Would be lying if I said I wasn’t disappointed in a chat that accompanied the excellent Frontline program, League of Denial, which examined the NFL’s obfuscation in regards to its concussion problem. I was especially dismayed by journalist Mark Fainaru-Wada’s answer to a question about what he and his brother, Steve Fainaru, hoped to accomplish with the program and their book: “I think our hope is that through the book and the film people will be more informed about the challenges the game faces and how it might deal with that.”
There’s a certain element of denial there as well. I think the honest answer would be that if you allow your children to play football, they may very well incur some brain damage, especially considering how prone their skulls are at that age. Any adult who plays college football or in the NFL is at great risk of brain damage. Anyone who buys a ticket to a game or who supports it in other ways is complicit in these injuries. Football, like boxing, can’t escape this problem which is embedded into the game, and equipment alterations or rule changes won’t eliminate it. It’s not merely a “challenge,” so let’s be honest about what we’re risking and what we’re supporting.
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Comment From Kristi Hofacker:
Why did frontline not mention all the advancements and changes of game regulations that have been put in place to decrease TBIs? People have been working to gain concussion awareness so they can further their movements to fix the problem. After the frontline special, people don’t want to help, they want to boycott football all together. Is that what you were trying to accomplish?
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Mark Fainaru-Wada:
First and foremost, we were absolutely not out to get people to boycott football. Steve and I are both huge football fans — he has season tix to the 49ers — and we love the sport. I think our goal was simply to trace what the league knew, when it knew it and to what extent it sought to tamp down the emerging science. There’s no question the league has made strides on this issue since it was hauled before Congress in 2009, and we note that to some degree in the film, although the commissioner is still not openly acknowledging a link. I think our hope is that through the book and the film people will be more informed about the challenges the game faces and how it might deal with that. Again, though, it’s a violent, brutal sport, which is one of the things many of us love about it, and not sure that can/should be changed. |
Tags: Mark Fainaru-Wada, Steve Fainaru