Actually, I quite like football.
[Something heartlessly cynical about the cold, sweet revenge of the neurologists whom they stuffed in lockers during high school.]
Comments 1–3 make me so happy I won't even note that it should be "rather", not "quite".
My mom had three hip replacements and she never played a down. Take that, tough guys!
I knew a guy who got hit hard enough to go to the wrong huddle. This was during a full contact practice at a big time college team.
6: Medicare fraud is getting out of hand if one wasn't a replacement of a replacement.
My mom was a fast-moving, hard-charging lady who wore out her replacement parts.
9: Really, John, pitch us a fast one for once.
People wearing out their new knees is the sort of issue I have to deal with, tangentially, at work.
I'm going to stick to my conviction that this article is interesting, regardless of whether one enjoys football or not.
11: I think you meant "orthogonally".
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This may be my new favorite "digitized" book, Elie de Joncourt's De Natura Et Prae Claro Usu Simplicissimae Specie Numerorum Trigonalium from 1762 mostly consisting of 224 pages of the first 19,999 triangular numbers.
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The concerns of the Unfoggedtariat are evidently mostly orthogonal to this article.
I meant tangentially. It touches upon, but is not focus, of work.
Let me be the first to say that football sucks.
Parents who let their kids play football really, really suck.
That would be from 90% to 99% of the parents in places I've lived.
I also suck because I enjoy watching the occasional football game.
I don't know if I would actually flatly overrule my kid if they really had their heart set on playing football. I'd try to gently steer them elsewhere, but I don't know if I'd veto it.
I've been wondering if I'd let my son play if he asked. I suppose I would, but we're starting him young on other sports like soccer and tennis. Watching soccer and tennis sucks but they are safer and he might be decent at them. He won't have the size to play competitively around here.
The most serious risk of letting a kid play football is that they turn out to be really, really good at it. If that seems unlikely, there's probably not that much harm.
But that said (and although I like watching the game), we've already agreed that potential future children of ours don't get to play.
Jammies made his football coach cry. The coach found out ahead of time that he had a new kid on the roster named Jamaal and got really excited. Then Jammies ran out, 90 lbs soaking wet, with braces and glasses and super excited. The coach later admitted that he barely contained his disappointment.
I played in junior high. The kid next to be got his arm broken by a full back who hit puberty at 11. That kid who broke his arm played in high school and I didn't.
I never played football in high school. It vaguely occured to me that I might have been okay at it, as a consequence of my build, but I fucking loathed organized team sports with a burning passion so, no, not happening. Especially that team sport, with the hazing and the yell-y coaches and the everything I didn't like in the world. On the other hand, I bet I would have kinda liked playing. I liked running into people full speed.
28: And white. Don't forget that part.
I liked running into people full speed.
A fair few cyclists seem to feel that way.
It's kind of pathetic how much I love team sports and yell-y coaches. I played club soccer and high school soccer, but due to the location and year and who knows why, we never got a real coach, one who couldn't be out-dominated by the silliness of teenage girls. Granted, I dominated the silliness, too, but I always wanted the drill sargent side of things to really get us ratcheted up to the next level of play.
My SIL has already declared that her son will not be playing football, bless her heart. (For real.)
I did swimming and our coach was very big on yelling. Even if everybody had their head under the water, he was yelling.
34: the gym teacher at my elementary school was a former Hungarian olympic soccer player. He firmly believed that every six year old should be able to play soccer at, if not a professional level, at least a high club level. If he had to hector and scream and insult to get them there, well, that was the price of greatness. Turned me off of team sports for (effectively) good, although when I started playing ultimate (which notably lacked coaches or, like, rules) I really loved it, and I belatedly realized that I'm pretty naturally athletic.
My football coach in high school was a caring, thoughtful mentor, who spirited me through many challenges of adolescence. It was much more than a game.
Wait. No. I didn't play football in high school. I was just remembering Friday Night Lights wistfully.
I assume my PE teachers in elementary school were basically nice. What I remember is always wanting to play the organized sport activity instead of the free play activity.
I never played football or basketball until IM sports at Evil University, when I discovered I really enjoyed them. It turns out that among nerds I appear naturally athletic.
41: Every now and then I've had to jump to avoid one who wasn't paying attention while on the sidewalk. Mostly just near-missed by noiseless riders overtaking me on the sidewalk of the bridge. They get mad when I don't walk to one side of the sidewalk or the other but if I see a stink bug, I'm going to smash it.
Football is okay to watch as long as you have something else to occupy your attention. Every once in a while glance towards the television and you can catch some replay of the next play.
Not as an adult. On some campus years ago, probably.
Am I supposed to get hit from time to time?
I've requested info on a teen boy who plays football, so I'm getting to do all kinds of soul-searching on whether we could just insist on basketball or would be totally unfair for him. This is ridiculous for a lot of reasons, like that Val and Alex are still with us (though this would be an adoptive placement from elsewhere in the state and thus probably not even start before summer if they were even a good fit for us, which is unlikely but I have to ask because black kids who love to read daily who haven't been able to find a family???) and a billion other things I mostly threw in the parenthetical. But still, I worry more about the football thing than about how Mara would do with a teen boy in the house, though of course that's an issue too.
And even though Lee's being much better than she was, which isn't saying much, we're not bringing any more kids into the house until she's done some hard work and really committed to it. But I also think she'd do better with adoption than fostering and we'll see if that's the direction we intend to eventually go. I'm not going to be rash, but I'm also going to deal with the current kids' impending departure by thinking about other ways we could fill our rooms.
You must have truly cat-like reflexes. After all, they're going faster than you and are extremely manueverable. A normal man, if they were trying to hit him, they would.
Have you thought about playing football?
Am I supposed to get hit from time to time?
How else would the bus ever learn where to stop?
50 to 47.
48: you'd think if cyclists were trying to hit you it would happen pretty darn often, yeah.
One has never been much of a team player, for which one blames, inter alia, one's natural clumsiness, laziness and selfishness noble -- nay, heroic -- problems with authority.
50: Fine. I just want them to get a bell if they're going to ride on the sidewalk. Because if I can't hear them, I could turn right into them. I'm willing to pay attention on the street or when crossing the street, but I don't want that kind of pressure on the sidewalk.
54: fair enough. I don't ride on the sidewalk; I like being the underdog.
52: They've definitely tried to preserve momentum by making me move. Which would be fine, except not on the sidewalk.
I played football in high school. Smallest defensive lineman ever. I had the distinction of being knocked-out twice in one practice. After the second time, they sent me home.
57: Close enough.
58: To protect your brain or because you couldn't stop the rush?
58: At the time, Momma said, "Knock you out? I'm gonna knock you out!"
And a star was born.
Toward the end of eighth grade some of my friends started playing pick-up football as a way of getting ready to go out for the high school team the next year, and after a while I started to join them and I liked it enough to actually go out when summer practice started. My parents weren't thrilled about the idea when they told me, but they let me do it. I went to practices all summer, then right at the end, shortly before the first game, I hurt my knee and quit. I was never any good, so that was probably for the best in multiple ways.
I was a huge fan of the 1986 Bengals. Or so I'm told.
53: I am with flippanter in this. as a consequence I did aerobics, modern dance, whitewater kayaking, and rock-climbing as HS sports. I hate the idea that my teammates will be depending on me and I will let them down.
28 is hilarious. IIRC this would have been in Farmington, which explains a lot about the coach's reaction.
Ditto on team sports. Hate 'em, particularly as a lot of people turn into epic dicks when they play them. Having a kick-about with a some people and a ball is great, but the minute it gets organised, there's always at least one person who's a cock.
I also hate the whole drill-seargeant coach thing. Someone yelling at me just presses buttons I don't want pressed. It was one thing that stopped me doing Japanese/Korean martial arts after a while. Fuck a bunch of that. My parents haven't yelled at me since I was about 15, I'm fucked if I'm letting some dick I hardly know do it. Someone yelling in my face can expect to get butted.
65.2 gets it right, except "get butted" sb "have devastatingly witty insults thought about them several hours later".
To be fair, I haven't actually butted someone in years. I do try to avoid situations in which someone gets right in my face, though. I'm always a bit shocked by what some people will put up with, e.g. their boss yelling at them.* I'm not a confrontational or aggressive person [despite what internet comments may imply] but some people seem not to feel that reflex; the 'this person is getting in my face, must smash or run away' one.
* I know some people have no choice, as they are in dire financial straits. But I'm thinking here of people with the financial/educational resources to find another job.
whether we could just insist on basketball or would be totally unfair for him
It would be totally unfair for him. He's every bit as likely to get injured from skateboarding or riding a bike. Getting hurt is part and parcel of being a kid and doing kid things.
Apo: apologist for brain damage.
69: I'm not saying it's for everybody. Just that it has always worked for me.
67: I have always found it strange that the workplace antics of tantrum-throwing Hollywood types like Harvey Weinstein don't get them beaten to smeared pulps regularly. (Stranger, perhaps, is that respectable periodicals describe such antics in detail without venturing something like "This is not very nice behavior.") I recall one profile of Weinstein in which he was described vilely insulting a woman to her face, in front of her husband, then loudly and aggressively taunting the husband in a way that, in a civilized society, would have gotten him murdered.
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Peer-reviewed paper alleges that Fukushima has already caused 14000 American Deaths
The rise in reported deaths after Fukushima was largest among U.S. infants under age one. The 2010-2011 increase for infant deaths in the spring was 1.8 percent, compared to a decrease of 8.37 percent in the preceding 14 weeks.
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68: No, you're right that it's unfair and I'd have to suck it up. He's already 15 and presumably knows what he likes. My HS football star brother got his concussion tubing on a ski slope. (He dislocated his shoulder during a very impressive football play in which he punted and then also was the one to make the tackle, for the record.) But if I had a boy who was 9 or something or if Mara decides she wants to play football, I'm going to be pushing the idea of a ban for sure and Lee can just deal with it. I will almost certainly never actually have to deal with my moral qualms. It was much easier when I was young and could just choose never to go to a football game, though eventually for my brother I did.
To the OP, I'm a little surprised that a pro player could attribute something to one specific hit, though that's probably a stupid kneejerk reaction to have.
re: 71
Yes, this, definitely. Dsquared wasn't, I'm sure, entirely serious when he wrote:
http://www.unfogged.com/archives/comments_8706.html#838165
But the point about bluffs being called is basically correct. I expect it's correct in lots of places, so I do wonder how people get away with it in some places, and some industries.
There's also teh sexism. My wife works in retail, and because she's in management, all the really angry people end up getting passed to her. I'm continually surprised by just how abusive/nasty people can be, to her face.
The guys supposedly worth $150 million and has lawyers and goons both, and he doesn't look physically helpless. So it's lose-lose for almost everyone else.
I played HS and college ball, and I turned down a football scholarship to the Air Force academy because without perfect vision they wouldn't teach me to be a pilot.
I did get a laminectomy when I was 33, maybe caused from football, but the whole thing was totally worth it.
Rowdy play is awesome, and football is rowdy play amplified. Granted, if you are always getting pounded with no pounding in return you should find a different sport, but to take a hit, or to hit someone else as hard as you can using all your major muscles is a primal thrill that can't be matched with anything else.
I was knocked out once, so I probably have some brain trauma, but it hasn't bothered me so far.
I *should* have arthritis in most of my joints, because I had numerous ankle sprains, torn cartilage in the knee, dislocated shoulder, dislocated fingers, but so far I am completely pain free.
I'm with Apo on this one - rowdy play is awesome. I put up with the yelling coaches so that I could play.
The dislocated shoulder happened playing pickup basketball, with no contact involved. Some of my injuries happened outside football - the torn knee cartilage happened playing with my nine year old son in the back yard. I was chasing him, he ducked, I jumped to avoid hitting him, and landed awkwardly. The nurse in the ER said she wished she could ban all running around. I mean really!
Wikipedia claims that Susanna Hoffs was naked when she recorded "Eternal Flame."
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Headlines like this are one of the reasons it's so nice to live in the Twin Cities, where we have such a piquantly-named suburb:
Charges: Savage woman who reported burglary was burglar
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re: 75
Yeah. I can see that Weinstein, as a specific example, might not be the wisest person to take on. I still can't imagine signing up voluntarily for taking shit from someone -- e.g. a sports coach -- and the general point about certain kinds of rudeness or bullying provoking either outright confrontation or avoidance holds.
I can easily see someone who doesn't know who Weinstein is taking him on, and while he's big and tough he's well past his prime and could easily end up on the short end of it. But I suspect that Weinstein seldom goes anywhere where people don't know who he is, and that he normally has a goon entourage.
The paper discussed in 72 is a revised version of the dubious paper from June that cherry-picked results.
80: He probably picks his targets carefully. People can sense vulnerability or insanity, I think. Body language, low-powered telepathy, pheromones, or something. I had zero trouble in biker bars when I was looking for a gunfight.
I *should* have arthritis in most of my joints, because I had numerous ankle sprains, torn cartilage in the knee, dislocated shoulder, dislocated fingers, but so far I am completely pain free.
Joints are funny things and some peoples' don't hurt after lots of damage. That said, somebody at offensive lineman weight is going to have very long odds against their knees if they put much abuse on them. Of course, age gets everybody eventually.
I can't begin to tell you how much trouble I've found looking for a pool ball fight.
I still can't imagine signing up voluntarily for taking shit from someone -- e.g. a sports coach-- and the general point about certain kinds of rudeness or bullying provoking either outright confrontation or avoidance holds.
Hmmm. I suppose we all have different tolerances for authority. I know some of the most difficult alcoholics to treat are those who abhor authority of any kind, and they rebel against advice which would be good for them to take.
There were many times my football coaches intentionally goaded me to provoke just the confrontational response you speak of. They tried to fire us up on adrenaline so we would go berserk. There is something extremely cathartic about going berserk in a safe place.
I think that pro football tries to give us the thrill of extreme violence along with complete safety for everyone. They are still working on the safety part of it.
My sons basketball coach grades 6-8 was the shouty manhandling type. Kids on the team loved him, and most of them probably profited from it. The bad part was the way he insulted kids who he kicked off the team. The team fell apart when the indispensable player (center) figured out that he could back the coach down. He got away with all kinds of shit and everyone else got mad.
re: 86
I don't have a high tolerance for authority per se, no. But I'm generally quite a mellow helpful person (at work and elsewhere). So it's not like I'm often in a situation where I'm likely to provoke someone to get in my face, or where someone acting aggressively towards me would be justified. But I have almost zero tolerance for it when it happens. I certainly couldn't/wouldn't put up with it from a work colleague or boss, and have reacted quite strongly to that sort of thing in the past.
I don't like that fight/flight adrenaline dump. I don't get it kickboxing, normally, as I don't particularly care about winning and have always treated sparring, even when it's quite tough, as 'play'. I wouldn't actively seek out that rush or feeling of going beserk, ever.
I expect there's some neurochemical explanation for this. Lots of people actively seek out that sort of experience -- rock climbing, amusement rides, bar fights, football, trolling in youtube comments, or whatever -- and quite a few people (like me) actively avoid it.
To counter my rah-rah stuff, I would not let my kids play youth football because the frigging coaches used the 'goading, insulting' technique on the nine-year-olds, and I think that is too young to be using that coaching style. In my opinion goading should not start until at least high school freshman year, and many times it is not needed at all.
88: I totally agree with you. I think neuroscientists have found out that those who seek out adrenaline have a lower than normal response to it, and thus need more of it to feel 'normal.'
I've heard that alcoholics have a lowered brain response to alcohol, so it takes a larger dose for them to get the 'normal response, and at those higher doses addiction is much more likely.
I think varying sensitivity to different brain chemicals is the reason for much of the variation in human behavior and personality.
Speaking of the response to adrenaline, both my Father and I tend to get a quivery voice, and my brother and my daughter get a blotchy flush on their neck and upper chest. We talked about it over Christmas. I think it is somehow linked to genetic makeup.
It was nice that we could empathize and commiserate, and we could share advice on how to deal with it. Being ashamed of something that you have no control over is awful.
re: 91
I get shaky hands (which is fairly typical, I assume). Sometimes that goes along with a psychological sensation of fear/discomfort, but not always. I can look, sound and feel calm except for my hands. I had it a month or so back, performing some music I wasn't properly rehearsed for. I didn't feel that nervous, but my hands were shaking really badly.
One thing I really liked about playing football was that the adrenaline reaction helped me perform better, instead of screwing me up like it did when I played an instrument or gave a speech. My two biggest "shame" issues in middle school were sweating and my adrenaline response, and they both were accepted when playing sports.
Methinks middle-school social issues affect us all.
88 and following:
I expect there's some neurochemical explanation for this. Lots of people actively seek out that sort of experience -- rock climbing, amusement rides, bar fights, football, trolling in youtube comments, or whatever -- and quite a few people (like me) actively avoid it.
Hm -- based entirely on my own experience, my response to adrenaline-inducing experiences differs widely depending on circumstances: turbulent white-water-rafting? Will get a shriek of exuberance. Extreme nerves will get quivery voice (mostly when, say, giving a talk about which I'm unsure; bravado doesn't come easily). Serious anger, though, generates shaky hands, flushed face, and a very strange and deeply unpleasant vertigo feeling. Sometimes I come close to crying -- not in a victimized way, but in sheer rage. Anger/fights: to be avoided as things not handled at all well.
While it seems that biochemically, all of these are adrenaline-producing circumstances, my response seems very distinct.
My natural response to someone being an asshole to me or someone I like is to adopt the same sarcastic, mocking tone that won me so many friends in high school.
Related story, but this time about hockey: NY Times series "Punched Out".
I had not been aware that the role of "enforcer" was so formalized in the NHL. My dad, who played pretty seriously, admitted straight up this Christmas vacation that as one of the smaller, fast, skilled players, the enforcer for his youth team had fought on his behalf a couple of times. Gah.
I wish one could have conscious control over adrenaline dumps, because clearly whatever part of the brain is in charge of that has no understanding of the modern world. I don't need that response triggered while lining up a shot in a pool tournament, and while I might prefer to flee from public speaking, neither flight nor fight are particularly appropriate.
Crap, there was supposed to be a link in my comment. Anyway, it's searchable at the nytimes website with terms like "punched out", "enforcer brain" "hockey brain damage".
Just so you know what you're getting into.
I had not been aware that the role of "enforcer" was so formalized in the NHL.
What's a Canadian farmboy to do? Hit somebody!
Didn't you listen to the links in the Warren Zevon thread?
Probably in the article, but a local enforcer just died, and it looks like he was self-medicating for brain damage and overdosed.
100.--Boogard is the hook for the whole story.
And no, I failed to listen to the Zevon links.
That NYT article was really terrific. People always excuse the fighting in hockey as somehow a rural Canadian tradition, and the article vividly describes the milieu.
97: In a small way, one can do something like that by rehearsing memories of particularly frightening or exciting experiences; the butterflies, dry mouth, rush of blood, etc., are familiar, but the strength and speed are only theoretical.
OT: I just received a text message from a Philly number unknown to me that reads, in its entirety, "JARG!!!!". I'm hoping there's a hockey fan with clumsy fingers because it can't be good otherwise.
94.2: This sounds very familiar. This hasn't happened in years, but has happened when as a pedestrian in a crosswalk I've been cut off by a car. The shaking you describe exhibits itself in my leg, which is quite disconcerting. I'm yelling at and being yelled at by someone while my leg seems to want to dance. It'd be funny if I weren't furious. I guess it makes sense that my adrenaline would make my legs want to work, though.
see, but getting this experience when just remembering some past event is an unpleasant panic attack. I can't imagine any productive physical response to that. in the moment I generally experience flight of high quality that keeps other people safe. though when I got mugged on the street my reaction was to scream more obscenities than I thought I knew at the fucker, eventually getting up in his face despite his being like 6'. I guess you don't know till it happens.