Weekly Reader: Headlines and reflections

Last week's post on this blog was a public regrouping in order to put forward a small part of the Christian ethical foundation underlying this ongoing project. Today's post will be similar, except framed in a reading of some of the recent headlines directly or indirectly pertaining to the subject and seeking to tease out where these ethical concerns may intersect. It is an excercise in developing a methodology, or trying to do so anyway. So, on with it.

ITEM: The NFL is considering dropping or severly curtailing its schedule of Thursday night games in future seasons.
REFLECTION: I see two particular concerns that are revealed by this piece of news.
The NFL is considering this move for one reason, and one reason only: poor ratings. Others connected to the game have certainly raised other concerns about the package -- bad games, over-saturation, and even player safety on occasion. However, these have been the case for a while -- really, is it not clear that playing a game on Sunday and turning around and playing another game four days later could make it difficult to get every body, or everybody, healed even to a minimal degree? Nonetheless, only the middling ratings for the games seems to have gotten the NFL's attention. So...
1. Why are we so confident that a league that has ignored safety concerns so far in inflating the NFL's Thursday presence, from Thanksgiving Day to a few late season weeks to half a season and, this year, to a full season, can truly be trusted to give enough of a damn about player safety in any other context, absent the pressure of losing not making enough money? To presume that a non-ethical actor is suddenly going to act ethically is, well, not very ethical, is it?
2. The flip side of this realization is that FANS DO HAVE POWER to cause the NFL to change its ways. Withhold your money, or even your attention, and look what can happen! This realization makes it a lot more difficult to cling to the notion that an individual's turning away from the game, for example, "won't make a difference." It apparently can effect the league when people don't watch. So fan responsiblity really does matter.
Sidebar: Some of the same concern will need to be directed at college football as well, in which some teams and leagues play some truly bizarre schedules -- Tuesday and Wednesday nights, even -- and Thursday games have been in place for some schools for as much as twenty years.

ITEM: A study from Harvard University recommends, among other things, substantial changes to the structure by which medical personnel are deployed in the league; the league responded with predictable staged outrage (predictable if you've been paying attention to the league for a while).
REFLECTION: Aside from yet another case of academia being out of touch with the real world, this story points to the mania for control that also contributes to the NFL's untrustworthy nature where player health is concerned.
The study proposes that doctors monitoring health not be employed by the league. The logic is simple; doctors who answer to the league or to an individual team are inherently in a position in which the interests of the team or league (i.e. get the star back on the field as quickly as possible) and the interests of the player (don't die, or don't hasten your own death unnecessarily) do not align, despite the NFL's vapid denials of conflict of interest. (The incredibly fatuous statements attributed to NFL spokespeople in the article suggest that the NFL is either unbelievably ignorant of what "conflict of interest" means, or desperately trying to muddy the waters on the subject.)
And as to claims that the proposed system is unworkable? Then are you serious about the health and safety of your players? It really is that simple.

ITEM: Zander Diamont, a backup quarterback for the University of Indiana Hoosiers, has decided to forego his final season of eligibility after "a lot" of concussions in his career (dating back to high school), summing up his decision with the pithy and on-point comment "I need my brain."
REFLECTION: As has been noted in previous blogs, not everybody would necessarily agree with that last comment.
Of course, as Diamont openly admits, he didn't have an NFL career ahead of him, and he is set to graduate from IU this spring. The lure of a pro career does often interfere with good judgment, it seems. (He's also the son of a soap-opera star, and perhaps that lessens the financial pressures that may cause some to press on in the game and hope against hope for that pro career.)
Also noteworthy is Diamont's acknowledgment that his particular playing style was such that he was more prone to head shots, and that his relatively small size made it hard to have any success without putting himself at greater risk. What is rare here is Diamont's apparent ability to see through it all and come to a decision to step away from the risk before it becomes harm. Hopefully.
What becomes a concern is the degree to which young men, who have been playing football since elementary school in many cases, are terribly good candidates to come to such conclusions more often than not. And this comes back to the root concern of this blog: just because young men are free to put themselves at such risk and to choose the harm, are we Christians ethically or morally free to participate in it with our dollars or our presence or our adulation? And if you've read much of this blog, you'll know where this blog stands.

ITEM: A lawsuit filed on behalf of 142 former NFL players calls on the league to acknowledge CTE as an occupational hazard that should be covered by worker's compensation.
REFLECTION: As much as I would typically be sympathetic to the plaintiffs, some shifty stuff is going on here.
The article states that the lead plaintiff was "diagnosed with CTE in 2015." Um, what? Since the article also seems to indicate that said plaintiff is also still alive, something is wrong here. If some doctor is "diagnosing" former players with CTE (and naturally, this is in South Florida, or Flori-duh), then either some amazing breakthrough has been made in complete and utter isolation and with absolutely zero publicity, or somebody's scamming somebody. Considering that, despite some progress, CTE cannot be definitively identified except posthumously...yeah, ethical dubiousness isn't acceptable on either side of this struggle.

ITEM: Liberty University has hired Ian McCaw as its athletic director.
REFLECTION: While there are about a million things that can be said about this subject, for this case (sticking with the football/CTE issue) we are again forced to consider the issue of trustworthiness, but this time from an explicitly Christian (or nominally so) perspective.
McCaw, of course, was previously the athletic director at Baylor University, at a time when the institution failed spectacularly at dealing with revelations of sexual assault among its athletes. Apparently Liberty's desire to become the Notre Dame of evangelicalism is not about to be sidetracked by mere concerns about the safety of women on campus.
The Washington Post's headline on the article places the stakes pretty high, but not inaccurately so, I'd say. If the term "evangelicalism" hasn't taken enough abuse as a result of the presidential campaign, items like this should help push that over the top.
Of course, one of the principal evangelical leaders involved in that campaign was none other than Jerry Falwell, Jr., the president of Liberty University. The juxtaposition of those two tidbits is juicy enough to warrant a larger concern about just what evangelicalism means anymore. Can an evangelicalism that wants to portray itself primarily through athletic success -- at any cost, apparently -- be trusted with the health of the players who are supposed to bring that athletic success? And a school that is so little concerned with what happened on McCaw's watch at Baylor is not that likely to care for the long-term health of its athletes, either.
The win-at-all-costs mentality of college football is sad enough among the largely secular universities who enjoy most of the success in it these days. Seeing schools who shout loudly about their "Christian character" be so cavalier about such costs, and prioritizing athletic success to the degree that it calls that character into question, is profoundly hard to swallow. It's hard not to wonder if grappling with football and the harm it does to some percentage of its players is going to have to go forward without much participation from the evangelical wing of Christianity, or whether that wing is capable of forming a Christian ethical response to the harms (as opposed to risks) of football.

Zander Diamont says "a lot" of concussions is enough.

Christian ethics, the human body, and football

Part of my responsibility in purusing this project is to put forth a coherent ethical response to the ongoing concern of football and the traumatic brain injury associated with it. Amidst the gathering of new stories and accounts of the experiences of former and now deceased players, the inability or unwillingness of football leagues or collegiate conferences to take the issue seriously beyond a basic CYA instinct, and possible changing attitudes among fans or players, I occasionally need to drop back and gather up some of the ethical foundation and procedure behind the project, to try to keep myself from getting too far off track.

So bear with me, please.

I have been reminded of two basic concerns underlying an ethical approach to this question; one concerning the possible audience for such concern, and another pointing to a basic reason why Christian ethics must (in my opinion, humble or otherwise) address the issue.

Note the choice of the term "Christian ethics." That is a significant limitation on whatever comes out of this pursuit. In trying to sort out what kind of Christian ethical position I'm coming from I've come to conclude that based on what I hope to be the outcome of such a project, my target audience is limited to what is theologically called the "body of Christ."

It isn't because I think the opinions and actions of those of other faiths are irrelevant or unimportant -- quite the opposite. It is simply that, in my role as a Christian (specifically Presbyterian) pastor, my most basic concern is to in some way provide spiritual guidance and direction so that the members of the body of Christ (we usually call them "Christians" though I am growing less and less fond of that word in its current state every day) are formed and matured into people who live rightly, more so than trying to direct individual actions so that individuals act rightly.* This might not sound like what you've perceived as the role of Christian ethics (or ethics in general), and there are certainly others who will disagree.

*Here one might look into Samuel Wells, Improvisation: The Drama of Christian Ethics (Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2004), especially his introductory chapters.

Christian ethical thought has at different times emphasized very different outcomes for the body of Christ -- sometimes emphasizing loyalty to the State as a means of guaranteeing the influence of the Church (and yes, quite a few nominally Christian leaders are clearly taking this approach today); sometimes propagating a canon of law or rules, adherence to which demonstrated one's faith; sometimes emphasizing the rationality of the faith, or its suitability to the improvement of the individual vs. the larger body. By staking out the position I have, I am certianly "showing my bias" -- the importance of community and "body of Christ" over individual supremacy, a preference for formation of habits and even "instincts" to respond ethically to situations that haven't necessarily existed before, rather than prescribing a rulebook and then trying to bend current situations to that rulebook (football is, after all, a relatively recent thing in history, though there are other activities that the Christian ethical response to which will be informative), and others I'm sure I'll hear about.

For the moment, though, the big concern that arises from this is that if my primary concern is with the body of Christ, then what I say should not be considered authoritative over those who do not claim membership in said body. It ain't because I don't care. And if a book or some other product eventually does hit the market, my Jewish or Muslim or agnostic friends (or anybody else) should certainly feel free to buy a copy. <grin> But all of this really does come out of a pastoral and theological foundation, and those who do not partake of such a foundation cannot be bound by my arguments from it.

So the language of this project is likely to get more and more faith-specific -- not with intent to offend, but simply trying to do the only job I can do here.


The second reminder to myself comes in a sideways fashion from the first -- specifically from my job being directed toward the "body of Christ," i.e. the Christian (there's that word again) church. Part of the reason is that I don't believe that followers of Christ, professors of an incarnational faith, can be indifferent to those activities in human existence that regularly and routinely cause harm to the physical body.

We are, after all, followers of a victim of torture. The scourging, whipping, imposition of a crown of thorns, and other abuses visited upon Jesus wouldn't even remotely pass muster under the Geneva conventions today, and I'm pretty sure crucifixion would fall under the ban on "cruel and unusual punishment" even for the most zealous defenders of capital punishment (on second thought, maybe not all such defenders). One of the key events in the narrative of Christianity is an act of physical destruction.

Not surprisingly, Christian ethics and doctrine have not typically looked kindly on activities that visit lasting harm on the body (leaving aside for the moment those who hold to soul/body dualisms of some sort, except to say that I'm not one of them). Capital punishment (usually) comes under criticism; abortion is sanctioned; harm to the body through drugs or alcohol or other foreign substances is decried; sports such as boxing have, eventually, fallen out of favor in many Christian circles. It certainly remains possible that football will similarly fall out of favor, although with such virulent attachments to it still in place in some corners of the church that doesn't seem likely any time soon, no matter how much nobodies like me might protest. But it's becoming harder and harder to ignore the degree to which the game produces an awful lot of broken bodies, even if the damage takes five or ten or twenty years to show. That can't be acceptable in an ethic that takes seriously the idea of human beings created in the image of God.  

Here's a case where our ancestors in the faith have provided some thought that can be applied to the modern case, albeit indirectly at best. The criticisms of Tertullian, Augustine, and the like against the gladiatorial combats and contests of the ancient world don't necessarily transfer directly to modern critiques of football (the spectacle of death is not immediate in the NFL, at least for now), but the concerns both about the aforementioned imago Dei and the impact such spectacles had on those who viewed them should not be dismissed. Augustine's account of his unfortunate friend Alypius at the spectacles sounds pretty mild compared to the total besotted intoxication fans display at the modern spectacles on Saturday afternoons (or nights, or now Thursdays or Fridays), or Sundays (or Mondays, or now Thursdays). That infatuation and saturation with the spectacle becomes an unavoidable part of teasing out a Christian ethical response to the seemingly intractable destructiveness of the game on some sizeable number of its players, and has inevitably to be answered and critiqued as part of the process of ethical inquiry.

In short; the destructive quality of football (which seems more intractable and less fixable than in sports like hockey) has to be addressed, but we're going to have to untangle some seriously dubious entwinement of football and religionesque ritual and worship while doing so. And yes, the "i" word (idolatry) is probably going to have to be invoked at some point.

I...I can't even...

Book Commentary: Unintended Impact

Prebstle, Jim. Unintended Impact: One Athlete's Journey from Concussions in Amateur Football to CTE Dementia. Edina: Beaver's Pond Press, 2015. 265pp. ISBN 978-1-59298-883-9.

I have previously in this blog raised the unsettling spectre that, aside from those former NFL players, known and yet to be known, suffering the lingering effects of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), there might well be numerous players (thousands? tens of thousands?) whose career arc never approached the NFL but yet suffer from the same debilitating effects of their shorter football careers.

This book tells one such story.

Dick Prebstle grew up in the football-crazed precincts of Canton and Massilon, Ohio. Born in 1942, he progressed through what was already a familiar path for a young athlete; beginning to play tackle football at age ten, getting onto the high school team (in his case skipping the "freshman team" that was more common in the 1950s), and as a successful high-school star (and also an excellent student), being recruited to a successful collegiate program, in his case at Michigan State. Prebstle was mostly a backup quarterback at MSU, and a succession of severe injuries, including a now-shocking number of concussions, ultimately ended his career prematurely. (His younger brother, the author of this book, would last longer in football, and was a member of MSU's 1965 national championship team, but neither brother would play in the NFL.)

Dick Prebstle's post-football life seemed destined for success, despite an unsuccessful attempt at law school. He ultimately made his way into business; getting a foothold in the insurance business before  maneuvering his way to the acquisition of a construction equipment company.

Jim Prebstle's story of his big brother's rise and decline has been dropping hints along the way -- frequent migraines, unexpected illnesses suggested as stress-related at the time -- that all was not to be well, but the decline is marked sharply at this point. Without giving away too many details (you are supposed to read the book after all), Jim Prebstle reads Dick's decline in retrospect, armed (as he and Dick's other family members were not at the time) with the understanding of CTE's effect on the afflicted brain. While a CTE diagnosis, which can only be confirmed posthumously, cannot change the suffering its victim and family go through, it can be a means to understand how a seemingly healthy and successful man like Dick Prebstle could be laid low so suddenly. The most marked changes in behavior and cognitive function began to manifest themselves in Dick Prebstle in the early 1980s, according to Jim Prebstle's account.

Dick Prebstle lived until 2012, aged 69.

Think of thirty years in fearsome mental decline, kicking in before age 40.

Jim Prebstle's account is straightforwardly retrospective, reading Dick's life in light of his posthumous diagnosis. Having learned how CTE works, through their experience with the Boston University study that has announced so many such diagnoses, Jim and other relatives of Dick, including wife and children, are calling up painful and baffling memories, and beginning to re-interpret those memories through new information and understanding that was simply not out there in the 1980s. (The book's Forward is by Dr. Robert A. Stern, a member of the BU study group, and is particularly useful to read and digest.)

As Jim Prebstle's account unfolds, a plethora of related issues float, sometimes unintentionally, to the surface -- the relationship between brothers, particularly the overachieving older brother and the younger brother constantly judged by his elder's accomplishments; the "warrior codes" and implicit assumptions about manhood attached to football; the sheer lack of understanding of brain injury and the harrowingly outdated and ultimately deadly way young football players were taught to hit head-first; the sheer idolatry (my word, not Prebstle's) of football in certain parts of American culture; the "steel mill mentality" of the upper Midwest; the bitterness and rancor that result from disputes over care of dementia patients; the staggering physical deterioration of a CTE-afflicted brain; and many more.

The one significant disappointment of the book is the Epilogue, in which football idolatry still demands an Affirmation of Faith in the sport despite its destruction of some percentage of those who play it. The insistence that there has to be a way to make the sport safer still rings out, despite the lack of any evidence that this is so. Preserving football still comes first.

Nonetheless, read the book as a kind of personal counterbalance to a more broad-based account such as that in League of Denial. I suspect more such stories are going to begin to appear, as more former players or their family members try to understand what they or their loved ones have suffered, and how it could all be a result of the game they loved.

The gamut of player reaction

The subject of sports "curses" and belief systems is a fertile one, and one I hope to follow up on in the future (even if the most notorious of those curses went out the window last week). But there is a primary topic to this blog, and the past week-plus offered some interesting takes on the subject of football and its concussive effects on its players, against the backdrop of a startling, but not surprising, revelation about a deceased former player.

1) It turns out Cam Newton might actually care about his head after all.

It's amazing what having a concussion can do to your opinion on concussions. After a blindside hit that knocked him out of one game and kept him from starting the next, Newton was inclined to be a bit more cautious about exposing himself to unnecessary hits in the future.

Not that Newton is likely to change his style of play. To be blunt, without his mobility and running ability, Newton's just another big-armed quarterback, and being in the pocket isn't always that much safer than being on the run. No, by "unnecessary" hits he refers to, in the case of the hit that knocked him loopy, not doing foolish things like slowing down on the way to the end zone for no good reason.

I suppose such counts as a tiny measure of progress. Newton isn't stupid, and he might actually have the potential to be the kind of athlete who can have an impact after his career is over if he doesn't end up too scrambled to remember his name. But that's just not guaranteed, no matter how big Newton is. And given the (apparently statistically verifiable) tendency of NFL refs not to call illegal hits on him, he really is going to have to take care of himself.

2) You know that sentence above, "It's amazing what having a concussion can do to your opinion on concussions."? Well, maybe not.

At least one NFL player, Nat Berhe of the New York FOOTball GIants, missed four weeks with a concussion, and yet announced to the world that he will do exactly the same things he did that got him that concussion in the first place.

Among the money quotes in the article: "Nobody wants to live forever" (his own quote directly; has he not watched sci-fi movies?), and a description of his opinion stating that Berhe "said it's not his prerogative to think about the consequences." Um, Mr. Berhe, if it's not your prerogative, then whose is it? Player non-responsibility, thy name is Nat Berhe.

I really, really can't help but wonder what his family thinks, and if he's married and has any children.

3) And then there are those who are struggling with two thoughts, both true. Meet Alex Smith.

He's the quarterback of the Kansas City Chiefs. Once upon a time he used to be the quarterback of the San Francisco 49ers.

He lost that job because of a concussion.

By the time he recovered from that concussion, his job had been taken by a guy named Colin Kaepernick, who is now famous for different reasons. Smith ended up being shipped off to KC, where things have actually worked out pretty well for him.

But now he's about to miss a start with what might have been a concussion, and the backup who will be getting the start is a guy who Kansas City acquired because their coach liked him so much back in Philadelphia. On a competitive level, yeah, that would be enough to provoke concern. Oh, no, here we go again...

But Smith has a wife and three kids. He has a reason to want to live forever, to use Berhe's crude formulation. And he's not stupid about head trauma and its effects; at minimum he can read headlines.

So he's torn.

If all that wasn't enough to weigh on him...

4) Kevin Turner's post-mortem brain examination came back revealing as bad a case of CTE as there is.

You might remember this story from the New York Times featuring Turner, then a lead plaintiff in the ongoing legal action against the NFL. Turner died back in March, having already been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. The postmortem in this case did not replace that diagnosis with CTE, but verified the presence of both in Turner's brain, and suggests that in this case the CTE may have been the cause of the Alzheimer's. Such a link had been speculated in the past, but Turner's exam was the most concrete evidence yet for such a link.

Turner really didn't know what he was getting into at the time of his playing career, which was over by the time of Mike Webster's death and the subsequent publicity and understanding of CTE.

Newton, Berhe, and Smith can't say that.

Neither can we, which I can only hope affects how we participate in football, or don't.

Kevin Turner in 2014 (from NY Times)