In The Backswing

It takes a certain kind of fan to go to a golf tournament.  When you watch golf on television, it is a dynamic thing.  You see all the golfers at all the holes; there is always action.  When you go to a tournament to watch golf live, this is not the case.  You watch all the golfers at one spot, maybe two, depending on the tournament.  It takes a dedicated fan to stand there the whole day to watch the game slowly unfold, without knowing what is happening- or has happened- at the other holes. 
Yet, if the fans are so dedicated, why are so many of them breaking the rules of etiquette?  Cell phones ringing, cell phone conversations, cell phone cameras- or even worse, somebody actually yelling.  Golf is not baseball.  The links are not a football stadium.  Decorum is expected.  There is a time for quiet and a time to cheer (golf clap, anyone?), and when fans act outside those set times, they can alter the course of the round. 
In a sport where the players police themselves, one would think that we could expect at least as much discipline from the fans.

Heroes and Role Models

It looks like Tiger is finally back, and yet I've heard some people grumbling-still- about how he doesn't deserve to win anymore "because of what he did to his wife".  Seriously?  What does that have to do with golf?  Tiger Woods deserves to win because more than anyone else on the circuit, he is dedicated to mastering, and maintaining the mastery of, his sport.  Too many people today care about the perceived private lives of sports figures.  We put sports stars up on pedestals only to vilify them when they can't live up to our more than human standards.  Just because an athlete can slam dunk over a car, run a kickoff back for a touchdown, or has more homeruns this season than any other player doesn't mean that person is a good role model for you or your children.  YES, SPORTS ARE FULL OF INSPIRING STORIES OF INDIVIDUALS OVERCOMING TREMENDOUS HARDSHIP TO EXCEL IN THEIR CHOSEN FIELD- and those situations are great to point out to kids.  They're great examples of never giving up, of trying your best.  They're examples of sportsmanship, and all the other wonderful things we can learn from sports.  But those situations are not often the situations that grab our attention.  The American sportsviewing public is drawn to the flashy players, to the huge contracts. What we don't often realize is most of those players are just the people you would never want as a role model.  Those players have shown amazing talent from a very young age, and have been "special" because of it.  Rules have always been just a little bit different for them.  People have always catered to them and their wishes.  They don't know the word "no".  Then, when they are barely old enough to balance a checkbook, they are offered millions of dollars to do something they have done for free all their lives, and at the same time, they are thrust into the national spotlight.  Without the correct guidance, many of these players make poor choices- money mismanagement is the least of these; murder has been the worst.  Drugs,sexual assault, and  numerous other run ins with the law fall in between. 
And we, the fans, become upset.  NOT because this kid with so much potential has started down a road to destruction, but because our OWN kid look up to him.  But don't we bear the brunt of that blame?  Shouldn't we, as parents, as teachers, as role models ourselves, be teaching our children that there are more important qualities in a person than their ability to score a point or the amount for which they signed their last contract?  Shouldn't we be pointing our children to more worthy role models, to members of the community who are changing society for the good?  Do we not set the next generation of young athletes up for failure when we point to our current athletes as role models?
Sit your children down and ask them who their heroes are.  If they name an athlete, you might have some work to do...

Fantasy Sports

I don't understand fantasy sports.  I mean- I UNDERSTAND fantasy sports. I grasp the idea.  But I don't get it.   I am a die hard sports fan- rabid, foaming at the mouth, sports fan, but I can't get into the fantasy thing.  I tried it one year and I got Ben Roethlisberger as a quarterback.  BEN ROETHLISBERGER!  I'm a Patriots fan.  So that meant, if I had actually cared about my fantasy team (which I could not bring myself to do), that I would have had to root FOR Roethlisberger AGAINST my Patriots.  Not happening.   
I can see that fantasy sports might be interesting for the casual fan, the fan with no allegiance to any particular team.  Playing Dr. Frankenstein, and trying to put a team together might be fun for some people, especially fans of perennially losing teams, but some of us are already fans of great teams, teams methodically put together, teams well coached.  Those teams are already the stuff of which dreams are made.  Last year, my baseball team won the World Series.  My football team made it to the Super Bowl.  Fantasy sports would have been a distraction to two great seasons. 
Fantasy sports make sports fans lesser fans.  They take the team out of the sport.  Personal stats are not the goal on the field of play, and when we, as fans, start caring more about personal stats and less about overall team performance, we show our ignorance for the game.  A baseball player cannot hit a league-leading number of RBI without previous batters reaching base.  A football player cannot have a league-leading number of catches without a team member throwing the ball to him.  A hockey player cannot have a league- leading number of assists without another player scoring the goal.  And on it goes. 
The fantasy of sports is in the amazing plays, the impossible comebacks.  It's not in piecemealing together a "team" on the computer.  Come out from behind the screen, buy a ticket, and go make a fantasy a reality. 

Killer Concussions

Dear Commissioner Goodell and Combined Owners of the NFL,

                We are losing our national sports treasures at an alarming rate.  Dave Duerson. Ray Easterling. Junior Seau.  All three men have died in the last eighteen months.  What makes this even more alarming is that these men-these warriors of the gridiron- all showed symptoms of early onset dementia, and all took their own lives.  Dave Duerson had Chronic Traumatic Encephalitis (CTE); time will tell if Ray Easterling and Junior Seau suffered from the same condition.  The NFL, if it is going to continue to thrive, must make changes: changes in technology and changes in culture, to ensure player safety on the field, and later in life, once players’ gladiating days are over.

 In his testimony before a house judiciary committee on brain injuries in sports, Dr. Bennett Omalu, the leading neurologist in the research of Chronic Traumatic Encephalitis, testified:

 “The concept of permanent brain damage and dementia following repeated blows to the head is a very well established and generally accepted principle in medicine. The first cases of dementia and brain damage in contact sports athletes were first described in boxers and the disease was named dementia pugilistica. Dr. Harrison Martland, a forensic pathologist, like myself, and the chief medical examiner of Essex County, Newark, New Jersey, described dementia pugilistica in 1928. However, it was not until we examined the brain of Mike Webster in 2002 did we identify the tissue evidence of a similar disease in football players, CTE” .

 Common sense tells us that a sport like football, in which players suffer repeated blows to the head, should cause some sort of detrimental long term effect; since 2002, medical science has supported that idea.

                While the NFL has a legacy as a hard-hitting league, and NFL fans want “smashmouth” football, something needs to be done.  Yes, the desire to maintain the status quo is there, but the status quo is killing young, healthy, athletic men.  Helmets, which have seen no major design improvements since the 1980’s, need to be improved.  More than anything, the “tough-guy” culture of the NFL that causes players to stay on the field once they have sustained a head trauma needs to be eliminated.

                Football, the way it’s played now, is exciting.  When the players hit each other, the sound of the collision can be heard in the stands.  There are certain match-ups in the league that fans don’t want to miss because they know they are going to see a physical game.  Chad Ochocinco, a wide receiver for the New England Patriots, in an open letter to the commissioner, said about football: “But let’s be real... This is a nasty, dirty and violent game with consequences. Sign up or go get a regular job. Watch it or turn off the TV and go fishing with your kids. It is really that simple”.  Ochocinco shares the view of many of the NFL’s players and fans that football shouldn’t be changed, that at its most basic level, football is a dangerous sport, and players and fans accept that when they play or watch the game.  Ochocinco, and the players and fans he seeks to represent in his letter, want the game to stay the way it is, but even he, in the conclusion of his letter offers an admission to the seriousness of the concussion crisis in the NFL, requesting that the monies from the fines accrued from the penalties he will commit in the 2012 season be applied to some sort of fund to help players affected by CTE. 

                While some want to keep the game the same, helmet manufacturers are doing their part to help protect players from suffering from head injuries.  Some of the new advancements in helmet technology include a helmet made of shifting plates that absorb the impact of a hit, a helmet with an inflatable air bladder that can act as an ice pack to cool the head after a concussion-causing hit, and  a helmet with pads made out of pockets of air instead of foam.  All of these helmets seek to lower the chances of a player suffering a major head injury.

                Whether football remains the same or we find a magic helmet that protects a player’s brain will mean nothing unless we can change the collective attitude of NFL owners, coaches, and players that coming out of a game after a hit shows weakness. American football players have a history of being tough.  They have nicknames like “Mean” Joe Green, William “The Refrigerator” Perry, and Jerome “The Bus” Bettis.  These men, and their contemporaries, hit hard, and take hard hits.  When a player suffers a staggering potential head injury on the field, all too often he is left in the game, leaving him dazed, uncoordinated, and exposed to the possibility of another traumatic hit.  There is no one link in the chain that is key.  The overall atmosphere must change.  The player must take accountability for his own future health and report symptoms of possible concussion.  The training staff and coaches must be aware of, and protect players against, exposure after symptoms of head injury.  Owners cannot ask players to play when they are injured.  The fans are guilty as well.  Fans have to accept that a player who takes a concussive, or sometimes even subconcussive, hit to the head is out for the rest of the game. 

                Football, at its best, is a beautiful game: eleven men, in the prime of their lives, with one similar goal, combating eleven more men, also in the prime of their lives, with a contrasting goal, battling on a field of play, for the enjoyment of the fans and the love of the sport.  Injuries will happen, but they shouldn’t be injuries that rob the players of their memories, families, and will to live.  Football cannot maintain the status quo.  New and improved equipment should continue to be used as it becomes available.  Above all else, the warrior mentality of the NFL has to be toned down or changed to prevent injured players from returning to the playing field.

Sincerely,

A Concerned Fan of the Game