According to Malcolm Gladwell's Oct. 19, 2009 article in The New Yorker, "A football player's real issue isn't simply with repetitive concussive trauma. It is, as the concussion specialist Robert Cantu argues, with repetitive subconcussive trauma. It's not just the handful of big hits that matter. It's lots of little hits, too … In an average football season, a lineman could get struck in the head a thousand times, which means that a ten−year NFL veteran, when you bring in his college and high−school playing days, could well have been hit in the head eighteen thousand times."
Football is going to change.
Toward the end of his life, Mike Webster — who played in the National Football League (NFL) for 16 years — suffered from depression, amnesia, dementia and other symptoms consistent with brain damage. Many speculate that Webster's symptoms — and death in 2002 — were a byproduct of thousands upon thousands of hits to the head. That is, Webster, quite literally, may be a victim of the violence inherent to succeeding on the gridiron.
The above−quoted passage and Webster's tragic story are part of a greater movement to quantify, and likely further prevent, the damage done to football players by the trench warfare−like environment that linemen and others experience on the field. Already, Congress has summoned NFL commissioner Roger Goodell to appear and explain what, if anything, the league is doing to prevent brain injuries from repetitive on−field trauma. Michael Oriard, a former NFL player and associate dean of the College of Liberal Arts at Oregon State University — a Division I ("Bowl Championship Series," or BCS, if you prefer neologism) school — wondered on the sports news Web site Deadspin.com, "[w]ill it one day make as much sense to keep your son away from football as it does to strap your toddler into a car seat?" The question, sadly, is not far−fetched. Rather, it is quite likely that football, as we know it today, is soon to undergo a radical change. The more likely question: Who is going to lead the way?
Hopefully, Tufts.
The most visible leagues — the NFL and BCS football programs — are also the least likely to make non−cosmetic reforms, for obvious reasons. Many high school programs will similarly be unwilling to change their rules dramatically lest they become incompatible with large college systems. The most viable option is a Division−III school. Even then, there is an enormous problem: the Div.−III school would need its opponents to also subscribe to these reforms. Only one Div. −III conference plays all of its games within its own conference — the New England Small College Athletic Conference (NESCAC), of which Tufts is a member. The NESCAC, uniquely, is well positioned to implement brain−safety reform.
Of all the NESCAC schools, three factors suggest that Tufts should lead the way. First, as far as I can tell, Tufts is the only NESCAC school with an affiliated medical school. This allows Tufts not only to be a leader in implementing reforms, but also to develop these much−needed changes. And as any meaningful changes to the game are certain to face staunch opposition, it is imperative that whatever suggestions the reform−oriented leaders develop be backed by science more so than policy or politics. Second, Tufts famously lays claim to the first−ever U.S. intercollegiate football game, back in June 4, 1875. We were leaders once, and we have the opportunity to be leaders again, and the story, from a publicity standpoint, is both compelling and endearing. Finally, with President Lawrence Bacow announcing his retirement from the Office of the President, he provides the university with a leader who is immune from recourse — a necessary trait given the backlash that may be brought by those who see football as a sacred cow.
Football will change. It has to, because a generation of parents — this one, maybe, but if not, the next — will likely agree with Dean Oriard: Playing football is too dangerous. When your choices are to evolve or die, the former is typically a better option. The question, therefore, is not if, but when. Now is better than later, as we do not need another group of Mike Websters on our collective consciences. And Tufts should take the lead, because the result — lives improved, and lives saved — is everyone's obligation to achieve.
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Dan Lewis graduated from Tufts University in 2000 with a degree in economics. He was a regular contributor on football to Foxsports.com and the National Review Online.
