Beyond Recreation and Entertainment

Football Scandals

There is a long history in the second half of the 20th century of controversy over the tension in college football between values important to the institution's academic mission and the team's win-and-loss record. Many observers suggest that athletic talent plays a disproportionate role in college admission. Measures that are seen as effective in maintaining players' academic eligibility but not in furthering their graduation or competence in their fields of study attract similar criticism.

Recent attitudes toward and awareness of steroid use are also evolving. Fans and critics actively debate the role of steroids in professional and amateur football.

Football and Drugs

Contemporary football players are larger than their predecessors of only 30 or 40 years ago. It is quite normal, for instance, for all the members of the offensive line of a major college or professional team to weigh more than 300 pounds (21 stone 6lbs), whereas in the 1960s linemen who weighed only 270 pounds (19 stone 4lbs) were common. The increase in player size has led to an increase in the frequency and severity of injuries.

Since nutritional standards and weight-training technique were already quite advanced even in the 1960s, it has been conjectured that much of the increase in the size of the players is the result of the widespread availability of illegal anabolic steroids, which facilitate increased growth of muscle tissue. Such drugs are widely available even to high school players.

Because anabolic steroids have dangerous side effects, the National Football League tests its players for steroids, and penalises those who are caught. However, it has recently emerged that new varieties of steroids are being developed in clandestine laboratories that elude existing drug tests. Hence there is a kind of 'arms race' between the scientists who develop new kinds of illegal steroids and those who develop tests to detect them.

Injuries

Despite the helmets and heavy padding worn by all players on the field, injuries are common in football. An "Injury Report" section is ubiquitous in American newspapers' sports sections, detailing, for each injured player on each team, their injury and the amount of time they are expected to be out. Twice-weekly during the season (Wednesdays and Fridays), all NFL teams must report the status of their injured players, or be subject to a fine from the league. The standard severity descriptions are "out" (will not play in the coming game); "doubtful" (25% chance of playing); "questionable" (50% chance of playing); or "probable" (75% chance of playing). Note that teams occasionally manipulate their injury reports, minimising or maximising the extent of a player's injury, as an attempt to strategically deny their upcoming opponents a clear picture of the team's health. Similar systems are in place for most major American sports.

The NFL has a roster limit of 53 players per team during the season; 45 of which dress for a game plus an "emergency quarterback" who only plays if all the quarterbacks on the 45-man roster are out of the game. Players who are injured are frequently among the eight that do not dress. If it becomes certain that a player will not play for the rest of the season, the team may put him on the "Injured Reserve" list and replace the player on the roster.

An average of about eight players die each year in the United States as a result of injuries received in games at all levels. Concussions are common, with an estimated 40,000 suffered every year among high school players. National Football League now collects benchmark measures of awareness for each player, which can be used during a game to judge whether they have been concussed.

Injuries sustained by football players are often permanent. Many former football players experience pain, sometimes severe, that lasts for the rest of their lives. Many players require surgery, even multiple surgeries, for injuries experienced years earlier.

Interestingly, newspaper reporters who have interviewed former football players who are crippled or in pain as a result of their former sport find that a player will never (or virtually never) express regret over their choice of career. The players often state that the thrill of playing football was worth the price of a lifetime of subsequent pain.

Deaths and long-term disability attributed to illegal use of anabolic steroids have become a new factor in this picture, starting in about the 1990s.

Instances of heat-related death, especially during professional practice sessions, have begun receiving press attention in the decade of the 2000s, and led to new standards intended to respond cautiously to possible danger signs that traditionally had been ignored. There is also the prospect that conventional first-aid technique has been in error, and an apparatus to circumvent this: apparently efforts to cool an overheated patient quickly, by wetting a large fraction of the body, are misguided, with the sudden chilling of the skin causing the body to reduce superficial circulation, and making that chilling near the surface ineffective at cooling the core of the body and thus the brain. A device suitable for professional teams has been developed, that provides for rapid cooling of small areas of skin where large blood vessels are near the surface, and is proposed as a means of cooling the blood quickly without evoking the reflex of isolating the body surface from the core.

Certain penalties have been implemented in an attempt to reduce the number of more serious injuries. An example of this is the illegal "crackback block", consisting of a block below the waist by a player entering the line of close play. These blocks are infamous for causing severe leg injuries.