Brain damage, Trump and football
Donald Trump is wrong so often that some of the things he’s most horribly wrong about get lost in the wash of all the wrongness he spews.
For example, he’s wrong when he says NFL owners should fire players who kneel or otherwise protest during the national anthem, but he’s understandably wrong.
Personally, I choose to stand, place my hand over my heart and sing “The Star-Spangled Banner” with Pavarottian gusto, if not technique or tone, whenever I’m somewhere our anthem is publically played. If football players feel compelled to protest during the anthem in response to things going wrong in our nation, though, I believe they have every right to do so without facing repercussions.
In saying they should be fired from their jobs for demonstrating their beliefs, Trump is appealing to his reactionary base, folks who have a visceral reaction to what they see as our national anthem being dishonored. I have a similar visceral reaction myself, but when I think it through I realize veterans, including my father and many of my friends and relatives, fought for our right to sit during the anthem as much as they fought for any obligation to stand for it.
What got lost in the tumult of Trump’s national anthem/Steph Curry tantrums (I don’t have space to address the Steph brouhaha here) was something else remarkably inane Trump said about football. During a rally in Alabama — with few, if any, black folks in attendance in a state that’s 35 percent black — Trump told the crowd the new rules aimed at protecting football players from head injuries are ruining the game.
I may not know as much about construction, running hotels or wearing ties down to my crotch, but I certainly know more about football than Donald Trump. Trump played high school football at a ritzy military prep academy, facing opponents including notable fancy-pants prep school stars Thurston Howell the 4th and Throckmorton Poindexter the 5th.
My dad played college football and became a high school coach. I played youth football, and then played high school football for one of the biggest and most storied programs in California. (My large, public and poor high school surely would have beaten Trump’s little privileged private high school about 150-0 … with our scout teams playing the entire second half.) I went on to play one year of small college football, and in recent years officiated high school football.
With that base of knowledge, I can tell you it’s idiotic to insist measures to protect the brains of football players are ruining the sport. If you know football intimately, you know it’s incredibly brutal, particularly on higher levels. I had several concussions while playing, and the number of concussions I had probably affects my ability to actually remember exactly how many concussions I had. I had those concussions even though I wore a special helmet with advanced protections … for that time … because I had a history of head injuries.
Sometimes when I forget things or get angry for petty reasons, I wonder if it’s related to the head injuries I had earlier in life. Sometimes I wonder if any dementia I might suffer may come sooner or with more intensity because of the concussions, and the daily head-banging, I experienced while playing football.
Better protecting the current and future generations of football players might save many from having to go through the mind-addled hell so many former football players are going through now. Ultimately, it might save the sport I and so many others love.
Anyone who thinks otherwise must have taken one too many shots to the head from legendary prep school tough guy Throckmorton Poindexter the 5th.