We’re All Here Together: Black, White, Red, Yellow & Brown
American Football is a unique sport in many ways, and in some ways it is not. NCAA Football and the much better-known National Football League are hardly the only high-profile sports in the world where protective gear is worn in order to secure the safety of the performers in the sport. Without sturdy helmets and thick protective pads secured tightly to the body, American football, also known as gridiron football, is just too dangerous and violent to survive without these precautionary measures.
Serious injuries would be commonplace, and the sport would quicky fade into nonexistence.
There has been a dark cloud hanging over the American football, for a quite a while and that is because of the prevalence of mild brain injuries that occur routinely during the course of play. These injuries are known as concussions. Football is high-speed, violent, and sometimes painful. Large, strong athletic men purposely collide into each other on every single play.
These collisions occasionally result in sprains, strains, torn-up knees and broken bones.
But most of the time, of course, nothing happens.
It’s on to the next play.
In fact, the inherent manly violence of the sport that is a large part of the allure of American football. This is not a game for weak, timid, easily intimidated men. Physical pain is part of the equation, and the better an athlete is at enduring momentary discomfort, the better they will be able to perform at the sport and excel in front of thousands of cheering fans on game day.
Which brings us right back to that dark cloud, again.