels of football was two 6th graders in Pop Warner going head-to-head in a tackling drill, according to the data given. I was even more taken back because these kids are still learning the sport and probably are doing it because the love it. On the flip side, if I showed this to a young mother who was on the fence about letting her son play football. She would never let that young man step foot on a football field, just strictly based on concern for her son life and mental.

To wrap up this argument I believe I share a similar thought process as activist Dave Bradley, which is, the NFL would have to treat their business as the military. Put all risk, credible studies from private and public health officials, and disclaimers about football right on the front page. Stating all deaths of CTE including former players and coaches. After we do that let’s see how many young men and boys want to play football still. My guess is that number s will fall dramatically here in America.

Cancel the Season or Ride it out?

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While doing some research on (Allsides.com). I have learned some interesting things about the world of Football, and how Covid-19 has split people into two different parties. One being MONEY driven and the other party is HEALTH driven.

Everyone on the right-side main concern is the amount of revenue lost for the universities and private institutions. During the fall 2020 season two years ago. While everyone to the left is saying “what if” we have a season this fall, how will the institutions keep these student athletes safe? And to be honest that was my golden question at the time.

How do you keep Athletes safe while doing what they came to the university for? The answer is you can’t completely, it will always be some sort of risk especially on a college campus. The amount of interaction between student that don’t even play sports will concern me, and ultimately will have to decline If was a head coach or team official. The idea of keeping everyone involved in the program in a bubble just to lower the risk factor seems necessary in this case. For example, the NBA and how they proceeding to move everyone to a huge campus(bubble) in Florida away from families and loved ones for their own safety.

On the other side, the cancellation of football during the pandemic will result in a huge loss of tens of millions of dollars, maybe even more depending on television deals. I do understand the risk of cancelling the season personally, some schools are surviving strictly on that fact that they have successfully football programs. While this pandemic might cause some football programs to disappear or have a difficult time recovering from the hole it put them in. I understand both sides of argument, but I believe I am right in the middle, both sides have equal importance to the problem at hand.

Fast forward to present day, the NCAA did in fact cancel the fall season due to Covid-19. With that’s being said, CDC and the NCAA came up with ways to fight this sickness and still play, but it would mean additional of millions spent on face covers, plastic/glass screens, and health testing equipment. Along with playing a spring season instead of a fall one. This gave bigger Division one programs the opportunity to prepare for their student athletes and not just jump into this to see what happens.  This very way of operating proved to work, allowing schools to compete on a limited spring schedule or even cancelling games if that university specifically has a spike or outbreak of Covid-19.

Library Concussion  Research

Using the short film “Concussion and Future of Football “alongside the eBook “Fanatics: Power Identity and Fandom in Football”, I was able to research the power of Football. While researching, I learned a lot of new information.

The definition of a concussion, which according to Oxford Languages is temporary unconscious or confusion caused by a blow on the head, Along with the definition of CTE is Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy, this is the term used to describe brain degeneration likely caused  by repeated head traumas. There are two types of concussions, Immediate and delayed, both are still bad in my opinion, but the delayed will spook me out personally. Delayed has all the same symptoms of an immediate concussions but its symptoms are so low that they are often overlooked. Many players that have had these types of concussions, will go right back into competitive play, ultimately making a second concussion very likely and almost certain. Also, according to ” Concussion and Future of Football”most times when players have mild concussions, they call it a “ding” and keep playing or just shake it off. Researchers say if this has happened to you, report the hit or “ding” to medical personal nearby.

I thought it was interesting that women are more likely to self-diagnose a concussion over men. Why is this? well for starters men are men, we don’t like missing games or plays because of injury. Now that we know the problem, what did the NFL do about the rising issue? The NFL moved up the kickoff up five yards ultimately making touchbacks more common. While they rule was tested out the league still tried to “Spin the Data” in the media, “Concussions Declined due to the change, to kickoff rules”. This was a headline for a newspaper article back in 2011 after the 2010 rule change. the same new outlet stated in her opening paragraph, “the percentage dropped 43%”. This may sound promising to the average person just skimming the newspaper. But the numbers on kickoff didn’t drop very far, it went from 35 actual concussion to just about 20 concussions on kickoff.

Yes, that is a start for the NFL and yes, they are “trying” but the truth is most concussions during Football games are not on kickoff they are during Offense and Defensive plays. While we are speaking on this topic that number changed from 270 to 266 total concussion that year (2011).  The library system is organized towards the health portion of my topic but does not cover the ins and outs of everything. Yes, we have established the Red Flags in the sport of football, but there is slim research on how its effects people’s lives in a positive way. Along with why people decide to put their health on the line even after knowing what we know now.  

Power Of Football

Source: Oxford English Dictionary

According to OED.com Power is the ability to act or affect something strongly; Physical or mental strength; Vigor; energy; effectiveness. According to OEC.com Football is “The various games known in different parts of the English-speaking world as football all have their origins in the simple and largely unregulated versions played in medieval Britain. The Football Association and the Rugby Football Union, founded in 1863 and 1871 respectively, drew up rules for their preferred versions in the nineteenth cent., formalizing a distinction between games involving kicking a round ball and those in which players handle an oval ball.” In this blog we will be uncovering the ins and outs of the true Power of Americas favorite sport, Football. The beloved sport began way back in the 1800′s, but it was a whole lot different back then.

Many athletes today use football to get to the place they want to be. Universities sign their favorite young athletes to their respected programs, major reason for this is a mutual agreement between the two sides. The University is using the athletes for wins and bowl games, because bowl games turn into dollars for the program. On the other hand, athletes use their universities for development and publicity to get to the next level.

Some may believe the power of the NFL and the NCAA needs to change, most of the General managers and Head of offices in the league are old white guys who never played the sport. This brings me reason of concern because, how can they relate to their players playing for them. The answer is they don’t relate to them, some of these owners treat their guys like property or puzzle pieces and not like a human being with a family. Before I leave you guys, I want to leave you guys with some good questions for though. Why are most owners white? Why is the NCAA requirement for Draft ready kids are just 2 years and not all 4 or why not just 1 year? Which side is benefiting the most owners or Athletes?