Draft - Wrestling a Text

Essay 3

In “Offensive Play”, Malcolm Gladwell talks about the football players’ brain traumas acquired during theirs carriers. Gladwell mentions Kyle Turley, a former football player from N.F.L., who suffers brain problems. The author describes Turley’s concussion during one game in St. Louis, in 2003. Turley explains, “that it is impossible for an offensive lineman to do his job without “using his head”. The position calls for the player to begin in a crouch and then collide with the opposing lineman when the ball is snapped. Helmet-to-helmet contact is inevitable.” Turley believes that the real problem for football players lies in getting their heads hit over and over again during their carriers.
The author demonstrates through Ann McKee and Bennet Omalu‘s studies, both researchers of C.T.E (chronic traumatic encephalopathy) related to athletes, that the brain trauma, is a consequence of injury. McKee explains that “The stained tissue of Alzheimer’s patients typically shows the two trademarks of the disease-distinctive patterns of the proteins beta-amyloid and tau. Beta-amyloid is thought to lay the groundwork for dementia. Tau marks the critical second stage of the disease: it is the protein that steadily builds up in brain cells, shutting them down and ultimately killing them.” In McKee and Omalu’s researcher, brain of most of boxers, lineman, and linebackers had abnormal quantity of tau protein.
The author also mentions Kevin Guskiewicz, responsible for University’s Sports Concussion Research Program, that developed a system called HITS to measure the intensity of head collisions. The system captures through six sensors placed inside the players‘ helmet, the location and intensity measuring every hit in “gs“. Guskiewicz explains that, “if you drove your car into a wall at twenty-five miles per hour and you were not wearing your seat belt, the force of your head hitting the windshield would be around 100 gs.” Guskiewicz gives as example, a measure of forty-five minutes of football team’s practice at University of North Carolina. A running back player had received 79 gs and 60 gs in his helmet among others; it is like he had two car accidents in that day. The Hits system estimates that one lineman can gets his head hit a thousand times during one season. Robert Cantu, a concussion specialist, argues that if taken in account that a player starts playing at high school level, following college, and professional carrier, he can get hit eighteen thousand times.
The author argues how different are dog fighting and football? He makes a parallel between the football fans and dogfight fans. In dog fighting, the dogs’ suffering is not taken in account. The passion of the owner of the dogs moves this event with no morality or consideration. In football, the fan’s love for football players, with their courage and grit, and nothing else - neither considerations of science nor those morality - can compete with the destructive power of that love.