Member-only story
I don’t watch a lot of football, compared with some.
And, when I do watch, it’s not to learn lessons; it’s to be entertained.
But, on occasion, there are lessons that may be learned, if we’re willing to be taught.
And get past the entertainment.
NFL football can be brutal.
CTE (chronic traumatic encephalopathy) is a recognized progressive degenerative condition that seems to have shortened the lives of some players before their time and contributed to premature decline of mental ability, even disability, in others.
First described in 1928 in professional boxers, it occurs in other contact sports, including football.
It was a sad thing to see Muhammed Ali (aka Cassius Clay), once perhaps, as he himself proclaimed, ‘the greatest,’ hoist a U.S. flag at the 2012 London Olympics with trembling and perhaps some hesitation.
And take trembling, tentative steps as he walked.
For he had Parkinson’s disease, almost certainly the consequence of getting hit one too many times in the head.
He had developed it in 1984, at the age of 42.
It is one thing to get hit in the body.
