More than 100 years after President Teddy Roosevelt, in an effort to save football, successfully campaigned against its violence, some worry that we need intervention again. With football arguably now the U.S. pastime, the moral stakes are higher this time around.
While the recent focus has been on helmet-to-helmet hits that can cause concussions and spinal injuries, and apparently contribute to the early onset of dementia, the issue goes beyond the damage inflicted on the field. So no federal intervention is needed. Rather than the president or Congress stepping in, it should fall to each of us.
From PeeWee leagues to the pros, nose tackles and couch potatoes alike derive many of their definitions of courage, loyalty, competition, self-discipline, respect for authority and teamwork from a game that unabashedly describes itself as a teacher of life. If that’s true, and I think it is, we better make sure the lessons we learn from what we see on the field reflect our vision of the nation… (more)
