SluggerDad posted:RJM posted:A survey was once done of high school football players. The question was, "Would you still want to be a college and pro football player if you knew you would die at fifty?" 88% responded yes. At the time the mortality age of a lineman was 56. Hiw would the knowledge of CTE change the 88%.
HS football players -- you mean 14 - 18 year olds, who still need their parent's permissions to play the game, to whom 50 will seem like really old and decrepit already, and who tend to think of themselves, as all youth do, as invulnerable.?
Jeez, what a surprise!
Ask these kids parents, who have a little more perspective, presumably, " if you knew that your son would die at 50, or would suffer from debilitating brain injuries for life, and might end up a vegetable, would you still encourage/permit him to play football?"
Parents are the ones who make the decision, especially at the earliest ages, to get sons started on football or not.
That's how the pipeline will dry up.
Look at the faces of the players. Many black kids believe they will be shot before they're twenty-five. They believe football and basketball is the only way out of their situation. Do you think the possibility of dying at fifty is going to deter them?