Football is not healthy

Congress is hearing testimony about the brain damage suffered by football players. That’s right, football is not a healthy activity.

Neither is marathon running a healthy activity, but unfortunately, marathons are immune from scrutiny because it’s a SWPL activity. Last year, two people died running the New York Marathon. How many will die this Sunday?

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Toyota is using the Marathon to advertise the Prius because Toyota has figured out that the Prius is the ultimate SWPL car, and the Marathon is the ultimate SWPL sporting event.

The Toyota marketing department must have read the SWPL blog: #27 Marathons, #60: Prius.

Comments

[mike]

At least football is fun to watch...

[Peter A]

Someday you'll realize that the SWPL blog is meant to be humorous. Sure there's a grain of truth there, but when you start calling marathons "the ultimate SWPL sporting event" you've really lost touch with reality.

[coldequation]

>How many will die this Sunday?

A very small proportion. The rest of the finishers will get bragging rights, which is what it's really about.

[Alex]

Football is dangerous. But it is advertised as such and active efforts are made to improve its safety (i.e. helments and pads, roughing the passer and roughing the kicker penalties).

Of course the sport could be made safer by increasing the penalties and broadening the standards for unnecessary roughness penalties.

[JohnM]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handicap_principle
seems to explain marathons quite well.

cigarettes directly kill half of all smokers. why don't you ever blog about that?

[langtree]

I'm guessing nobody will die this Sunday.

Care to make a wager?

[Rum]

Finishing a big city Marathon is a fantastic rush and confidence builder, especially for guys who were not HS jock-heroes.
In many circles, it does represent heavy duty bragging rights. Guys look envious and girls light up. How much to value that is an individual matter, of course.
Marathons are dangerous. But that has always been part of the allure.
Remember the story behind the idea? Supposedly, a trained Greek runner collapsed and died after running that distance. So 26.2 miles is obviously the correct distance for a foot-race.
At least if the point is to tease mortality.

[dbp]

"Last year, two people died running the New York Marathon. How many will die this Sunday?"

If you never get a comment from me again after Sunday, this will be why. No. not because I don't like what you write but rather because of the chance I might die in the Marathon.

Actually, I think my chances of death are greater in the drive from Boston to NYC than the run.

[eddie]

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/27/health/27well.html?_r=1&em

[Wade Nichols]

"Toyota is using the Marathon to advertise the Prius because Toyota has figured out that the Prius is the ultimate SWPL car"

Startling revelation! And Budweiser advertises during Sunday football games, so they must have done some research.

As for the Half Sigma blog, we have: Persian rugs, Wall Street Journal, Muslim Singles, and Sarah Palin. What are we to think of that?

"The rest of the finishers will get bragging rights, which is what it's really about."

See you at the finish, Siggy! Look for me in my space blanket!

[SOL]

Football isn't unhealthy, getting pounded playing professional football is unhealthy.

I just don't get why anyone is surprised by the fact that it is bad for your brain to get banged around for 60 minutes week in and week out.

[ironrailsironweights.wordpress.com]

Even if it were proven that most former players of The Most Important Sport in the World were physically enfeebled by age 40 and had an average lifespan of 55 it wouldn't matter a bit. Every single game would be a sellout, there would be multi-year waiting lists for season tickets, TV ratings would be astronomical, and of course any adult man who did not worship at the altar of the sport would be considered untrustworthy around young boys.

Marathon running does not have this luxury of being exalted beyond all criticism. That's one consequence of being a fringe sport.

Peter

[www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=13946733]

Life isn't healthy

[Gil]

Football and marathons are unhealthful, unhealthful, activities.

[Cinco Jotas]

To some extent, football is a victim of it's own safety measures; helmets got better, so players started using their heads as battering rams, and immediate, knock-you-senseless brain damage gave way to long-term, builds-up-and-renders-you-stupid brain damage.

It's similar to the argument about bare-knuckles boxing vs. gloves. The introduction of gloves into boxing has supposedly resulted in more long-term brain damage, as now boxers are not worried about breaking their hands on their opponents' skulls.

This is why so many bare-knuckle matches were heroically long (three hours, four hours, five hours long) because bare-knuckles fighters concentrated on wearing their opponents out with body blows.

Of course, if you like old-school bare-knuckles boxing, you might also enjoy Pedestrianism, another sport in which our ancestors had us beat for toughness.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedestrianism

[Peter]

"To some extent, football is a victim of it's own safety measures; helmets got better, so players started using their heads as battering rams, and immediate, knock-you-senseless brain damage gave way to long-term, builds-up-and-renders-you-stupid brain damage."

This also helps explain why rugby is safer than football, though the lack of blocking in rugby is also a major factor. Rugby players suffer many mostly superficial injuries but seldom experience the sort of carried-from-the-field season-ending injures that so bedevil football players. Without all sorts of protective equipment, rugby players have to be careful about making hard hits.

--

"It's similar to the argument about bare-knuckles boxing vs. gloves. The introduction of gloves into boxing has supposedly resulted in more long-term brain damage, as now boxers are not worried about breaking their hands on their opponents' skulls.
This is why so many bare-knuckle matches were heroically long (three hours, four hours, five hours long) because bare-knuckles fighters concentrated on wearing their opponents out with body blows."

Echoes of that exist today in the differences between mixed martial arts and boxing. MMA gloves are lighter than boxing gloves and provide less protection against hand injury. One consequence is that MMA features fewer hard punches to the head and, in turn, fewer serious head injuries. It's an inexact comparison because MMA involves more than just punching, and in any event there are increasing concerns that some MMA fighters may be showing signs of long-term brain damage (e.g. former champion Chuck Lidell).

Another reason why the old bare-knuckled fighters were able to go on for hours is that they simply didn't throw many punches. A minute or even longer could go by without a single punch being thrown. Today it's not uncommon for a boxer to throw 100 punches in a single round.

Peter

[rustoleum]

What Peter A said. SWPL is humorous, and it's humorous because you can't imagine any of the activities listed on the blog applying to blacks. Marathons, "the idea of soccer", grad school, driving a Prius.

The HBDers really lost the the plot with SWPL.

[John Smith]

I'm guessing you read the latest nytimes article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/27/health/27well.html?_r=1&em