[Redrum]

Stanford dropped football and played rugby for a couple of decades early in the last century. (Gawd it feels odd writing that early in the last century.)  And even back then, before football became a multi-billion $$ industry, the rugby solution fizzled.  The evidence against football is more compelling today,  but America will not hear it.  We tolerate carnage on highways because car culture's  benefits suit us beyond pure economic utility.  We tolerate mind-pulverizing/ mind-deadening cultural media because, face it, we like it.  And we will ignore the costs or eventually try to palliate football's terrible costs to players with substantial payments...but we won't stop playing it because we like it.

I, too, am disturbed by the underlying cost of playing football as we play it today.  It raises questions, but I love it so. So I guess I follow in a great philosophic/religious tradition.  I am with St. Augustine when he prayed to God:  "Make me chaste and celibate...but not yet."

[Redrum]

Stanford dropped football and played rugby for a couple of decades early in the last century. (Gawd it feels odd writing that early in the last century.)  And even back then, before football became a multi-billion $$ industry, the rugby solution fizzled.  The evidence against football is more compelling today,  but America will not hear it.  We tolerate carnage on highways because car culture's  benefits suit us beyond pure economic utility.  We tolerate mind-pulverizing/ mind-deadening cultural media because, face it, we like it.  And we will ignore the costs or eventually try to palliate football's terrible costs to players with substantial payments...but we won't stop playing it because we like it.

I, too, am disturbed by the underlying cost of playing football as we play it today.  It raises questions, but I love it so. So I guess I follow in a great philosophic/religious tradition.  I am with St. Augustine when he prayed to God:  "Make me chaste and celibate...but not yet."