Imagine how many ex highschool/college players that never made it to the pros that are dealing with the same stuff...without the big nfl paychecks and healthcare to subsidize them. Football is like playing Russian Roulette.
Played football and rugby for a total of about 18 years.
Never got the big paycheck, and then actually started to pay money in order to go out on a field and play rugby.
I do not regret it a bit. Best time of my life, best learning experience of my life.
I live with the belief that life will take its pound of flesh. You concentrate on nothing but negatives with everything and the positives get lost.
All that being said, I think it is great for people to be educated about what they are going to do before deciding to move forward with it, and I can speak for myself and just about every person I played football/rugby with, is that the new concussion rules are fantastic.
I was one of, if not the last, generator where if you "got your bell rung", you "rubbed some dirt on it" and went back out there. Now they take you out of the game and you are off the field, in most non-professional settings, for at least a week.
I guess I would say that I do not regret, not making any money off of it. Yet, I really enjoyed my time playing those sports, and I got so much out of it, things that allow me to be "successful" and do things I am 100% certain I would have never done.
Now, if I didn't get paid, and I got nothing out of playing those types of sports ? Well, then I can see where regret may come in.
I do like that someone pointed out that "keyboard warriors" want players to continue to play with reckless, abandon and play "tough". I have said it a billion times, if I said it once, professional athletes, are professional. They will play more games, and put more damage on their body then 99.8% of the people on this planet.
It is RIDICULOUS, to call out a player that makes a smart choice, and picks and chooses when it is time to take the risk and be physical, and when to be conservative and make sure you are healthy enough to continue to play that day. Larry Fitzgerald, I feel, is the best at doing this in the NFL.
Fitz will hit the dirt after a catch, a lot, but 9 times out of 10, he would not have gained much by "being physical", and risked a turnover (fumble <-- which has happened Fitzgerald a few times when trying to "make a play"), or getting hurt for the sake of a yard or less. There is a reason Fitzgerald has played till he is 35 years old. Fitzgerald certainly is not physical EVERY PLAY, but enough that you do not hear players questioning his toughness. Why? Because they are professionals and understand how the game is, and has to be played.
Thus I enjoy and find it important that this topic and topics like this are talked about and discussed, it is how things improve. Yet, at times, I feel this discussion goes to the points where it goes into the fantasy world of "bad things need to bee eradicated off the face of the planet", which is where a lot of topics go in this country, and its just not realistic. See guns, terrorists, drugs, crime, etc.,etc.
You are not going to get rid of all injury, and football is a dangerous sport, no doubt, but far from the most dangerous. Best example is the new pedal-bike movement in this country. People love biking, at high speed, yet do not realize, it is EXTREMELY dangerous, and you can get seriously hurt, and/or die.
So, you can get rid of football, but it will not get rid of injuries, and concussions, without it start to get oppressive and infringing on allowing people to enjoy life. Again, like I said, it will take its pound of flesh. Even if you sit in your basement you whole life, its going to take your social skills, and suffer on to you the toll of isolation.
Yet, again, I go back to say, and will leave at, that I think the world, country, society in general are putting a lot of time, effort, and money to make things safer, and to make people more in the know. So, its not like, nothing is being done. Let people continue to work on it, Rome wasn't built in a day, and neither was your cell phone. Let the work continue to research things, and let technology (if you government doesn't censor it
)
& science continue to do their work.
Just my two.....well, maybe three cents on the matter. And there is no right or wrong, just discussion. If someone regrets their past, then I respect that and sympathize with it, even if in my personal experience I do not.
, he also said he tried to come back too early from his knee injury to try and get back on the field to help his team. That no heart SOB.
