joining us is desiring from edge of sports dot com and also sports editor at
the nation today we talked last week about uh... malcolm gladwell arguing
today actually at the slate intelligence squared debate
that college football should be banned in the potentially it will be banned in
really the reason he cites as as more
and more is known about the prevalence of
uh... long-term brain injury c_ t_ e_ is a result of college football combined
with the fact that these athletes are not getting paid parents will never let
their kids get into football first of all and number two
the legal risk to colleges will be so great that college football basically
disappear what do you think
well i think they're alive in which there that need to be contact
one of the things that we noticed
statistics which don't walk uh... are that
uh... almost fifty percent of
the big college football programs of lose money
and that that's sort of the last argument that people are making down
defense college football's that the rest of the athletic departments depend on it
for survival
but over ninety percent of athletic departments lose money overall
and like i said almost half of college football programs lose money by the
doubts
and often dot outstrip all programs lose money it's like this big sucking sound
actually takes down other programs with it which we saw just down the block for
me at the university of maryland which had uh... eliminate six different sports
teams largely because of all the money they sometimes et
college football also i think there's a lot of truth to this it's not a new
critique it's been around for a hundred years honestly about uh... bazaar role
the college football plays on many campuses ethic it makes a lot of sense i
mean i i don't know if malcolm gladwell it necessarily agree
uh... with me d which would be to say that uh... if you're gonna have college
football team
the student should be recognized as campus employees have labor protections
and be paid for what they do
uh... by i i certainly think bhai ke in people on his side are definitely on the
right track it's a
for and we wrote
institution
one of the arguments that i heard that doesn't really resonate with me as well
listen
uh... people know that there are risks the playing college football much the
same as they know their risk the boxing or being in and then a that the
difference i think though
is that those are at least print presumably
after you get out of the initial amateurs stage it's a professional
sports berwick here are being paid whereas with college football it's not
that money isn't being made all the youth you're saying actually a lot of
the programs do lose money but it is a big draw for the university there is a
benefit being derived it's just that the players are getting all the risk and a
little of the reward unless they've eventually going to have an nfl career
but even that's a difficult argument to make is we now
because that have short those n_f_l_ careers are
no absolute
ruling i mean i i think uh... this is one of those things we gotta go on
arguments based on the current science sensed
uh... it's still something that i don't think we know enough about
but i've heard enough neurologist suffered enough
people who are experts in the field
say that
the real danger is playing any kind of five tackle football before the age of
fourteen
and that's when your brain is in full development or whether you're fourteen
eighteen or twenty eight
uh... the idea of putting yourself at that kind of physical harm on without
seeing any compensation order even be billy get workers compensation for it
uh... is something that
is just
amis it's really it's really not just a minute and it's a pretty awful situation
that most players have
uh... and relationship we have most of the schools is a very abusive what date
when you're on that track from a very early age it makes it difficult to
figure out a way to protest against it i mean i think
though this is beyond just the players and what they want it's about what we
think is in the best interest interests of the institutions of
higher learning in this country and what about the question though of with no one
forcing anybody to start football when they're young no one's or thing anyone
could be
uh... in high school football no one's forcing anyone to play college football
if the benefits exist
we're doing that either in terms of enjoyment
potentially nfl career whatever it may be who are we to impose and say this is
the one sport we're going to say shouldn't exist anymore on college
campuses
may nine eleven year olds who can drive a car
i know ten-year-olds who can hold their liquor leader in africa pot
but these are growing up in a
yasir jewish family with what some initiatives flown sometimes a
you know i'm sure there are
eleven-year-old snow handled there's smoke
without coughing up mean there are going to have certain lots because of the
understanding that because of biology
now one's body developed certain things
cadivi harmful to never harmful to others and if we start to think about
putting football in that category grammatical in our moral perspective of
different from a medical perspective
but that's a lot of people who make a lot of money in a lot of trouble and not
just talking about
uh... did the n_f_l_ much talking about people the professional ranks i mean you
know i have
isn't seen cottage industry
but relaxed capitalist expansion
india enticing parents of children as young as being interviewed around and
i'm serious about that
they dat u terrell about training them to be professional athletes
and all these things are branded by denied he had penis reebok from a very
early age do you have
a lot of very powerful forces a lien against any kind of
broader medical our societal responsibility
uh... about these games are the sports so
uh... it makes the entire debate extremely skewed
and i've also pointing out the
anytime you talk about
sports in the united states in the professionalization of these sports in
the united states
your in about three will be transfer family skewed
i'm not just because of pressures that parents put on small children
but outside always
like-minded bizarre tonight here are some people say one might eight-year-old
really wants to play and there's nothing i could do to stop it ily
but the debate
uh... is it about you wonder about your catalogs
by uh... it's also
i think very much about
uh... the way they
i think particularly when you're talking about college football the pros like the
way the role that poverty plays in steering people onto these tracks
which people are very low to discuss its like this idea of class in the united
states and how it distorts all of these things like
if you're somebody who comes from a family that has the choice to not
have you
you if three hundred fifty combat since of wine and chances are
your family will make that choice for you and put you on a different track of
that
and if you are on that track well then there are still massive health risks
that go with that
and nasa dangers that go along with that now if you're over eighteen and that's
the decision you make i'm definitely not for uh... a big brother stepping in and
stopping you in that case
but if you're under eighteen years clearly under fourteen
well then i think it there there is is there we're getting to the point were
reaching
uh... to borrow a an annoying phrase for malcolm gladwell reaching a tipping
point here where we begin to have to look at the evidence
and ask some very very tough questions about whether or not
uh... there is a broader deleterious societal affected having football so
institutionalized
for children as young as age is five
alright designed by the fourth dot com sports editor at the nation of greater
talking today hope to see what happens next month
uh... thank you