I Used to Watch Bullfights on Channel 32 in Chicago

Now I watch football on Saturdays and Sundays.  The bullfights were literally gory, the football games of today show player getting their brains rattled in slow motion.  Less blood but still dangerous. 

After watching a recent Frontline Program on high school football, I have my doubts about the national pastime.  Head injuries from repeated trauma that doesn't even reach the level of concussion can begin in high school.  Orthopedic injuries that leave players crippled are not uncommon and that doesn't include players left paralyzed from broken necks and backs.  In Florida hardly a season goes by without some teenager dying from heatstroke in practice before the season even starts.

Today's players are much bigger, a lot faster, and the injuries are more numerous and severe.  My cousin Phil Johnson was a gifted athlete in baseball, basketball and football.  His parents never let him play tackle football because they thought the sport was too dangerous.  Fenton High School missed someone who would have been a great tight end if he had been allowed to play.

In Miami, Sean Taylor a UM football star and Washington Redskin player was killed in a botched robbery in 2007.  The trial for the trigger man begins today.  This senseless tragedy still bothers me and the backstory of a 24 year old football player being murdered, his parents, his girl friend, a birthday party, the "U" and "The Redskins" is going to get replayed in the Miami Herald if it isn't the lead program on Court TV or one of the other cable news channels. 

Be careful what you ask for.

Comments

  1. I think the bullfights were on Channel 26, that was when UHF first came to Chicago.

    ReplyDelete

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