NFL phases way down by 1995, earlier knowledge of CTE, plus the high road.

Well, I trust we all know that college football stars do get paid, much as the NCAA might not want to acknowledge as much.
I agree.

However, from SMU scandal of the 1980s, not as much as people might think! :openedeyewink:

Later edit: With Eric Dickerson being offered $50,000 around 1979 per the below youtube video I’m going to officially say . . half a shit ton! ;)

PS I’m going to riff in some later posts about the possibility of combining this with earlier CTE awareness/public discussion in which colleges and universities receive a lot of public pressure to the effect, yeah, time to phase down and move toward other sports.

At least on collegiate level.

And then the NFL can pay for its own developmental league(s).
 
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FBS has a limit of 85 per team.

Some private schools get around it by waiving tuition for all low income students and admitting athletes who don't qualify academically, but schools are limited in the number of walk-ons and overall roster size.

There are also states with low tuition and in some cases full scholarships (Louisiana has TOPS and Georgia has HOPE), but if you qualify for those you don't need football to get an education.
Thank you, I think 85 is right.

Just in case there are any skeptics reading, I do want to nail it down with a really good reference, maybe an article giving advice to parents.

And then I’d like to compare it to the number of scholarships for baseball and basketball.
 
Baseball is 11.7

Wait... what?

Basketball is over twice a starting 5, football is well over (they need 24 guys counting a punter and kicker, figuring nobody plays both ways), and baseball is the equivalent of the 1905 Giants? (starting 8, Matty, McGinnity, and a sub for somewhere?)

I think just upping the number of scholarships for baseball to 20-25 will help quite a bit.If you're talking 1985, these are the days when the college game was really good - Barry Bonds, Robin Ventura (he of the 58-game hitting streak - I had to look it up but knew it was big), Frank Thomas, and others who might well have made college baseb all a big, not-quite-prime-time-TV-but-almost sport.
 
Wait... what?

Basketball is over twice a starting 5, football is well over (they need 24 guys counting a punter and kicker, figuring nobody plays both ways), and baseball is the equivalent of the 1905 Giants? (starting 8, Matty, McGinnity, and a sub for somewhere?)

I think just upping the number of scholarships for baseball to 20-25 will help quite a bit.If you're talking 1985, these are the days when the college game was really good - Barry Bonds, Robin Ventura (he of the 58-game hitting streak - I had to look it up but knew it was big), Frank Thomas, and others who might well have made college baseb all a big, not-quite-prime-time-TV-but-almost sport.

I'm guessing that the fact that so many prospects skip college and go into the minor league farm systems has something to do with that.
 
I'm guessing that the fact that so many prospects skip college and go into the minor league farm systems has something to do with that.

Good point; which means it doesn't have to be much higher. But, it would be interesting to see a TL where college baseball does hit it big. Maybe if 1994 sees a lockout as a pre-emptive thing at the start of spring trainin g rather than starting the season, it could replace MLB on the networks?
 
. . . interesting to see a TL where college baseball does hit it big. Maybe if 1994 sees a lockout as a pre-emptive thing at the start of spring trainin . . .
----------


http://www.thisgreatgame.com/1994-baseball-history.html

Or . . . the baseball strike still occurs Aug. 12, 1994, just as OTL.

But with more colleges moving away from football in the '80s, many of the schools have already introduced BOTH Fall AND Spring baseball and basketball.

And so, the normally less covered Fall baseball season suddenly . . . gets a lot more attention!
 
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And then, there was the death of boxer Duk Koo Kim in Nov. 1982. He was the challenger who fought lightweight championship Ray Mancini in a big Las Vegas fight on Nov. 13, 1982 (nationally broadcast on CBS). Kim went down in the 14th round, was in a coma shortly thereafter, and even after being worked on by a brain surgeon, died on Nov. 18, 1982.

It was a very big news story, including his mother flying in from Korea. And of course it resulted in controversy about boxing itself, such as:

PHYSICANS' JOURNAL CALLS FOR A BAN ON BOXING

New York Times, John Noble Wilford, Jan. 14, 1983

https://www.nytimes.com/1983/01/14/sports/physicans-journal-calls-for-a-ban-on-boxing.html

“Editorials in today's issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association urged the banning of boxing in light of new evidence suggesting that chronic brain damage . . . ”

“ . . . and that 17 percent of those who had boxed for six to nine years displayed brain damage. . . ”

TOO MANY PUNCHES, TOO LITTLE CONCERN

Sports Illustrated, Robert Boyle, April 11, 1983

https://www.si.com/vault/1983/04/11/619344/too-many-punches-too-little-concern

“ . . . Another type of boxing injury has received less public attention. It's chronic brain damage, and here there's the possibility of real reform. Chronic brain damage occurs when a fighter is hit in the head thousands of times during the course of a career. Boxers' encephalopathy is the scientific term; the colloquial expression is punch-drunk. . . ”
This is the linchpin issue.

If we focus on the large number of subconcussive blows, there’s no saving football, particularly youth football.

What I’m looking for are 1980s PODs which will interrupt the talent pipeline of the NFL, or otherwise give it a lower trajectory.
 
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All CTE and luck retired for his shoulder, NFL should be more worried about pension and a real lifetime healtcare that CTE
 
And then, there was the death of boxer Duk Koo Kim in Nov. 1982. He was the challenger who fought lightweight championship Ray Mancini in a big Las Vegas fight on Nov. 13, 1982 (nationally broadcast on CBS). Kim went down in the 14th round, was in a coma shortly thereafter, and even after being worked on by a brain surgeon, died on Nov. 18, 1982.

It was a very big news story, including his mother flying in from Korea. And of course it resulted in controversy about boxing itself, such as:




This is the linchpin issue.

If we focus on the large number of subconcussive blows, there’s no saving football, particularly youth football.

What I’m looking for are 1980s PODs which will interrupt the talent pipeline of the NFL, or otherwise give it a lower trajectory.

Maybe scrutiny over the death of Lyle Alzado leads to realizations about head injuries and not just steroids?
 
. . . luck retired for his shoulder, . .
And most recently, left calf and ankle problems, and difficulty moving in the pocket.

I think Andrew Luck is a fine young man, and I wish him all the best! :)

I will say there’s a difference between a shoulder injury on the one hand, which manifests itself probably right away and its seriousness within a matter of days, and a worsening brain condition on the other, which doesn’t manifest itself for years probably decades, and when it does, seems to have a forward progression in which it keeps getting worse even though the blows to the head stopped long ago.

Andrew may indeed be lucky.

One study estimated that 30% of former NFL players would eventually get cognitive or emotional processing deficits ahead of their time, and most probably because of football. Meaning 70% of the guys won’t, thank goodness.

But it is still an unacceptably high rate of carnage.

Now, high school football or youth football (with “mitey-mite” football being ages 7-9) is almost certainly going to have a lower rate of eventual brain problems. But I suggest that if you really think about it, that in the final analysis you will still find these lower rates to be unacceptable. For example, they’d never be accepted by OSHA or workers’ comp as an on-the-job injury rate.

And if we’re going to say, look, adults have the right to make their own choices and do what they want, then fine, it’s an easy remedy and that is to make football strictly age 18 and above.
 
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Amid 'Concussion' coverage, Frontline documents Chris Borland's departure from football

La Crosse Tribune (Wisconsin), Dec. 27, 2015

https://lacrossetribune.com/sports/...cle_23ba7b14-67e6-5271-aeee-ffef3cff956d.html

"Last year the NFL commissioned actuaries to estimate how many NFL veterans would have brain damage," Borland said. "And the number they came up with was three out of 10. So if I turn on a game and a third of the guys will have brain damage in life, I just — I can't really support that. I don't really watch football anymore. If it's on, I may peek at it but ... [he shook his head as the camera faded] ... "
To me, definitely one version of high road.
 
And most recently, left calf and ankle problems, and difficulty moving in the pocket.
Excatly, he knew CTE issues better anyone but that is why he not throw out the towel, was the rest of his body, have both the NFL AND THE PA have a more integral Healthcare and maybe real guaranteed contracts(they will screw rookies like always) Luck story would not have happened, he would have been shutdown in 2015 and give all the time to health with real healthcare. That is why CTE is not an issue as real contracts and healthcare is
 
Maybe scrutiny over the death of Lyle Alzado leads to realizations about head injuries and not just steroids?
I remember Lyle was a popular athlete. And I think he died of cancer which might have been pushed along by steroids.

For a while, the NFL wondered aloud if it was the combo of steroids and collisions which later led to brain damage. Although probably only about a 30% chance of CTE in Lyle’s case, right? And the idea was not completely crazy since hormones do affect many parts of the body. But, it was part of the general pattern of throwing doubt for as long as possible.

Look, I’m fine with us rewriting the cause of a person’s death as long as we do so in a broadly respectful way, which I’m sure we would. And as long as it’s not too soon after a person goes on to the great beyond, and since Lyle passed away several decades ago, I don’t that will be a problem.

But... I don’t think I know enough about his career and brief post-NFL years to be personally the one to sketch out such a timeline.
 
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. . . Luck story would not have happened, he would have been shutdown in 2015 and give all the time . . .
However, since it was two years later in 2017 that Andrew again had shoulder issues, I'm not at all sure it was the same injury.
 
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ponyexcess.jpg

This was the ESPN documentary on the 1980s scandal of SMU paying athletes. And one reason it all came to light is:
https://variety.com/2010/voices/opinion/december-docs-espns-30-for-30-pony-excess-3980/

" . . . a newspaper war between the Dallas Times Herald and Dallas Morning News drove coverage of SMU’s transgressions, . . "
My, Oh My.

And therein lies a potential POD!

For the national newspaper USA Today started publishing in the early 1980s. And if in an ATL, perhaps almost by accident, they have a sports editor who's very open to stories about the way the NFL and colleges treat players, the issue of brain health, etc, that might push the public discussion.
 
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