Daydreams aside, game can become a real nightmare
Two weeks ago I was blessed to become the proud grandfather of a healthy baby boy named Jack.
Shortly after my son sent me the first pictures of his son entering this world, in my delirium I texted out the following to several friends.
“Jack will report to the Patriots training camp in two weeks.”
Typical, I suppose, of a giddy first-time grandfather, but a bit strange, too, since the only football I really loved to play was touch football.
I would be a liar if I said I haven’t fantasized about Jack swinging a bat, or scampering around a rink on ice skates or running around in shoulder pads. There is nothing quite so innocent, or hilarious, as the sight of 5-year-olds, in full Pop Warner regalia, attempting to tackle one another.
It’s almost too bad they have to grow up and perfect the technique of hitting for real. It’s hardly surprising that the shadow of serious head trauma has resulted in a marked decline of players signing up for high school football.
But the irony is that even as we’ve seen the personal horror stories of pro football players crippled with early dementia, or driven to suicide as a result of chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE. Football at the college and pro level is still marketed as a clash of 21st century gladiators — it’s what the country wants to watch on Sunday.
Tom Hanks once famously told his team of female baseball players, “There’s no crying in baseball.”
Legendary football coaches from Vince Lombardi, to Bear Bryant, to Bill Belichick have all drilled in the message that there’s no holding back in football. You are expected, and highly paid, to leave it all out on the field.
Cutting-edge technology in football helmets hasn’t been able to do away with the need for concussion protocols. And when it comes to a superstar like Tom Brady, we’ve seen controversies erupt over whether those protocols were followed to the letter.
One of the deepest bonding experiences I enjoyed with my father was watching the New York Giants, with Y.A. Tittle and Frank Gifford, do battle every Sunday on our black-and-white TV.
I was in the fourth grade and cried for a long time the night Gifford was flattened by Chuck Bednarik of the Philadelphia Eagles. They carried Gifford off the field on a stretcher.
A week later he was interviewed in his hospital bed, smiling and saying he was OK. But in truth, he was never the same player again. I was 9 and have never forgotten the night football became real for me. I would never, ever want it to become that real for my grandson.