North Carolina coach Larry Fedora suggested Wednesdaythat the game of football is “under attack” due to the focus on head trauma in recent years, claimed that “our country will go down too” if football is fundamentally changed and, in a coup de grace of stupidity, said repeatedly that he didn’t believe the links between CTE and football have been proven.
No need to dance around this. If Fedora actually believes what he said, he’s too dumb to coach college football and should be fired immediately.
What Fedora said Wednesday — and doubled-down on repeatedly in front of dozens of reporters at the ACC's preseason media event — isn’t just wrong, it’s toxic. And the fact he was arrogant enough to say it publicly in defense of some ridiculous machismo ethic that permeates the sport of football means he has crossed the line from responsibility into non-reality and is no longer fit for the job he now has.
“I fear that the game will get pushed so far to one extreme you won’t recognize the game 10 years from now,” Fedora said. “That’s what I worry about, and I do believe if it gets to that point that our country goes down, too.”
Apparently, American Patriot Fedora has it all figured out. Forget Russian interference in our political process. Forget the specter of global nuclear war, the concentration of wealth or the threat posed by climate change. Nah, what we really need to worry about is whether dudes are going to still play a sport.
Without the freedom to give each other concussions, what kind of country are we anyway, right Larry?
In LFeds defense, if you change a rule or piece of equipment you’re opposed to the second amendment. You can have my football when you pry it out of my cold dead hands.
(07-18-2018 05:36 PM)Wildeagle Wrote: In LFeds defense, if you change a rule or piece of equipment you’re opposed to the second amendment. You can have my football when you pry it out of my cold dead hands.
you know what goes down in value.......him.......
I'm fairly certain the country will do just fine w/o that little whiny biatch.....what a democrat he is....
(07-18-2018 06:45 PM)Black and Gold Battle Umbrella Wrote: Everything good is under attack. He's got cojones to stand up to the fascists. I'll bet he doesn't believe in global warming either. Rock on.
(07-18-2018 06:45 PM)Black and Gold Battle Umbrella Wrote: Everything good is under attack. He's got cojones to stand up to the fascists. I'll bet he doesn't believe in global warming either. Rock on.
here's a hint for you and WE.....players are bigger/faster/stronger.....the skull cap is still the same as it was 4000 yrs. ago......tackling and lack of fundamentals has been a joke for some decades....
the bottom line is, if a player wants to take the risk in the arena??? your choice pal.....
however, for fedhat to run his yammer with that comparative is as stupid as it fk'n gets......
He’s not altogether wrong. Even other neurologists aren’t sold on what’s being pushed in the headlines regarding this stuff. No, the links have not been definitively proven because every study you hear about starts at the end point—“This guy was f***ed up, so let’s study him”—with no real control or accounting for other variables. As a group, former NFL players live longer than their Joe Blow peers and have amazingly comparable rates of death attributable to neurological ailments like Alzheimer’s, ALS, and Parkinson’s to the general population (one study found a difference of only 11 cases out over 3300 people).
Besides that, there’s the question of balanced risk. Do you want your kid to maybe have CTE problems in his 50s from playing football or do you want him to sit on the couch playing video games because he’s built like an O-lineman and not a basketball or soccer player and subsequently get heart disease and diabetes in his 30s?
Stink’s on the money and it’s a no-brainer that the modern game is more dangerous and some things do need to change. Like he said, just teaching people how to actually tackle instead of using their bodies as projectiles would (and has been shown to) go a long way toward that. Look for kickoffs to be eliminated before too long.
I do find Fedora saying the game won’t be recognizable in 10 years to be pretty ironc. That’s the same thing a couple generations of coaches before him said his style of offense would do.
(This post was last modified: 07-18-2018 11:10 PM by HarborPointe.)
Saw a interview with Paterno a few years before he died. He said something like take off all these high tech pads and helmets, gear, etc. You'll see players taking a little more caution with what they are doing out there hitting & tackling.
Don't think it will happen, but there is some sense to it.
We all know its an incredibly dangerous sport and the blows to the head cant be of benefit to anyone. my gosh, look at boxing. cant be all that different.
but i think some of what he said was taken a little out of context and over blown.
(This post was last modified: 07-19-2018 10:00 PM by Reggie Favre.)
(07-19-2018 07:44 AM)EagleFWB Wrote: Saw a interview with Paterno a few years before he died. He said something like take off all these high tech pads and helmets, gear, etc. You'll see players taking a little more caution with what they are doing out there hitting & tackling.
Don't think it will happen, but there is some sense to it.
This. Just get rid of the helmets. They can where those things wrestlers wear to protect their ears, and a mouthpiece. Done.
to me the part below is screwed up. Who cares they play the same position. It's a DL position where every P5 school has depth. They knew the rules (direct quote from LF) and still broke them so why accommodate rule breakers to lessen the punishment. Then again, considering it's UNC it's not all that shocking that the players weren't held out of classes the first 2 months and given passing grades on all missed assignments during the 2 months.
Since multiple players share the same position, the NCAA approved a request to stagger certain suspensions. Carney will sit games against East Carolina, UCF, Pittsburgh and Virginia Tech, while Fox will miss the Miami, Syracuse, Virginia and Georgia Tech games.
(This post was last modified: 08-06-2018 03:28 PM by usm99.)
Way late on this but most of the people I heard ridiculing Fedora were doing so because of the part where he equated the changing of football to the fall of American values...and less so the CTE comments. And rightfully so, because that part was ridiculous.
Anyone with basic knowledge on the issue knows that the CTE research is in its infancy and there is an inherent sampling bias. Most neuropsychologists I’ve heard are highly skeptical of assumptions out there. Though I think there is little doubt that repeated concussions cause some kind of structural damage, we are probably far from understanding the nature of that damage.
As for not wearing helmets, that’s a good way to go back to the days where kids were literally dying on the field. People always talk about rugby. Rugby has a huge concussion problem—not quite as bad as football but a good part of the difference can likely be attributed to diagnosis and data collection.
Large people playing a violent game where they run into one another is an activity that simply cannot be made safe. It never has been. I’m not sure that I buy that the game is more dangerous now. They just track injuries better and understand more about them.
(This post was last modified: 08-06-2018 09:49 PM by eaglenjxn.)
Just to add to that.... Athletes are a hell of a lot bigger, faster, and stronger than they were 30 years ago. If anyone doesn't believe it, go stand on the sideline at a college game. You'll believe quick enough. It's a violent sport. I don't see that changing as long as winning and money is priority over safety.
Of course, the flip side argument is that those who do it, know the risk.
(08-06-2018 11:31 PM)EagleFWB Wrote: Just to add to that.... Athletes are a hell of a lot bigger, faster, and stronger than they were 30 years ago. If anyone doesn't believe it, go stand on the sideline at a college game. You'll believe quick enough. It's a violent sport. I don't see that changing as long as winning and money is priority over safety.
Of course, the flip side argument is that those who do it, know the risk.
And to add to that, with more and more tv coverage of football in general, players are seeing other teams making violent (and illegal) hits and probably are trying to top that hit.