floundersgreatadventure

So I read this article from ESPN about a football player that quit after one year his name was Chris Borland. He didn’t retire because he was hurt or wasn’t starting or was gay. He quit because he was concerned about turning into a vegetable. He was worried that if he kept playing and taking hits to the head and getting concussions that later in life he wouldn’t be able to talk to his kids. He doesn’t hate football just the violence. I love football and watched my brother play at Kings Point Merchant Marine academy. He started playing at Great Neck High School when the helmets were made of cardboard. He tore his knee up and back then you didn’t really come back from that kind of injury. He graduated because he was smart. Athletes are considered a commodity by schools, most aren’t concerned if they graduate or what happens to them after school. Chris Borland has received praise for his courage in giving up a career which would have given him a lot of money. He’s not running around bad mouthing football he just doesn’t want to be a flashpoint for what other people think is wrong with the game. My opinion of football hockey and other rather violent sports is they were never supposed to be gentleman’s games. I do think that it is necessary for better equipment but more importantly health care for the athletes during and after their careers. I have no delusions that because of the money that’s involved a lot will change about how the sport is played. People love to violence you know crashes at motor sport event or the highway for that matter. That violence is fine so long as they can watch and it doesn’t affect them. Parents support their children plying these sports until they suffer some horrendous injury then they become vocal about the inherent dangers that sport presents. I watched a lot of great athletes end their careers on the playing field they knew the risks and accepted them. I don’t think they thought when it was over that they would just be an article in Sports Illustrated. On this point I read an article years ago in that publication about a player for the Washington Redskins that went all threw school including college as a functional illiterate. Meaning he couldn’t read above a second grade level but he sure as hell could play football. His name was Dexter Manley he played from 1981 to 1991 take a moment and Google him. This is Flounder saying CIAO from Medellin, Colombia.