The Killing Gridirons

Football season starts tonight. The high schools in central Indiana will have their first games of the season. College football will start in early September. Meanwhile the Colts have played two preseason games and will start the season in the middle of September.

I enjoy football the most of all spectator sports. But during the last few years, I began to have misgivings about it. And they have grown.

Football is the second most violent sport; boxing ranks below it. And with the speed and size and equipment used in the game, it's a miracle that no one has died during a game.

I repeat: During a game. But afterward, though ...

I read a story earlier this week in Deadspin.com, a sports website. It shows a connection between concussions that players have suffered during the game with ALS or ALS-like symptoms they suffer later in their lives. If you want to read the story, please click here.

After I read it, I began to have more than second or third or fourth thoughts about my love and support of football.

I also note this: Chris Henry was a wide receiver for Tennessee Titans. He died last year of injuries he suffered when he fell off a moving truck . His autopsy showed that he had suffered brain damage unrelated to the fall. And he was in his middle 20s.

I know that if I watch fewer games this season, that would stop such injuries; they injuries would come anyway. But still ... sometimes I don't want to give any kind of support or approval to a potentially deadly game.