This network is heavily, heavily invested in football. NFL games on Monday nights. Daily NFL news programming. Extensive college football schedules that will, eventually this season, encompass every day of the week except Sunday and Monday, as well as a daily college football news show as the season kicks in. The odd Canadian Football League game to fill a gap in the schedule. Even a few high school games, at least early in the season, including a "kickoff" game this coming Friday night.
ESPN is, increasingly, a football network, one which will show other sports when forced to by contracts or the lack of actual football to show or talk about.
On the other hand, ESPN also wants to project itself as, among other teams, a journalism organization. Indeed, ESPN has, since the "World Series earthquake" in 1989, been able to generate some degree of reputation for having at least a small stable of reporters who were capable of stepping up to function outside the sports realm, as their on-site reporters became valuable assets in the field in support of sister company ABC, which was broadcasting the World Series that year. Since then, the network has gradually sought to establish a reputation for serious reporting on sports, with programs such as Outside the Lines.
Sometimes, this leads to strange excesses such as the panicked reporting of a quarterback's broken jaw along the lines of a political assassination. At other times, though, it leads to the return of Chris Borland.
You may remember Borland as the San Francisco 49ers' linebacker who created a stir in the off-season by retiring after his rookie season, citing concerns about the possibility of long-term brain trauma (and his own concussion experience) as motivation. The announcement caused several days' worth of stir in sports media, as one might expect, before quieting down, as one might also expect.
In the interim time, the "concussion story"* returned to a low simmer, with occasional stories that brought the issue to attention at least slightly.
*Here is my standard reminder that concussions themselves are not the only risk faced by the football- (or hockey- or soccer- or boxing-) affected brain; a hit doesn't have to cause a concussion to cause damage. Note also the date on that article; this isn't 'new news.'
So this week, in the middle of its fevered buildup to football season, and convincing you that you can only live if football season begins as soon as possible, ESPN's journalistic impulse caused a spasm that reintroduced Chris Borland to a public that had probably forgotten him already.
Since Borland's retirement announcement, ESPN has used their ace investigative team of Mark Fainaru-Wada and Steve Fainaru to follow Borland and observe his transition from NFL player to lightning rod. Mark Fainaru-Wada first came to fame for his collaboration on Game of Shadows: Barry Bonds, BALCO, and the Steroids Scandal That Rocked Professional Sports. It was his second book, this one in collaboration with his brother Steve, that brought the NFL and its brain-trauma issues into the public spotlight for many. In addition to the book, a PBS Frontline special of the same title brought the book's findings to a wider audience. The program was originally supposed to be a collaboration between PBS and ESPN, but the latter network withdrew its brand from the project in what would be a major blow to its journalistic credibility. Still, the network, or at least its online arm, continues to piddle around the edges of the story and keeps the Fainaru brothers on retainer somehow.
One of the more striking revelations of this latest long-form article, also published in ESPN: The Magazine (cross-platform synchronicity!), was that, a full month after his very public retirement, Borland was summoned by the NFL to take one of its periodic drug tests, which are typically required of people who, well, are active players in the NFL. According to the NFL, such drug tests may be administered to players who have retired in order to prevent such players from dodging texts and then deciding to un-retire. Borland, not surprisingly, wondered if an ulterior motive might be at work. In the end, as the linked article describes, he decided to submit to the NFL test but also have an independent test done concurrently, lest the NFL be planning a smear campaign against him (such is the NFL's credibility at this point with Borland and others). In the end, both tests came back negative.
The article continues to describe Borland's post-retirement experiences; running a marathon, meeting experts on brain trauma (including those included in League of Denial, hence the initial connection to the Fainaru brothers), and taking a European trip fairly typical of well-off recent college graduates, enduring examinations both straightforward and strange, turning down an invitation to be involved in the promotion of a Will Smith movie about one of the main figures in the concussion crisis (not kidding; look for it around Christmas).
Perhaps the most striking part of the article is observing Borland's attempt to strike balances: between his continuing love for the game (something common to a lot of former athletes) and his increasing perception of the game as too destructive for people to play; between being a symbol of all that's wrong with football and a symbol of how football needs to be saved (his exchange with a former high school coach is particularly poignant); his increasing awareness of the hype machine of which he was once a part.
Even as this article surfaced on ESPN.com, another pair of stories made their way onto that service during the week. One was a report of an apparent suicide attempt by a former NFL quarterback, Erik Kramer, whose ex-wife believes he suffers from brain trauma. The other was a feature piece on the "Oklahoma drill," an exercise in running headfirst into one another in full football armor from a distance of several yards, meant apparently to prove toughness and manhood. (Apparently being man enough to say "screw you, you idiot, I'm not killing myself for you" is considered unmanly.) While the NFL, under the hottest scrutiny for brain trauma, has apparently cooled on the drill, it remains maniacally popular on the college, high school, and peewee levels of football, to the point of drawing spectators to practice just to watch that drill.
So, questions:
--How much of a grain of salt does the reporting of ESPN on football and brain trauma require? Will the Fainaru brothers get their leash jerked again if the NFL takes offense, as some allege happened with the Frontline documentary?
--Is Chris Borland really "the most dangerous man in football," as the rather sensationalistic title of that feature suggests? Is he really dangerous at all to football? I went on record before as believing that Borland really doesn't pose much of a threat, even if he now shares my inability or unwillingness to watch the game. I don't think my mind has changed yet.
--So, as always, what does any of this mean for the mindful, faithful fan? What's the limit? Or, how many is too many?
Like Borland, I can't tell you what to decide. You've gotta come to that place yourself.
That doesn't mean I won't occasionally push.
No comments:
Post a Comment