Shortly before he died last July, the former N.F.L. quarterback Ken Stabler was rushed away by doctors, desperate to save him, in a Mississippi hospital. His longtime partner followed the scrum to the elevator, holding his hand. She told him that she loved him. Stabler said that he loved her, too.
“I turned my head to wipe the tears away,” his partner, Kim Bush, said recently. “And when I looked back, he looked me dead in the eye and said, ‘I’m tired.’ ”
They were the last words anyone in Stabler’s family heard him speak.
“I knew that was it,” Bush said. “I knew that he had gone the distance. Because Kenny Stabler was never tired.”
The day after Stabler died on July 8, a victim of colon cancer at age 69, his brain was removed during an autopsy and ferried to scientists in Massachusetts. It weighed 1,318 grams, or just under three pounds. Over several months, it was dissected for clues, as Stabler had wished, to help those left behind understand why his mind seemed to slip so precipitously in his final years.
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Atlanta Dan
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Subject: Re: Stabler had brain disease CTE Wed Feb 03, 2016 10:05 am
The New York Times was locked and loaded to fire away with a lengthy story this morning once the Stabler findings were announced.
Probably no coincidence this diagnosis was announced mid-week of Super Bowl week
N.F.L. Great Ken Stabler Had Brain Disease C.T.E.
Stabler’s diagnosis further suggests that no position in football, except perhaps kicker, is immune from progressive brain damage linked to hits to the head, both concussive and subconcussive....
Because C.T.E. can be diagnosed only posthumously, and most brains are not examined for the disease, incidence rates among athletes and nonathletes are difficult to ascertain. A study by the Mayo Clinic, released last fall, found C.T.E. in 21 of 66 men who played contact sports (mostly football), but found no traces of the disease in 198 other brains of men who had no exposure to contact sports....
“My lifestyle is too rough — too much booze and babes and cigarettes — to be a high school coach,” Stabler said. “I’d hardly be a shining example to the young athletes of the future.” His family hopes that the most powerful lesson he provides is the one delivered after he was gone.
And the lesson is if you play pro football be prepared for brain damage?
Vis
Posts : 1946 Join date : 2015-04-06 Location : South Kakalaki
Subject: Re: Stabler had brain disease CTE Wed Feb 03, 2016 10:31 am
A recent UCLA study appears to have opened the door to being able to diagnose CTE in living test subjects, by identifying concentrations of tau protein. With diagnostic tests which can identify the signs of early onset CTE, it would be possible to screen professional athlete, military personnel and others who are at risk for developing this condition so as to safeguard their future health and happiness.
Subject: Re: Stabler had brain disease CTE Wed Feb 03, 2016 12:42 pm
If I'm correct, and I don't have the capacity to do the research today, there is a design out there which would reduce, if not eliminate, concussions in football players.
As I recall it, the helmet design would change, and they would look completely different, but it does it's job. I wonder if the NFL is more worried about their identity vs. the true safety of the players? Nevermind, I forgot for a split second we're talking about Roger Goodell and his commitment to he integrity of 'The Shield'
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harrison'samonster
Posts : 2443 Join date : 2015-04-08 Location : Near Youngstown OH
Subject: Re: Stabler had brain disease CTE Wed Feb 03, 2016 12:51 pm
stlrtruck wrote:
If I'm correct, and I don't have the capacity to do the research today, there is a design out there which would reduce, if not eliminate, concussions in football players.
As I recall it, the helmet design would change, and they would look completely different, but it does it's job. I wonder if the NFL is more worried about their identity vs. the true safety of the players? Nevermind, I forgot for a split second we're talking about Roger Goodell and his commitment to he integrity of 'The Shield'
It would be really easy to believe the NFL is looking at it as a business issue rather than a health issue.
I have heard there is a lot of discussion on helmet designs. Searching around a while ago I came across a group that is advocating wearing no helmets, because they think it will reduce the amount of head on collisions (I know, sounds a little out there to me too).
FanSince72 posted on another thread similar to this, that the problem isn't only the sudden hit, but sudden stops as well that cause the brain to swish around. Hard to say what the future will be like I suppose, but I think eventually people move on from this sport.
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Atlanta Dan
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Subject: Re: Stabler had brain disease CTE Wed Feb 03, 2016 12:52 pm
Employers denying employment in a paternalistic attempt to decide what is best for the "future health and happiness" of a prospective employee (as opposed to minimizing the future liability of the employer for occupationally related injuries) might get into some tricky issues relating to whether a pre-existing physical condition (at what threshold level?) should be a bar to employment.
Regulating the sport rather than screening the employees looks like a more likely path
Of course the oh so concerned NFL recently bailed out of providing funding for a NIH study to test for CTE in living patients
The seven-year, $16 million initiative was to be funded out of a $30 million research grant the NFL gave the National Institutes of Health in 2012. The NFL has said repeatedly that it has no control over how that money is spent, but the league balked at this study, sources said, because the NIH awarded the project to a group led by Dr. Robert Stern, a prominent Boston University researcher who has been critical of the league.
Subject: Re: Stabler had brain disease CTE Wed Feb 03, 2016 2:56 pm
I believe we'll see big changes to the helmets in the next few years. Padding on the outside of the helmet could be possible. If that doesn't help stop it, the NFL will be done within 25 years.
Wouldn't shock me if there is a ban on kids playing football until they grow and reach a certain age when they have a better understanding of the risk.
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El-Gonzo Jackson
Posts : 1826 Join date : 2015-04-18
Subject: Re: Stabler had brain disease CTE Thu Feb 04, 2016 1:21 am
Do you think Ken Stabler would have given up all he got from playing football and instead played baseball if he knew he would live to the age of 69 as an NFL legend and be admired by thousands of fans??
Watch Ken Stabler, a football life. He didn't seem to be in any form of mental distress in his last years. He had the positive attitude to put a sign marked "Cancer" on a punching bag in his garage and go beat on it daily.
Every year over 1500 men play professional football in the NFL and have for decades. Yet we don't have stories of 75000 cases of symptomatic CTE from ex NFL players.
IowaSteeler927
Posts : 5054 Join date : 2015-04-11 Location : Des Moines, Iowa
Subject: Re: Stabler had brain disease CTE Thu Feb 04, 2016 5:23 am
They need to get away from the big hits, football can still be fun to watch without guys blasting people with high hits. Start forcing these guys to play football by the rules, and if they go high on someone give out an immediate suspension without pay. These hits to the head can really be minimized if the NFL was more consistent with their officiating in regards to those kinds of hits. Make the players go back to the fundamentals of tackling like they were taught in high school. Square your guy up, wrap him up, get him on the ground. Big hits are fun to watch, but having seen that one of my favorite players in Tyler Sash was at an advanced stage of CTE for his age... That opened my eyes. I don't want to see these guys ruining their lives over a game. Go back to the fundamentals, and come up with other ways to help minimize concussions. I know the NFL is looking into a different type of turf, and I think there are some different designs for helmets out there as well that the NFL needs to take a good look at.
Yes these guys get paid a lot of money, and no this wasn't as big of an issue in the past because they didn't know about it, and nobody gave it any real thought. Now that it's out there, it's exposed, the game needs to change to make things safer. Tyler Sash was a good kid, and I wholeheartedly feel that the concussions had a lot to do with what happened to him. Football can still be football without the monster hits that leave guys messed up later in life.
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El-Gonzo Jackson
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Subject: Re: Stabler had brain disease CTE Thu Feb 04, 2016 9:50 am
Iowa, there have been cases where ex college players with no concussion history have ended up with CTE. Its not black and white about big hits, concussions, etc....but I agree that it cant hurt.
Google up "Seahawks Roll Tackling" and you see a video of how the past couple years Seattle has adopted a shoulder tackling method much like rugby players. I think that is the future of football tackling and something I teach concepts of in the youth football that I coach.
Atlanta Dan
Posts : 2001 Join date : 2015-04-18
Subject: Re: Stabler had brain disease CTE Thu Feb 04, 2016 3:01 pm
The NYT is busy celebrating anti-Super Bowl week
Checking in on 60s Packers Hall of Fame safety Willie Wood
Willie Wood Made the Most Memorable Play of Super Bowl I. He Has No Recollection. Wood, who spends most of his time in a wheelchair, has been at an assisted living center in his hometown, Washington, for the last nine years, first for physical woes — debilitating neck, hip and knee operations — and later because dementia robbed him of many cognitive functions.
Nonetheless, Wood, 79, likes to wear a green Packers cap most days now as he sits in his sunny room listening to jazz and 1950s doo-wop. Wordlessly and impassively, he will point to the logo on the cap as if he knows it has some shadowy meaning in his life. But specifics elude him.
When asked about various photographs on the walls next to him — pictures of his wedding or the day in 1989 when he was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame — Wood stares vacantly.
After an Inside Look at Football, He Had to Turn Away In the mid-1970s, Bob Carmichael was a fast-rising man at NFL Films, a lieutenant in the young empire that was the National Football League. A former major-college football player, he helped produce those gloriously rich tapestries of athleticism, the long slow spirals set against azure skies, the leaping, twisting grabs by receivers and the thunderous hits.
It was the sounds that haunted his sleep.
On the sideline, as he shot his film, he heard knees crack, shoulders splinter. Helmets and heads recoiled, one off the other, and off ice-hard turf. (He watched a receiver get hit and go limp in the air. He saw a cornerback fall to the ground and convulse.)
“That was 40 years ago, “ Carmichael noted. “All that has happened is that guys are much bigger, much faster, today.”
Somewhere along this road, Carmichael became a heretic. He directed and produced “Football in America,” an Emmy Award-winning PBS documentary, making him one of the first to question the hold of this violent sport on our culture and psyches
And this story posted online, which is mostly about Goodell being a front man for the owners, is scheduled to run in the print version of the NYT Magazine this Super Sunday
Roger Goodell’s Unstoppable Football Machine
More and more, the commissioner’s job is to serve as a protective buffer for the Membership. He talks about head injuries so that the owner of, say, the Buffalo Bills does not have to. No one called for the resignation of the Ravens’ owner, Steve Bisciotti, after the video of Ray Rice knocking out his girlfriend in an Atlantic City elevator went public. Goodell testified before Congress on concussions in 2009 and listened to Representative Linda T. Sánchez of California compare the N.F.L. to the tobacco industry for its indifference to the physical harm being done to its players. ‘‘He is smooth, very smooth,” Jerry Jones said of Goodell. ‘‘I’d say he’s very classy. You see that kind of discipline and refinement.’’
Subject: Re: Stabler had brain disease CTE Fri Feb 05, 2016 8:24 am
Atlanta Dan wrote:
The NYT is busy celebrating anti-Super Bowl week
Checking in on 60s Packers Hall of Fame safety Willie Wood
Willie Wood Made the Most Memorable Play of Super Bowl I. He Has No Recollection. Wood, who spends most of his time in a wheelchair, has been at an assisted living center in his hometown, Washington, for the last nine years, first for physical woes — debilitating neck, hip and knee operations — and later because dementia robbed him of many cognitive functions.
Nonetheless, Wood, 79, likes to wear a green Packers cap most days now as he sits in his sunny room listening to jazz and 1950s doo-wop. Wordlessly and impassively, he will point to the logo on the cap as if he knows it has some shadowy meaning in his life. But specifics elude him.
When asked about various photographs on the walls next to him — pictures of his wedding or the day in 1989 when he was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame — Wood stares vacantly.
After an Inside Look at Football, He Had to Turn Away In the mid-1970s, Bob Carmichael was a fast-rising man at NFL Films, a lieutenant in the young empire that was the National Football League. A former major-college football player, he helped produce those gloriously rich tapestries of athleticism, the long slow spirals set against azure skies, the leaping, twisting grabs by receivers and the thunderous hits.
It was the sounds that haunted his sleep.
On the sideline, as he shot his film, he heard knees crack, shoulders splinter. Helmets and heads recoiled, one off the other, and off ice-hard turf. (He watched a receiver get hit and go limp in the air. He saw a cornerback fall to the ground and convulse.)
“That was 40 years ago, “ Carmichael noted. “All that has happened is that guys are much bigger, much faster, today.”
Somewhere along this road, Carmichael became a heretic. He directed and produced “Football in America,” an Emmy Award-winning PBS documentary, making him one of the first to question the hold of this violent sport on our culture and psyches
And this story posted online, which is mostly about Goodell being a front man for the owners, is scheduled to run in the print version of the NYT Magazine this Super Sunday
Roger Goodell’s Unstoppable Football Machine
More and more, the commissioner’s job is to serve as a protective buffer for the Membership. He talks about head injuries so that the owner of, say, the Buffalo Bills does not have to. No one called for the resignation of the Ravens’ owner, Steve Bisciotti, after the video of Ray Rice knocking out his girlfriend in an Atlantic City elevator went public. Goodell testified before Congress on concussions in 2009 and listened to Representative Linda T. Sánchez of California compare the N.F.L. to the tobacco industry for its indifference to the physical harm being done to its players. ‘‘He is smooth, very smooth,” Jerry Jones said of Goodell. ‘‘I’d say he’s very classy. You see that kind of discipline and refinement.’’
The writers and editors at the New York Times probably think that football is a moral hazard that only rednecks and people not as sophisticated as them enjoy. The fact that the sport is a) a predominantly male endeavor, b) a uniquely American tradition, and c) highly profitable, is enough reason for your average social justice warrior to despise and demonize it. Notice how they don't bitch about hockey or mixed martial arts (yet). That's because football is the golden goose that they desire to kill. This is not to say that concussions and CTE aren't legitimate concerns -- I believe the design of helmets and the style of tackling will both eventually have to change -- but it's straight out of the SJW playbook to hijack a legitimate cause and use it to destroy our institutions and boss people around. And if they succeed in destroying the NFL, you can bet the NHL and UFC are next. In fact, let's just ban all sports and bounce around in plastic bubbles for the rest of our lives, 'cause somebody might get hurt playing sports.
harrison'samonster
Posts : 2443 Join date : 2015-04-08 Location : Near Youngstown OH
Subject: Re: Stabler had brain disease CTE Fri Feb 05, 2016 8:35 am
Craziaskowboi wrote:
The writers and editors at the New York Times probably think that football is a moral hazard that only rednecks and people not as sophisticated as them enjoy. The fact that the sport is a) a predominantly male endeavor, b) a uniquely American tradition, and c) highly profitable, is enough reason for your average social justice warrior to despise and demonize it. Notice how they don't bitch about hockey or mixed martial arts (yet). That's because football is the golden goose that they desire to kill. This is not to say that concussions and CTE aren't legitimate concerns -- I believe the design of helmets and the style of tackling will both eventually have to change -- but it's straight out of the SJW playbook to hijack a legitimate cause and use it to destroy our institutions and boss people around. And if they succeed in destroying the NFL, you can bet the NHL and UFC are next. In fact, let's just ban all sports and bounce around in plastic bubbles for the rest of our lives, 'cause somebody might get hurt playing sports.
yep, medical injuries are faking themselves to support the cause of bringing down the man
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Atlanta Dan
Posts : 2001 Join date : 2015-04-18
Subject: Re: Stabler had brain disease CTE Fri Feb 05, 2016 8:51 am
Craziaskowboi wrote:
The writers and editors at the New York Times probably think that football is a moral hazard that only rednecks and people not as sophisticated as them enjoy. The fact that the sport is a) a predominantly male endeavor, b) a uniquely American tradition, and c) highly profitable, is enough reason for your average social justice warrior to despise and demonize it. Notice how they don't bitch about hockey or mixed martial arts (yet). That's because football is the golden goose that they desire to kill. This is not to say that concussions and CTE aren't legitimate concerns -- I believe the design of helmets and the style of tackling will both eventually have to change -- but it's straight out of the SJW playbook to hijack a legitimate cause and use it to destroy our institutions and boss people around. And if they succeed in destroying the NFL, you can bet the NHL and UFC are next. In fact, let's just ban all sports and bounce around in plastic bubbles for the rest of our lives, 'cause somebody might get hurt playing sports.
And more Social Justice Warriors pile on - this from ESPN Outside The Lines
NFL donations to brain research benefit league-linked doctors, raise worries about influence on science
For nearly two decades, the NFL ran a series of scientific experiments. The league formed its own research arm and published 16 papers about football and head injuries. The central conclusion -- that NFL players don't get brain damage -- led to public criticism, Congressional hearings and, in 2009, the abandonment of the project.
But the NFL hasn't abandoned the science of concussions. Over the past three and a half years, the league has transformed itself into one of the largest funders of brain research in the United States, allowing it to maintain a powerful role in science that could affect millions of people and, not incidentally, the bottom line of America's richest and most popular sport....
But beneath the surface of the NFL's largesse is a secretive funding apparatus with its own set of rules, one that often rewards league doctors, punishes critics and, some researchers believe, steers research away from potentially uncomfortable truths about the relationship between football and brain disease.
When Mike Ditka's telling you the risk isn't worth the reward, it's time to make way for the ribbon twirlers. tee hee hee
What does Ditka know? Let's hear from a truly unbiased source
Roger Goodell: If I had son, I'd 'love' to have him play football
"From my standpoint, I played the game of football for nine years, through high school. I wouldn't give up a single day of that," Goodell said. "If I had a son, I'd love to have him play the game of football. I'd love to have him play the game of football because of the values you get.
"There's risk in life. There's risk sitting on the couch. What we want to do is get people active. I want them to experience the game of football because the game of football will teach you the values ... the discipline, the teamwork, the perseverance. Those are values and those are skills that will lead you through life, and I believe football is the best to teach that."
Interviewer Robin Roberts should have then spooled up this video before asking Roger what values were being taught that night and by a sociopath like Burfict only getting a proposed three game suspension after his career of flagrant misconduct
harrison'samonster
Posts : 2443 Join date : 2015-04-08 Location : Near Youngstown OH
Subject: Re: Stabler had brain disease CTE Fri Feb 05, 2016 7:36 pm
Atlanta Dan wrote:
What does Ditka know? Let's hear from a truly unbiased source
Roger Goodell: If I had son, I'd 'love' to have him play football
"From my standpoint, I played the game of football for nine years, through high school. I wouldn't give up a single day of that," Goodell said. "If I had a son, I'd love to have him play the game of football. I'd love to have him play the game of football because of the values you get.
"There's risk in life. There's risk sitting on the couch. What we want to do is get people active. I want them to experience the game of football because the game of football will teach you the values ... the discipline, the teamwork, the perseverance. Those are values and those are skills that will lead you through life, and I believe football is the best to teach that."
Doesn't Goodell have a son named Satan?
I always think that argument about values is such a bad one. You can learn "values" doing any activity. And if the world lost football, there would still be a way to learn "values". In fact, it can be argued (not going to mention any names, but has anybody seen the story about a high school wrestler raping a younger student on a bus) that bad values are also learned.
I didn't play much football, and I also didn't get my values from this game. We can go on and on about how silly adults look screaming at the ref in youth baseball leagues, high school football, any sporting event you want.
Just remember, if you aren't cheating, you aren't trying hard enough.
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Atlanta Dan
Posts : 2001 Join date : 2015-04-18
Subject: Re: Stabler had brain disease CTE Sat Feb 06, 2016 6:22 am
harrison'samonster wrote:
I always think that argument about values is such a bad one. You can learn "values" doing any activity. And if the world lost football, there would still be a way to learn "values". In fact, it can be argued (not going to mention any names, but has anybody seen the story about a high school wrestler raping a younger student on a bus) that bad values are also learned.
I didn't play much football, and I also didn't get my values from this game.
Goodell takes you and me for stupid. The commissioner’s annual address is a performance with a backdrop of triumphal music and glittering gold shield and shining trophies. You end up feeling like you’re sitting in a Roman praetorium listening to an army imperator. There are planted questions, clearly stage-managed propaganda moments, all calculated to distract or sew confusion and doubt over brain science....
Which is perhaps why the NFL ended Goodell’s session so abruptly, just as a roomful of reporters began to bore in on him on health issues and ask about Calvin Johnson’s reported decision to retire at the age of 30....
No one believes Goodell, least of all mothers, despite the league’s brazen Mommy marketing. In response to Goodell’s remark that football is a better teacher than other games, tennis great Chris Evert, who has three sons, tweeted: “I can name a few. And they’re safer.”...
We all know the truth: The NFL has no moral center on this, no defensible posture, just marketing...
If Goodell were a good, strong commissioner, instead of posing as a Roman senator he would lobby the owners to get out ahead of the health issue once and for all by leveling with players and the audience.
Posts : 2443 Join date : 2015-04-08 Location : Near Youngstown OH
Subject: Re: Stabler had brain disease CTE Sat Feb 06, 2016 8:38 am
From the article Atlanta Dan posted:
“Nobody is saying kids shouldn’t exercise; we’re saying don’t hit them in the head,” says Chris Nowinski, co-founder of the Concussion Legacy Foundation and a co-director of Boston University’s Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy Center. “He’s defending an indefensible position.”
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Atlanta Dan
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Subject: Re: Stabler had brain disease CTE Sat Feb 06, 2016 9:24 am
harrison'samonster wrote:
From the article Atlanta Dan posted:
“Nobody is saying kids shouldn’t exercise; we’re saying don’t hit them in the head,” says Chris Nowinski, co-founder of the Concussion Legacy Foundation and a co-director of Boston University’s Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy Center. “He’s defending an indefensible position.”
Goodell is getting clobbered on his moronic comments yesterday - this from an Atlanta columnist
Roger Goodell has officially gone bye-bye....
Here’s the mother of all of Goodell’s denial quotes: “There’s risk in life. There’s risk in sitting on the couch.”
Where is this man’s couch? In the middle of a lion’s cage? Adjacent to Mt. Vesuvius? Under several falling pianos?
Is Roger Goodell’s couch in the fast lane of I-285, cutting over four lanes of traffic to try to make it onto 400 north?...
Does Goodell remind you a little of the Dan Akroyd character on Saturday Night Live, “Irwin Mainway,” who defends his dangerous toys, including, “Bag O’Glass”?
When Mike Ditka's telling you the risk isn't worth the reward, it's time to make way for the ribbon twirlers. tee hee hee
To be completely fair. It's easy for Mike Ditka to say the risk isn't worth the reward now that he has made his money as an NFL football player, NFL football coach, successful businessman thanks to his NFL stardom, and a lucrative career as a television NFL football analyst and commentator. He already made his money and insured his future, so it's easy for him to say that now. He already has his reward. It's easy to tell everyone else to give up their dreams of becoming NFL stars and multi milliionaires when you've already done it and gotten yours.
If you could go back and explain all the risk to Iron Mike Ditka when he was 18 years old and before he accomplished anything, do you really think he would do one thing differently in his life?
I don't.
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Atlanta Dan
Posts : 2001 Join date : 2015-04-18
Subject: Re: Stabler had brain disease CTE Sat Feb 06, 2016 12:14 pm
When Mike Ditka's telling you the risk isn't worth the reward, it's time to make way for the ribbon twirlers. tee hee hee
To be completely fair. It's easy for Mike Ditka to say the risk isn't worth the reward now that he has made his money as an NFL football player, NFL football coach, successful businessman thanks to his NFL stardom, and a lucrative career as a television NFL football analyst and commentator. He already made his money and insured his future, so it's easy for him to say that now. He already has his reward. It's easy to tell everyone else to give up their dreams of becoming NFL stars and multi milliionaires when you've already done it and gotten yours.
If you could go back and explain all the risk to Iron Mike Ditka when he was 18 years old and before he accomplished anything, do you really think he would do one thing differently in his life?
I don't.
I agree to the extent it is the adolescent player who is making the decision - Teenage boys will take risks when they know (even want?) it to be dangerous - at that age whether something is good or bad for you may be in doubt but almost anything that raises the pulse rate is worth a try since teenagers know they are immortal
That is not the problem football is facing - it is parents who need to sign the consent form for their sons to participate in organized tackle football with helmets, which given the equipment costs is not something like basketball where all you need is a ball and a hoop to play the game
If parents decide they do not think the risks are worth it their sons are not going to start playing the game once they reach the age to sign off on that for themselves - as participation rates decline the game will be impacted from its roots up to the top, not only in terms of a reduced number of players to feed into the system but the core fan base (which is still male) identifying less with a game they never played
