Football or Rollerball

I got an interesting glimpse this week into the mind of the professional athlete. It’s nothing new really. It’s the same glimpse that we get whenever we see one of these people do something that seems patently self destructive in order to win a game.

It happens all the time really. So many people have been caught taking steroids and other chemical enhancements that we don’t even get shocked anymore. “Oh, another one cheating to get ahead.” It doesn’t really hit us anymore. And we don’t really feel any empathy because they’re cheaters who got caught. Everyone loves the stories from yesteryear about NASCAR racers trying to find “an edge” with illegal modifications to their cars. But let a modern day guy get caught a quarter of an inch too low after the race, there’s an uproar.

No I don’t entirely understand the psychology of it, but that’s a blog entry for another time.

What I saw this week did not involve cheating. Instead, it allows us to see something of the culture of professional athletes, which I think we will find is a far more intense place than any fan realizes.

I’m a huge Pittsburg Steelers fan, and one of my favorite players is Hines Ward. He’s inspirational. He goes out, does his job, gets hit really hard, and comes up smiling—consistently. He gives it as good as he gets it, and blocks for his teammates as hard as anyone in the game. He’ll do anything for the team. Corporate managers should have posters of him in the hallways, getting up from a brutal hit smiling, or helping one his teammates with a maximum effort block.

We’ve all been “blindsided” by one situation or another. How important is it to get up smiling?

And again, what manager doesn’t want his employees giving their all, even when another team member will get the glory?

We, the fans, never really give a thought to what’s driving Hines to be such a good football player. We just accept that he is just that, and enjoy the game. Well, we got a little glimpse of that this week, and it was a bit startling to the uninitiated.

In the last game, Ben Roethlisberger took a knee to the head. He was tackled, and one of the defensive backs accidentally bumped him in the head with his knee. I’m not sure what it’s like having a couple hundred plus pounds of muscle run at you as fast as he can and smack you in the side of the head with his knee unintentionally. I’m not guessing it’s any kind of fun.

At any rate, Ben got a concussion. It wasn’t an obviously bad concussion, and the next day he felt fine. He was asymptomatic. He planed to play against the Baltimore Ravens. Later in the week, he started getting headaches after practice, and the doctors decided that the concussion wasn’t healed yet—hence, no football for young Ben.

This wasn’t decided until the day before the game, which seemed to annoy a certain percentage of the Pittsburgh players. In a way I can understand that. My initial reaction when Ben got hurt was that no matter how he felt, he shouldn’t play against the Ravens. The odds of getting another concussion when playing the Ravens are always good, and getting a concussion on top of a concussion is not conducive to a long, happy and productive life. Even from a football perspective it’s a bad idea, because Ben could be lost for the season—or forever if the hit is career ending.

What was somewhat surprising to me is that Hines seemed to say that Ben should have lied to the doctors about how he felt so that they would let him play. Hines says he’s done it, and other players do this all the time. For all we know, Hines had a concussion in the game as well.

Consider that we’re learning more and more about concussions, largely as a result of the increasing number of retired NFL players developing serious brain maladies. I’m sure Hines does. He’s not unintelligent or unaware I’m sure. He’s just operating at a level of competitiveness that goes well beyond the comprehension of the average fan (like me.)

You see, I love to see the Steelers win, but I’m still a fan if they lose. I’m a fan of the players, the coaches, the history, the work ethic. I’m not just a fan of the wins. I don’t want to see the players hurt, because I’m a fan of them. I don’t want to see the future of the current team mirror the fate of the Steelers from the 1970’s. A lot of those guys ended up dying young or with permanent physical or mental problems because we didn’t understand certain dangers in the game. Back then we didn’t know better. Now we’ve got no excuse.

I know players like Hines want to win. They’ve got an incredible drive, or they wouldn’t be competing at that level. It’s just that simple. However, someone has to start reinforcing the fact that if they damage themselves it’s bad for them, their team, and the sport. If you’re hurt, be honest and sit out. If you don’t care about your own health, then consider this: at some point there is going to be a body of data that the NFL is destroying all the players that fans like me care about, and then you’ll hear calls to Congress for regulations. From there, it becomes “If we can’t make it safe we should do without it.” Eventually, stories of our favorite players—like Mike Webster dying at 50 (http://espn.go.com/classic/obit/s/2002/0924/1435977.html)—will sour the game for people, and it will lose popularity. I grew up watching Mike Webster—those teams helped forge me into a Steelers fan. I can’t help but feel bad and almost guilty. I cheered him on while he was used up like a commodity.

By saving yourself, Hines, you’ll be saving your sport in the long term. If I start reading obits of current Steelers within the next couple of decades, that’s really going to turn me against a game I love to watch..

If the nature of the games is going to destroy people, and there’s nothing we can do about it, then perhaps it’s time for a new game. If we’re going to keep playing the game, it’s going to require participation from the players to make the game safe enough to play.

- Vincent J. Shuta Jr.
http://www.shutamultimedia.com
http://www.shuta.com