Today's Stoopid

OK fine, I'll chime in on this crap too.

MAGA is fraught with radical skepticism, and melting down as they watch one thing after the next "go against them".

And they're so well-conditioned to look for "signs" of The Great & Evil Librul Cabal in action, they glom onto anything - and I mean any-fuckin'-thing - that helps them deny that they're losing, that they're insistent on following losers, and that they're more and more desperate about being made to feel comfortable with the fact that they're losing - and denying.

They double down, and triple down, and fourple down on denying that they're denying.

The uncomplicated, dumb engine driving political false claims about Taylor Swift

A team won a football game, which is obviously part of a devious plot for Democrats to retain power via a pop star

I am professionally obligated to begin this article by explaining to you who Taylor Swift is, who Travis Kelce is and why I am talking about them. I know this will come off as condescending (if not insulting) to most of you, but for that one person who, this very morning, emerged from a 20-year-long meditative retreat atop Aconcagua and — as one would — opened The Washington Post’s website: Here you go.

Taylor Swift is a musician. More specifically, she is one of the most famous musicians that has ever existed on this Earth, in the company of Michael Jackson, certainly … if not, like, Beethoven. Travis Kelce is a football player who was well-known in sporting circles a year or two ago but who, by virtue of dating Swift, is now also well-known among Swift fans and, by extension, most Americans.

The reason I am talking about them is that Kelce’s team, the Kansas City Chiefs, won a playoff game Sunday that will return them to the championship game. And in response, a surprisingly large section of the American political right decided that this was somehow related to politics.

There are lots of manifestations of this, including multiple presentations on the right’s preferred cable news channel. The iteration that attracted perhaps the most attention, though, came from former presidential candidate and Donald Trump cheerleader Vivek Ramaswamy (speaking of people who suddenly emerged in the public consciousness to polarizing effect).

In a social media post, a prominent right-wing conspiracy theorist linked Swift to … let’s see here … ah yes, George Soros. In response, Ramaswamy offered a prediction.

“I wonder who’s going to win the Super Bowl next month,” he wrote. “And I wonder if there’s a major presidential endorsement coming from an artificially culturally propped-up couple this fall. Just some wild speculation over here, let’s see how it ages over the next 8 months.”

The implication (again: forgive my telling you something obvious) is that the Chiefs are being ushered to the Super Bowl … somehow … to secure Swift’s endorsement for President Biden.

This makes a lot of sense because the Chiefs haven’t been to the Super Bowl since, uh, last year, when they won. But before that they hadn’t been since, well, two years before. But that one they lost! But they’d won the year before that.

You can see why they need … someone … to give them a boost. Because otherwise, Taylor Swift wouldn’t endorse Biden, something she hasn’t done since 2020 — the last time Biden ran.

A lot of the responses to this broad line of argument — that the commingling of the Chiefs and Swift is somehow targeted at politics — note that it’s probably not wise for Republicans to side against the NFL. The NFL is wildly popular, and attacking popular things is not a good way to yourself become more popular.

But this backlash from the Fox-News-iverse isn’t about electoral politics. It is about appealing to a more immediate source of power on the right: online and on-air attention.

This was the crux of Ramaswamy’s entire presidential campaign. He understood, having observed Republican politics over the past decade, that attention can be parlayed into a lesser form of power, elected office. Trump blazed this trail, certainly, showing others the path and helping clear it of overgrowth. Ramaswamy’s 2024 bid was centered on jumping into the online conversation and bringing its themes and rhetoric to the campaign trail. It built him a loyal following of similarly online types, enough to get him about 4 percent of the primary vote by the time he dropped out.

But this is the incentive path that’s feeding the Swift clamor. The wilder your assertion, the more traction it’s going to get. Your allies will riff on it and build on it, and you can come along for the ride. Maybe you’ll end up as a member of the House of Representatives from Georgia or Long Island. Maybe you’ll go higher: landing a recurring spot on Sean Hannity’s prime-time show.

It’s important to recognize the overlaying element here: The speculation should leverage the widespread belief on the right that Democrats only get legitimate votes by brainwashing their idiotic base. (Republicans also believe Democrats get lots of stolen votes too, of course — a similarly incorrect theory.) This idea comes up a lot, that Democrats win by snookering college kids or duping credulous city voters into ignoring their apocalyptic surroundings. (This is ironic, given that believing that cities are hellholes requires a credulous acceptance of propaganda from the right, but I digress.)

Republicans losing the presidential popular vote in 2016, the House majority in 2018, the presidency in 2020 and underperforming expectations in the 2022 midterms has built a strong incentive to look for nonpolitical explanations for strong Democratic performance — since many Americans don’t know anyone who holds opposing political views, including Republicans baffled at the idea of voting Democratic. So, particularly given Trump’s insistence that the 2020 race was “rigged” by media and cultural elites … somehow, it is quite fashionable on the right to suggest the existence of intricate plans aimed at securing Democratic votes from glassy-eyed voters.

Like, say, that a football team gets ushered into the Super Bowl to secure an endorsement from Taylor Swift.

I’ve avoided doing so but I can no longer resist: How would this work? Did the Baltimore Ravens take a dive? Did someone pay them? Are they just that committed to Democratic politics that they all agreed to lose? Did the Buffalo Bills before them? And the Miami Dolphins before the Bills? Or does the government have some Havana-Syndrome-esque device that it trains on opponents, causing field goals to go wide right? What’s the mechanism, exactly?

It doesn’t matter, obviously. These are not rational conclusions drawn from observed facts. They are, instead, clout-chasing assemblages of words that, through a process of grim Darwinism, seek rewards in the right-wing conversation.

Never mind that the supposed outcome here — the Swift endorsement — is itself wildly overpowered in the right’s imagination. One of Swift’s first prominent endorsements came in 2018 when she backed the Democrat in Tennessee’s U.S. Senate race. Polling was close; he then lost by double-digits. You think that Swift — whose fan base includes millions of people younger than voting age — is so valuable an endorser that you’re going to rig the NFL? Okay. Sure.

It’s all silly, but the silliness exists over a range that runs from innocuous to bizarre.

I’ll leave you with the wise words of Ramaswamy, almost certainly responding to the (wonderful! desired!) controversy he’d stirred up with his football observations.

“What the [media] calls a ‘conspiracy theory’ is often nothing more than an amalgam of incentives hiding in plain sight,” he wrote. “Once you see that, the rest becomes pretty obvious.”

The natural Step 2 here: When the media points out that my comments make no sense, it proves that I’m right. Okay.

Wait. Actually, I’ll leave you with an observation attached to Ramaswamy’s second post, one that comes from the world’s most prominent seeker of attention by way of posting controversial/bizarre/unnecessarily-political comments.

“Exactly,” wrote Elon Musk.

Head Space

I only played 4 years of full contact tackle football (thru high school), and not counting the several times I kinda got my bell rung (on and off the field), my number of actual concussions is likely well under 10.

Whether or not they all might've been real concussions, repeated blows to the head can be a problem, so I surely do worry a little. I'm in my 8th decade now, and I have to wonder if there's some really bad shit waiting for me that will take away what little sense I had in the first place.

Of course, "really bad shit" could be waiting for me no matter what - I just don't like thinking about some kind of increased risk.

Here's a bit of an update via WaPo that tells the story from a slightly different perspective.

They watched their husbands win the Heisman – then lost them to CTE

For years, Heisman weekend was a chance to remember their husband’s glory. Now it’s a reminder of a sport’s violent toll.

Behind the doors of sports’ most exclusive and secretive club is the sight of oil paintings and hardwood, the smell of cigar smoke baked into cushions and walls, the feel of familiar faces and the shuddering reminder of hangovers past.

“'The Heisman flu,'” says Barbara Cassady, whose late husband, Howard “Hopalong” Cassady, was granted lifetime entry into the club in 1955, when the Ohio State halfback was awarded the Heisman Trophy, the annual honor for college football’s most outstanding player. From then on, one weekend every December was a massive reunion with a guest list filled with sports’ upper crust — a high school reunion meets a royal wedding meets Oscar Night.

“We were treated like kings and queens, and everybody would be half-smashed," Cassady continues. “Then we’d all go home.”

Nobody thought much about what life was like in the months that divided their Decembers. It was just exhilarating to see each other, to welcome a new member and get a break from whatever stresses may be playing out at home, because for a few days, the band was back together in New York and the Blarney Stone stayed open all night.

“All the guys welcome you back and tell old stories,” says Jean Sullivan, whose late husband, Pat, played quarterback at Auburn and joined the club in 1971.

The years passed; change was inevitable. The weekend, once open to men only, expanded to include a women’s luncheon at the opera house, a Broadway play and a hospitality room. Even when ESPN turned the annual presentation into a made-for-TV spectacle, there were dimly lit places to hide and catch up — the bar or breakfast the morning after the ceremony, wives turning up still in their pajamas.

One thing that never changed, though, was that certain topics were taboo. O.J. Simpson, for instance, who won the 1968 Heisman, or Charles White, whose high-profile addiction and mental health issues led to the sale of his 1979 trophy. The weekend was too short to talk about Rashaan Salaam’s suicide or to dwell on the cognitive problems emerging as one more thing many members had in common. If a winner died or mysteriously stopped coming, nobody said anything.

“The players and wives do develop a unique friendship,” 1996 winner Danny Wuerffel says. “But it’s not really built to be someone’s close-knit support group.”

In 2019, not long after her husband died, Barb Cassady went to New York to visit with these friends she had known for decades. She greeted Paul Hornung, who joined the club in 1956, but Hornung looked at her blankly.

“Oh, my God,” Cassady remembers thinking, “he doesn’t know me.”

Still, she didn’t mention it to Hornung’s wife. Because as long as they had known each other, as close as they had become amid all the good times, there were some things you just didn’t talk about.

But when past winners line up to welcome a new member, they will do so as one of football’s grim realities breaches their club’s inner sanctum. Four Heisman winners have been diagnosed with chronic traumatic encephalopathy, the degenerative and often devastating brain disease linked to repeated hits to the head.

Many of the winners’ wives, often their husbands’ caretakers and support beams, find it increasingly difficult to ignore the changes that afflict their friends — and the challenges their peers have learned to live with or ignore.

“We’ve been together all these years,” says Jerri Spurrier, whose husband, Steve, won the Heisman in 1966. “We have experienced the downfall of these men over the years, and that’s what has hurt the most.”

In the 1980s, back when the club was smaller and the weekend more intimate, winners got whisked around the city by limousine. Judi White-Basch, who married her freshman-year sweetheart, Southern California running back Charles, remembers feeling as if she had joined a royal family. The first year the couple came back, they shared a limo with Simpson and his wife, Nicole, after whom Charles and Judi had named their first daughter.

“This is what we’re all about!” Judi recalls Simpson saying that December evening in the mid-1980s. He and White had attended Southern Cal a decade apart, became record-breaking running backs and were feted as superstars who would change the game. “You’re the most prolific Trojan out ever!”

Judi says she noticed that members of the Downtown Athletic Club, which hosted the Heisman for decades, were elderly and White. But because Charles had won football’s most prestigious trophy, it was as if he was one of them. “I was just tagging along,” she says.

The other wives were kind and welcoming, Judi remembers, and she joined them on a group vacation from reality. Because the daily schedule was packed with social events and autograph signings, couples spent hours talking and bonding: Skeeter and Doak Walker, Jane and Jay Berwanger, Jerri and Steve Spurrier.

“We couldn’t wait until the next year to go and see these people again,” Jerri Spurrier says. “You learn to trust and love each other.”

Judi fit in by telling stories about Charles’s appearance on “American Gladiators” and how he would take their five children for nature walks. He seemed to have a sixth sense for detecting when his wife was exhausted or overwhelmed, letting her sleep in or drawing a bath so she could unwind.

“To a woman,” she would say, “you couldn’t wish for anything better.”

It was enough to get her through the weekend because, especially in this gilded setting, she didn’t want the other wives to know that Charles invited his NFL teammates to their daughter’s birthday party but no-showed it himself. Or that, in 1987, police found him outside a warehouse, high on cocaine and wielding a trash can lid, convinced someone was trying to kill him. Or that sometimes Charles was so volatile that Judi checked herself and the kids into a hotel near Disneyland, waiting for him to turn back into himself.

“Then come back,” she says, “and pretend like nothing ever happened.”

Eventually Charles’s problems became so severe that Judi just stopped making plans. They stopped going to the Heisman ceremony in part because the man in the oil painting — smiling, chiseled, the adonis Judi had known since they were teenagers — was slipping away.

She struggled to explain Charles’s behavior to her best friend, their children, herself. So she stopped trying. Charles was just Charles, Judi told herself, because to win a Heisman Trophy and reach the NFL, you’re just … different. The man from the portrait still showed up most days, and when he didn’t, Judi and the kids agreed that Daddy was just as wonderful as always but that, for some reason, he occasionally went “haywire.”

At least at home, she wouldn’t have to cover for him. If they skipped the December weekend in New York, she wouldn’t have to smile and pretend as if it was an effective — if all-too-brief — escape from the isolation, loneliness and powerlessness she often felt.

“And I’ll add another word: shame,” she says. “I doubled down on trying to make everything perfect. I thought that if I could make the perfect house, if Charles didn’t have to worry about anything, if I take care of the bills, if I did everything — that he would be okay.”

Judi takes a breath.

“I loved him with my heart, soul and mind,” she continues. “But I was so ashamed. I had to protect myself, protect our family. And I didn't want anybody to know.”

IN 1994, AFTER SIMPSON was arrested (and later acquitted) in connection with the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman, Judi’s mother and sister begged her to leave Charles. But she couldn’t. Not for another 10 years, anyway.

“I only left when I felt like I couldn’t live anymore,” she says. “My life was ebbing away. I lived with so much uncertainty, so much chaos.”

He would call Judi sometimes, slurring as he demanded that she get him a house or a new Cadillac. He worked for Southern Cal then, first as an assistant coach then as an office worker. He slept in the locker room sometimes; other times he asked players for a few bucks. In 2012, he wrote a letter to the school to announce his immediate resignation.

He sold his Heisman a dozen years earlier. Eventually his Heisman ring, a less famous token of the club’s membership, was gone, too. So was his Rose Bowl watch and another ring commemorating the Trojans’ 1978 national championship. Judi says Charles would later suggest some of the items were stolen, though because he was later diagnosed with early-onset dementia, she cannot be sure what’s true.

Either way, she says, “everything is gone.”

Charles’s condition worsened, and in 2018, Judi and the kids moved him into a memory care facility. With his memories vanishing, he scrawled his kids’ names on a card so he wouldn’t forget. He wore Trojans gear to remind himself of who he used to be. Judi and daughter Tara took turns as his caretaker, and sometimes eldest daughter Nicole, who used to ride on her daddy’s shoulders and sit across from him when they went to Buffy’s on Sundays after church, broke down crying because not only were White’s mementos gone but so was the man who collected them.

“The best father in the world,” Judi says Nicole told her, “and then he just left. There’s no explanation.”

TWO DECADES AGO, a Florida resident went to give a speech, something he had done dozens of times, and just froze. “I don’t know what’s wrong,” Howard Cassady told his wife.

A man in Alabama began experiencing panic attacks, anxiety and paranoia, blanking as he tried to remember friends’ names. “I don’t think my brain is right,” Pat Sullivan told his wife.

Club members kept sojourning to New York for their gathering each December, and the wives ate their lamb chops and drank their cocktails and pretended nothing was wrong. Even amid the discovery and rise of CTE, it didn’t feel right to talk about the fact that Tony Dorsett, who won the 1976 Heisman, said in 2013 that he sometimes drove his daughters somewhere and forgot where he was going.

Nobody asked Roger Staubach, who won the 1963 Heisman, about the long-term effects of the 20 concussions he estimated he suffered. Nor did anyone bring up 1970 winner Jim Plunkett’s declaration six years ago that his “life sucks” because of chronic headaches and unexplained neurological conditions. At the 2017 Heisman ceremony, when Oklahoma’s Baker Mayfield hoisted the trophy, nobody asked 1985 winner Bo Jackson whether he was serious months earlier when he told USA Today he would have never played football had he known about the sport’s link to brain injuries.

“We never talked about it. Never,” Barb Cassady says. “Everybody knew Hop was having a rough time. Every Heisman winner knew it. But it was never a topic.”

When Howard Cassady and Pat Sullivan died in 2019, their wives donated the men’s brains to Boston University’s CTE Center. Months later, Jean learned her husband had Stage 3 CTE, or a debilitating amount of scar tissue on their brains. Cassady’s was Stage 4, the disease’s most debilitating and advanced form, and after Hornung died in 2020, he, too, was found to have Stage 4 CTE.

Jean Sullivan went back to New York, and she could avoid the subject no longer. The Heisman Trust discontinued the women’s luncheon, she says, but she nonetheless finds time to ask winners with visible CTE symptoms if they have resources and support.

“When I go back, I see the struggles,” she says. “You recognize memory issues; you recognize anxiety. We know of so many that have these symptoms, but they don’t know where to go or where to get help."

She wishes the Heisman Trust would direct some of its power toward making sure the winners of its trophy are connected with mental health experts, those trained in cognitive decline, organizations such as the Concussion Legacy Foundation. Jean says her attempts to spearhead such an effort have been disappointing because they have been met with silence.

The Trust’s executive director, Rob Whalen, says Heisman weekend includes no presentation or formal discussion about CTE or football-related brain injuries.

“We hope to God that something gets figured out and there’s an improvement in this area,” Whalen says. “But it’s not really what the Trust is focused on for our charitable giving. ... Our missions are youth development and underserved communities, and we don’t know how the two tie together.”

Regardless, Barb Cassady can’t help but study the men each year. She watches their faces as they gather and a new member is announced.

“Am I thinking, ‘That poor guy has CTE?’ You don’t know,” she says. “The quarterbacks, they — well, he gets hit a lot, too. So who knows?”

A moment later, she continues.

“There’s going to be so many more,” she says.

CHARLES WHITE DIED IN JANUARY of esophageal cancer, just 64 years old. Judi was holding her former husband’s hand as he passed. A few months later, she and several of their children joined a video conference with Thor Stein, the Boston University pathologist who studied Charles’s brain. He revealed that Charles had Stage 4 CTE, and if Judi felt closure, daughter Nicole felt relief. Because this proved that her father hadn’t abandoned the family. He had been taken away.

“The Dad that used to be was something so powerful,” Judi says. “This let us forgive.”

Months later, Judi received an invitation to the Concussion Legacy Foundation’s annual gala in Boston. It had been years since she attended an event such as this, but early last month, she put on a black, off-the-shoulder pantsuit and drove from her home in New Hampshire to a hotel in downtown Boston. Her 22-year-old granddaughter went with her, and the two of them mingled despite not recognizing most anyone there.

Then up walked Lisa McHale, the foundation’s family relations director. Her own husband, former NFL player Tom McHale, had CTE when he died in 2008. Lisa is often among the first voices to comfort families after they learn a relative had a disease that, she says, “makes our loved ones not terribly lovable.”

Judi White-Basch, former wife of 1979 Heisman Trophy winner Charles White, and granddaughter Giovannia Hemmen flip through a book looking at pictures of Charles from his college days. (Andrew Dickinson for The Washington Post)
Lisa introduced Judi to other football wives. Their husbands had endured similar fates, and of the 1,035 brains of football players examined at Boston University, nearly three-fourths had CTE. In many cases, their wives had dealt with it, covered it up, kept their families together just as Judi had.

“Everybody has got the same story,” she says. “Everybody that I was talking to, they had this same shame and pain, like: ‘All this time, I had to hide. I had to protect. I had to pretend.’ I’m like, ‘Oh, my gosh, I’m not alone.’ ”

At the end, Lisa McHale shared another contact. There was a woman in Alabama who had even more in common with Judi.

Judi made the call last Friday, only a week before this year’s Heisman ceremony. She paused as she dialed, thinking of what she hoped to say, waiting to hit the call button. She was dialing Jean Sullivan, Pat’s widow, and she wanted to know how Jean felt as she watched the decline of the man she loved. She wanted to talk about being the member of sports’ most exclusive and secretive club, though not the one everyone talks about each December. She and Jean and Barb are charter members of a new community, a fledgling sisterhood of those who had been with a star football player at their peak and nadir, a support group whose membership will surely grow.

“Their special club takes a toll. There was a cost. We didn’t know it, but there always is,” Judi says. “She had the wonderful joy of being with him and loving him through the joy and anticipation of it, the experience of it and also the opposite, still loving and supporting them at their worst.”

Finally ready, she pressed the button and waited.

“I just knew,” Judi says, “I was going to talk to somebody that could understand.”

Girls Rock

Arvada West hoists girls flag football state trophy

ENGLEWOOD — Arvada West’s girls flag football was a picture of perfection this season.

In the second year of girls flag football as a pilot program with the hope to become a Colorado High School Activities Association sanctioned sport for the 2024-2025 school year, the Wildcats captured the state title Saturday at the Pat Bowlen Fieldhouse at the Denver Broncos’ Center Health Training Center.

A-West defeated Cherry Creek 34-14 in the final of the 16-team state championship tournament. The Wildcats finished the season with a perfect 25-0 record.

“I’m so happy we got here. Last year we let it slip in the championship,” A-West junior Sara Walker said referring to A-West losing to Chatfield in the title game a year ago. “This year we made it all the way through undefeated. We got our revenge.”

The Wildcats cruised to victories over Chatfield V2, Mountain Vista and Pomona before facing Cherry Creek in the championship game. The Bruins took a dramatic overtime win over Ralston Valley in the semifinals.

“It definitely helped,” A-West junior quarterback Saylor Swanson said of the Wildcats not having a tight game through the first three rounds. “We weren’t too exhausted and it helped having the experience of playing in the title game last year.”

A-West took an early 14-0 with touchdown passes from Swanson to Walker and junior Molly Schellpepper. The Wildcats pushed their lead to 21-0 at halftime.

“We were favorites this year, but we didn’t let that get to our heads. The girls came out to play today,” A-West coach Mario Lopez said. “They had ambition. They had drive. Everything was about discipline today. Mistake free flag football is what I kept preaching and that is what they did today.”

A year ago, A-West finished runner-up to Jeffco rival Chatfield at the state tournament. The defending state champions were knocked out of the tournament in the quarterfinals by another Jeffco team, Ralston Valley.

Three of the four semifinalists were Jeffco teams. A-West and Pomona were joined by Ralston Valley in the Final Four.

“We felt really confidence,” Walker said. “We knew we were going to win. I’m so happy we did.”

Walker, Schellpepper, along with sophomores Santana Pena and Aubri Cespedes gave Swanson plenty of offensive targets for the diverse offensive attack for the Wildcats.

“We have a very talented offense. I put a lot of skilled players on offense,” Lopez said. “Last year our quarterback (Swanson) didn’t really play defense. She is a game-changer and she proved it today.”

Swanson did it on both sides of the ball in the title game throwing four touchdown passes.

“She (Swanson) did great. She is always amazing,” Walker said. “She always finds the right person and makes the right read. She gets the ball to the receiver. She is the best QB in the state.”

The point guard for A-West’s girls basketball team handled the pressure of playing in the state championship game for the second straight year.

“Being the favorite is always the hard part to be in,” Swanson said. “We couldn’t get complacent. We stayed focused and got the job done.”

A-West should be right back in the mix next season. The majority of Lopez’s players will return. He also believes girls flag football has a “bright future” and will clear all the hurdles to become a CHSAA sanctioned sport next year.

Only time will tell if Jeffco will be able to claim a third straight girls flag football state title next Fall. For now, A-West is the home of the state champions.

“It was very important to stay in Jeffco, but it stays at Arvada West for this year,” Lopez said.

Today's Obit

Dick Butkus, December 9, 1942 - October 5, 2023

I got to see him play one time, in a preseason game in 1971 at Mile High Stadium. He was coming off knee surgery, and I remember thinking he didn't look very sharp. He was only in for a few series that night, and he'd be out of the game in another 2 years.

Butkus was a hero for me, he's one of the main reasons I fell in love with football, and a big reason I've always been kinda partial to the Bears.

Oh My Achin' Head

A high school buddy I played ball with died of dementia a few years ago. He was our quarterback, and we looked after him pretty good, so he didn't take a lot of punishment on offense. But he played safety too, and while I don't remember him getting slammed all that much, there's always that shitty little voice in the back of my mind telling me, "You're next, Mr Headbutt."

In case you didn't notice -

at a certain point, there's no escape

Collective Force of Head Hits, Not Just the Number of Them, Increases Odds of C.T.E.

The largest study of chronic traumatic encephalopathy to date found that the cumulative force of head hits absorbed by players in their careers is the best predictor of future brain disease.

When Jeffrey Vlk played running back in high school in the 1990s and then safety in college, he took and delivered countless tackles during full-contact football practices. Hitting was a mainstay, as were injuries, including concussions.

When he became a coach at Buffalo Grove High School outside Chicago in 2005, Vlk did what he had been taught: He had his players hit and tackle in practices to “toughen them up.”

By the time he became head coach in 2016, though, he saw that many of his players were so banged up from a week of hitting in practice that they missed games or were more susceptible to being injured in those games.

So, starting in 2019, Vlk eliminated full-contact practices. Players wore shoulder pads once a week, on Wednesday, which he called contact day. That’s when they hit tackle bags and crash pads, and wrapped up teammates but did not throw them to the ground. Vlk said no starting player had been injured at his practices in four years.

“Those types of injuries can stay with you for a long time,” he said, “and knowing that I’m keeping the kids safe, not just in our program, but beyond the program, is reason enough to go this route.”

Vlk’s approach to limiting the number of hits players take has been spreading slowly in the football world, where much of the effort has focused on avoiding and treating concussions, which often have observable symptoms and are tracked by sports leagues.

But researchers have for years posited that the more hits to the head a player receives — even subconcussive ones, which are usually not tracked — the more likely he is to develop cognitive and neurological problems later in life.

A new study published on Tuesday in the scientific journal Nature Communications added a critical wrinkle: A football player’s chances of developing chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or C.T.E., are related to the number of head impacts absorbed, but also to the cumulative impact of all those hits.

Collective Force of Head Hits Increases Odds of CTE, Study Says - The New York Times
The study, the largest to look at the causes of C.T.E. to date, used data published in 34 studies that tracked the number and magnitude of head hits measured by football helmet sensors. Using the data, which went back 20 years, the scientists estimated the number and force of head hits absorbed by 631 former football players who donated their brains to studies overseen by researchers at Boston University.

The paper tried to address one of the most persistent challenges for brain trauma researchers: identifying what aspects of head hits contribute most to C.T.E. They looked at the number of hits to the head, the number of years playing football, the force of those hits and other factors.

The best predictor of brain disease later in life, the study found, was the cumulative force of the head hits absorbed by the players over the course of their careers, not the number of diagnosed concussions.

“We’re now getting a better understanding of what causes C.T.E. pathology, but we’re also getting a better understanding of what’s not causing C.T.E. pathology,” said Dr. Daniel Daneshvar, an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School and the lead author of the study. “And in this case, it’s the largest study of C.T.E. pathology ever, and concussions were basically noise.”

Of the 631 brains examined, 451 players, or 71 percent, were found to have C.T.E., while 180 did not. The players who were estimated to have absorbed the greatest cumulative force had the worst forms of C.T.E., which has been associated with symptoms including memory loss, impulsive behavior, depression and suicidal thoughts.

Eric Nauman, a biomedical engineering professor at the University of Cincinnati who was not involved in the study, said the results strengthened the idea that an accumulation of subconcussive hits, rather than concussions, was the driving force behind long-term cognitive decline.

The latest data “seems to support the idea that, yes, all these hits matter, they all add up,” Dr. Nauman said. “If you accumulate damage faster than the body can repair it, now you’ve got a problem.”

He said the analysis pointed the way toward obvious changes that could make football safer, like the elimination of hitting in practices and the development of helmets that absorb more impact, especially to the back of the head.

Dr. Nauman noted that the new study included brains of players with and without the disease, sparing it from the common concern that the researchers looked only at the most damaged brains.

It also found links between the estimated number and types of hits players sustained during their careers and their health many years later, a factor Dr. Nauman said would make it more difficult for detractors to argue that players had possibly suffered unknown injuries in the decades after they stopped playing football that caused later cognitive problems.

Dr. Nauman said the new research was still bound by limitations. The study counted all of the head impacts detected by helmet sensors, except for those caused by jostling or incidental motion. But previous research has suggested that the most important hits appeared to be those above a certain threshold, a distinction the study was not able to make.

Because the N.F.L. has not published its helmet sensor data, the study used college sensor data as a proxy for professional players.

Helmets have improved in recent years, and it is likely that players whose careers predate the improvements absorbed more of the impact from any given hit. But football players in decades past were on average smaller and slower than those playing today, making any given hit less forceful, Dr. Nauman said.

“That certainly is a caveat, but it’s not something that would make me think the basic conclusions are wrong,” he said.

Joseph J. Crisco, a professor at Brown University who helped devise a sensor used in Riddell helmets, said the study tried to overcome a basic challenge — that researchers had not tracked how many hits the brain donors had accumulated during their careers.

Rather, the study used helmet sensor data from a more recent set of players to estimate the number and force of head impacts for the older players, based on what positions they played, at what levels of the sport and for how long.

While studies using players’ actual lifetime head impacts were needed, he said, the findings suggest that “the players that are getting hit the hardest and most often are more likely to have C.T.E. down the road.”

Steve Rowson, who studies helmet impacts and concussion risk at Virginia Tech, said the study’s emphasis on the force and number of hits that players sustain fits with how scientists understand brain injuries.

The odds of developing C.T.E. increase exponentially with more force to the head
This table shows the increased risk of developing C.T.E. for each additional year played compared with someone who played only two years of youth football. Players who absorb more head hits, like linemen who play for many years, are at higher risk for the disease.

Researchers have managed to pinpoint some factors that explain different players’ exposure to head impacts, he said. For example, he said, linemen are most often hit on the fronts of their helmets, while quarterbacks are more likely to suffer severe impacts to the backs of theirs.

But, Dr. Rowson said, it would be a mistake for people to think that they could now use the findings to predict anyone’s chances of long-term cognitive problems.

“What I don’t think we can do right now is look at an individual and really get a good idea of their head impact exposure relative to another,” he said, “because there’s this huge difference person to person that we can’t quite account for.”

The study notes that future research should examine different thresholds for counting hits, an advancement that Dr. Rowson said was important. Some head impacts, he said, are mild enough that the brain can probably tolerate them. But at exactly what point the impacts become damaging is not clear, he said.

“Not all impacts are created equal,” he said. “Trying to figure out which impacts are the most important, I think, could really help this kind of analysis.”

My Game Is Not A Good Thing

I grew up on football - and I grew up with football. My dad was a big fan, and because he wasn't allowed to play (depression era kids often had to go straight to work after school), he pushed hard for me and my brother to play.

Football's my game. There's just something about it that I find beautiful and poetic - the way a receiver lays out and makes the circus catch on a ball the QB has thrown so perfectly that only his guy has a real shot at it. Or the grace of a running back planting his foot and changing direction in an impossible move that leaves a would-be tackler grabbing an armful of empty space. Or how a defensive player can make a play by reacting almost as if he knows exactly what the offense was planning to do.

But the finesse of the game is always overshadowed by the aspects of brute strength, violence, and the way we're taught to intimidate and dominate each other.

In the NFL, the art always ultimately gives way to commercial interests. The business necessities of a high-dollar entertainment industry dictate how the players are used - and used up - in order to put a quality product on the field 21 Sundays out of the year.

Football Is Deadly, but Not for the Reasons You Think

Mr. Nowinski, a former professional athlete, is a behavioral neuroscientist and founding C.E.O. of the nonprofit organization Concussion Legacy Foundation.

When Damar Hamlin suffered a cardiac arrest during the N.F.L. “Monday Night Football” game earlier this week, it felt like the world stopped — both on the field, where emergency medical teams rushed into action and fellow players looked on in shock, and on televisions in millions of homes, where fans tried to make sense of what they had just witnessed in real time.

Just moments earlier the second-year Buffalo Bills safety had made a tackle on the Cincinnati Bengals’ Tee Higgins, causing his chest to collide violently with Higgins’ helmet. Cardiologists have speculated that the impact may have triggered commotio cordis, a rare condition that can occur when the chest wall is impacted during a narrow, vulnerable moment in the heartbeat cycle, which can knock the heart out of rhythm. Hamlin has made remarkable progress, but the condition can be fatal.

The episode has focused international attention on the physical dangers of football, with many parents wondering anew if they should allow their children to play and some fans questioning whether it’s ethical to support the sport at all.

As a former college football player and neuroscientist who has advocated better protections for athletes for the last 20 years, I am encouraged by the outpouring of support for Mr. Hamlin, a talented player and a role model, and for his family.

But as alarming as his injury was, the terrifying incident carries a secondary risk: It is focusing attention on a single, dramatic outlier rather than the chronic medical conditions that pose by far the greatest danger to players.

According to the National Commotio Cordis Registry, there are an estimated 15 to 20 cases per year nationwide, usually in sports like baseball or hockey when a fast-moving projectile connects with an unprotected chest. In football, where players wear lots of padding, an event like this is so rare at the N.F.L. level that it probably won’t occur again in our lifetimes. Meanwhile, chronic heart disease and the long-term effects of traumatic brain injuries have robbed countless players of their health, their happiness, and even their lives, but do not receive the same medical or cultural attention because they happen away from the cameras.

Hours before the Monday night game, I learned that former N.F.L. offensive lineman Uche Nwaneri, who started 92 games at guard and center for the Jacksonville Jaguars, had died from a heart attack at the age of 38. Uche and I had been messaging on Twitter about our shared concerns about concussions and chronic traumatic encephalopathy (C.T.E.). He had struggled to find his next passion after retiring, but had recently gained a dedicated following on YouTube commenting on football and pop culture, calling himself the Observant Lineman. He is survived by his wife Michele and two young daughters.

Young former N.F.L. players, mostly linemen, die from heart attacks or heart disease nearly every year. In addition to Uche, Shane Olivea died in March at age 40. Max Tuerk, age 26, died in 2020. Taylor Whitley, age 38, 2018. Jeremy Nunley, age 46, 2018. Nate Hobgood-Chittick, age 42, 2017. Rodrick Monroe, age 40, 2017. Ron Brace, age 29, 2016. Quentin Groves, 32, 2016. Damion Cook, 36, 2015. According to a 2019 study from Harvard University, N.F.L. players are 2.5 times more likely to have cardiovascular diseases listed as an underlying or contributing cause of death than Major League Baseball players.

Scientists believe N.F.L. players are at greater risk of heart disease because of the weight they gain, even when it is mostly muscle. Once players retire, it’s extremely difficult to lose the football weight, partially due to chronic pain from injuries suffered playing. (N.F.L. players ages 25 to 39 have about three times the rate of arthritis than the general public.) These men’s untimely deaths were a tragedy to their loved ones, friends, and former teammates, but the public was largely unaware.

Neurological disorders are also uncomfortably common among former N.F.L. players. Uche had recently invited me on his podcast. We planned to discuss how football players should interpret data from the Boston University’s C.T.E. Center study showing that around 90 percent of the more than 300 N.F.L. players they have studied since 2008 have had C.T.E., a neurodegenerative disease that is linked with the development of dementia and is caused in part by repeated traumatic brain injuries. While it is unlikely that those 300 N.F.L. players studied are representative of the total N.F.L. population, a separate analysis has suggested the minimum prevalence in N.F.L. players is 10 percent, more than 10 times what it is in the general population. Uche wanted his brain tested for C.T.E. upon his death, and his family is following through on his request.

Neurological damage from repeated head trauma may be behind the findings that N.F.L. players are three times more likely to die of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, and 3.5 times more likely to die of Parkinson’s disease than Major League Baseball players. Death certificates tend to undercount dementia, but a survey published last year found that N.F.L. players in their 50s are 10 times more likely to be diagnosed with dementia than the general population.

The risks N.F.L. players incur are not limited to their years on professional teams. C.T.E. risk is partially determined by the length of a player’s career — the longer one plays football, the more head impacts and traumatic brain injuries they are likely to suffer, the greater their risk. Therefore, this risk is also shared by college football players, high school, and even youth players, all of whom are exposed to the risk, the vast majority without any financial upside — and in the case of children, without informed consent.

I hope the football safety conversation that Damar Hamlin has inspired makes the game safer for young players who consider him a hero and want to follow in his footsteps. I also hope the public will focus on what we can influence, including how we manage risk factors for heart disease and when we introduce our children to tackle football. According to a study by the C.D.C., youth tackle football players average 389 head impacts a season. Perhaps we should Stop Hitting Kids in the Head and push for only flag football before high school. And perhaps those who profit off the sport should start to live up to their responsibility. The N.F.L. requires on average 30 medical professionals at each game. But while the risks do not end on the field, the medical care often does.

Damar Hamlin deserves every ounce of our attention, support and respect after putting himself at risk for our entertainment. Let’s keep talking about him, his family, his teammates, his city and the fans that have rallied behind him, and all the positives that he has inspired and represents, including the preciousness of life — even the parts of it that are not captured on camera.

It's Confusing

I think the Super Bowl halftime show yesterday was pretty good - and not because "conservatives" hated it. That's a plus, but it's not the thing for me.

I'm not at all a fan of Rap or Hip Hop or whatever the specific genres and sub-genres are called these days, and even though I wasn't paying all that much attention to it - because I've never paid much attention to halftime shows - I managed to perceive some pretty decent musicality on stage. There was some music in that music.

But I'm confused because the consensus seems to be that if you liked it, then according to "conservatives" you're hedonistic and over-sexualized and you're the reason for the downfall of the empire.

But, according to the 18-34 gang, if you liked it, then you're old, and fossilized, and culturally ignorant because - c'mon man - Snoop Dogg?

So, being all typically American and shit, I'll go with that egocentric thing we usually pull out of our asses at times like these, and say I must be doing something right cuz everybody's telling me I'm wrong.

Besides, what do want? You wanna bring back the Rockettes? Elvis impersonators? Up With People?

How 'bout that Disney clusterfuck from 1977?

So get serious here. You're not watching the moon landing. It's the halftime show at a fuckin' football game. You're gonna turn down the TV, crank up the stereo, go take a piss and head outside to share a doobie or throw the frisbee or something.

Covering It All

Just to be sure I've got it all covered, I'd like to take this opportunity to assure my loyal readers that the Super Bowl confetti was not made entirely of shredded head injury studies.

thanks - The Onion

Today's Eternal Petulance

45* is a fucking child - with a live hand grenade.

KDKA - Pittsburgh:

Digging deeper into a culture war that he’s repeatedly stoked, President Donald Trump on Monday called off a visit by the Philadelphia Eagles to the White House Tuesday, citing the dispute over whether NFL players must stand during the playing of the national anthem.

Trump said in a statement that some members of the Super Bowl championship team “disagree with their President because he insists that they proudly stand for the National Anthem, hand on heart, in honor of the great men and women of our military and the people of our country.”

None of the Eagles took a knee during the anthem in 2017.

Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney replied with his own statement, saying that he is “equally proud of the Eagles’ activism off the field” and that the players “represent the diversity of our nation — a nation in which we are free to express our opinions.”

“Disinviting them from the White House only proves that our President is not a true patriot, but a fragile egomaniac obsessed with crowd size and afraid of the embarrassment of throwing a party to which no one wants to attend,” the statement continued.

Jim Kenney's got guts.

Today's Tweet

It's hard to believe the NFL has managed to ruin the reputation of a sport that brought us Michael Vick, Jerry Sandusky, and O.J. Simpson.

— Middle Age Riot (@middleageriot) May 24, 2018

More NFL Stoopid

Elizabeth Bruenig, WaPo

On one level, it does seem just as cold and calculated as the old days, when the NFL was swapping salutes for cash. If you have to threaten someone into showing respect, whatever they end up showing isn’t respect but a simulation of it for someone else’s consumption. The fact that the rule has already been made public just means that everyone is aware that this is the portion of the game when the NFL forces its players to stand still while they play a song, or else. The meaning of it all washes out; the fines make it entirely situational: It’s a workplace compliance issue, a matter of the NFL making its performers sell its customers what they want to buy. The content is meaningless.

From Mike’s 10 Commandments:

2. Be true to the ideal, not just to the symbol.

- and -

If not money, then what? There is the evident racial component, bolstered by the bizarre involvement of the president, which has everything to do with disciplining black people in public, a long-running American obsession. But I suspect there’s something more, something wider and stranger, at the root of all this fury over a few athletes quietly kneeling during their country’s anthem. For one, there’s the straightforward fact that kneeling isn’t a sign of disrespect, and nobody brought up in a country with the faintest hint of Christian culture actually thinks it is. As Luke Bretherton, a professor of theological ethics at Duke University, wrote last year in The Post: “New Testament stories describe people who kneel before Jesus in supplication or lament. With their kneeling, these biblical figures say: Something is desperately wrong, please hear us and use your power to help us. Their act of submission signals their faith that healing will come and their prayers will be answered.”

- and a tweet:

The NFL just banned players from kneeling during the national anthem.

Take a look at the image below.

Three of these men are mass murderers & three of them didn’t kill anybody.

Can you spot the difference in their mugshots?

This is why we kneel. #BlackLivesMatter pic.twitter.com/9pOdawG8Bd

— Millennial Politics (@MillenPolitics) May 23, 2018

Today's Corporate Overreach

Albert Breer, Sports Illustrated:

ATLANTA — On Tuesday, NFL owners put three hours aside for a privileged session to speak—amongst themselves and family members—about the most sensitive of topics.

One was how the league will handle players kneeling during the national anthem going forward. An idea being floated in the room goes like this: It would be up to the home team on whether both teams come out of the locker room for the anthem, and, should teams come out, 15-yard penalties could be assessed for kneeling.

The league is currently being sued by Colin Kaepernick and Eric Reid, with the two unsigned free agents alleging that NFL teams colluded to keep them unemployed. Kaepernick was the first NFL player to kneel during the national anthem, to protest police brutality, starting a trend that swept across the league in 2016 and '17.

The NFL addressed the anthem issue at its meetings in October and March, with plans to further discuss it at this meeting. The league also met with the Players Coalition in October, and agreed to a seven-year, $89 million social-justice partnership.

According to sources, the owners also discussed how to move forward its partnership with the players and finalized the terms of the deal.

My dearest NFL,

Fuck you.

Even if you decide not to go thru with it, you're seriously considering it. Add this to all your other attempts to manipulate and control players to the point where most of them lose everything no matter what they're willing to sacrifice in order to play a game that makes a very few people obscenely wealthy, and I can only conclude one thing - fuck you.

Your pal,

Mike

When The Headline Says It All

God love The Onion

Refresher

A little more on the protests going on during the anthem before football games.

Here's Mike Ditka providing further proof of the latent manifestation of brain injury symptoms a player can display after nearly a lifetime of taking blows to the head.

“All of a sudden, it’s become a big deal now, about oppression,” Ditka told Jim Gray on Westwood One’s pregame show ahead of the Bears’ “Monday Night Football” loss to the Vikings. “There has been no oppression in the last 100 years that I know of. Now maybe I’m not watching it as carefully as other people.”
Or maybe he's showing the inner workings of the average GOP rube's mind, but that requires me to ask: How am I supposed to tell the difference?

So let's hear Tim Wise again as he tries to explain some of these things to us: 

What It's About

The silly stunt that 45* and V45* pulled on Sunday was cynical and manipulative, and as much a waste of tax dollars as guys like Donald Trump and Mike Pence are a waste of otherwise perfectly good ectoplasm.

BTW, Eric Reid is proof that football is no longer a game for the average dolt - which could explain why Pence felt the need to leave in such a hurry.

Ah, Football

Shit makes ya bold. And stoopid.

Bye, Coach.

This is the video supposedly of Dolphins offensive line coach Chris Foerster snorting coke before a meeting pic.twitter.com/L7ZsdZMH7U

— Ollie Connolly (@OllieConnolly) October 9, 2017

Y'know, the NFL already has a pretty full plate. Substance dependencies, and juicing, and the slow-moving disaster of brain injury, and domestic abuse, and and and.

With all that, it seems like they're going outa their way looking for something to be cranky about. I wonder if that's part of the plan. Distraction and misdirection.

BTW - here's a DB/Special Teamer named Michael Thomas.

Loved this photo of the "unpatriotic" Michael Thomas. pic.twitter.com/I5GVAFHcYH

— Shandel Richardson (@ShandelRich) October 9, 2017

Thomas did the kneel-down thing for the whole season last year, and again in London when the Fins played the Titans a week or so ago(?). The picture in that tweet doesn't look like any of the troopers are taking exception to his actions.

Now Thomas says it's had the desired effect - people have heard the voices they needed to hear, and there's been some progress (in certain areas) towards some kind of solution - at least a start down that road.

“Everybody who sees what’s going to come out of it will see that it was never about actually protesting the flag, that it wasn’t about disrespecting our military, but it was about trying to bring light to the issues that are going on in our communities. … The league heard us, and it’s going to be good.”

Thomas has said he'll prob'ly stand from now on, but yesterday, he and a coupla mates stayed in the locker room during the anthem.

Anyway, the kicker is that 45* seems to think the protests are dying down, and so it's time for him to do The Daddy State Shuffle, where he tries to take credit for it. 

It becomes a variation on "Post hoc, ergo propter hoc" aka "False Cause".

Here's an illustration of the point (paraphrased from a comedy bit by Kearsarge and Landry, about 400 years ago, when I was a teenager):

1: So you're a farmer?
2: Sure 'nuff.
1: What crops do you raise?
2: Buck wheat and radishes.
1: You do pretty well with it?
2: Buck wheat's great, but them radishes - that's a dead loser.
1: So why do you grow radishes?
2: Got to - been plantin' them radishes for generations now.
1: But why?
2: Keep the wolverines away - can't have them wolverines on your land, y'know.
1: So you've got a wolverine problem down here in west Texas?
2: No, dummy - we got radishes. Ain't you listenin'?

So it works pretty well on people who prefer being intellectually lazy enough not to look past that false front.  And anyway, it rankles "the Libruls", so it's gotta be a good thing, right?

Trae Crowder

Kaepernick's protest is not about what you want it to be about. It's about what Kaepernick says it's about.

And by the fuckin' way - the only reason "conservatives" are using the word "disrespectful" is because Lee Atwater and Roger Stone managed to teach them not to say "uppity".

Not Just Another Dumb Jock

Gregg Popovich struggles at times to find the words, but if this is at all representative of how people in positions of influence are thinking, then we're doing better than I thought.

And Steve Kerr talks about the Warriors taking a pass on their White House visit - making a very solid statement on values:

BTW - nobody is protesting the national anthem, and nobody is protesting the flag.

BTW2 - stop telling me 45* has accomplished something positive. You might as well say it was a good thing those 300 passengers were killed in just about the most gruesome way imaginable because we got all these great new data points on how to improve airline safety.

Today's Tweet

Gosh, ya mean the flag and the anthem and all that stuff might mean different things to different people?

Holy crap - whooda thunk it?

Rodgers: Kaepernick isn't on an NFL team because of his protests and it would be "ignorant" to think otherwise. https://t.co/EvOgSwj8g6

— Twitter Moments (@TwitterMoments) August 30, 2017

Business Insider:

You won't find Aaron Rodgers kneeling during the national anthem this season, but in a recent interview with ESPN's Mina Kimes, the Green Bay Packers' offensive captain said he had no issue with players who choose to protest.

That includes Colin Kaepernick, the quarterback who is still waiting for a job offer less than two weeks before the start of the 2017 regular season. Kaepernick drew national attention even from outside sports circles last season when he popularized the practice of not standing during the national anthem in protest of racial injustice in America.

Rodgers said it would be "ignorant" to believe that Kaepernick's trouble finding a team had nothing to do with his activism.

Today's Tonight

My love-hate relationship with football continues.

My Donkeys play the late game Monday night.

Per Five-Thirty-Eight:

Broncos  (-7.5)   74%

Chargers            26%