Sunday, January 15, 2023

THE WRONG LESSON

 

               We love giving ourselves pats on the back, and there have been plenty of those in the wake of the heart attack suffered by the Buffalo Bills’ 24-year-old defensive back Damar Hamlin during that game in Cincinnati a couple of weeks ago.

               Rightfully, the main kudos went to the medical personnel who were Johnny-on-the-spot to render aid to the young man. National Football League games are superbly set up for that sort of thing and the response was excellent. If someone is to have a heart attack an NFL field is the perfect place for it. I can think of nowhere else save a hospital ER where help would be so close and effective.

               The NFL itself came out looking well, if only because it did the obvious things that were appropriate in that sort of situation. The game at hand was cancelled, albeit after a bit of dithering, and no play-over that would have knocked the rest of the schedule on its ear was mandated. The league loves complexity so some “maybe” scenarios involving neutral-field playoff games were tossed in, but if we’re lucky they’ll be avoided.

               We fans received plaudits for not demanding that the show go on regardless. At the stadium respect was shown for the occasion and concern for the victim’s condition was then and later manifested abundantly. As it turned out Hamlin was a community-minded person whose toys-for-kids project was buoyed by an outpouring of funds as he recovered.

               At the risk of spoiling the party, though, I think it should be pointed out that the main lesson apparently drawn from the episode was the wrong one.  In classic overstatement, the Arizona Republic declared in a headline it engendered “A Seminal Moment” for how we regard sports, but in fact sudden death or catastrophic injury remain rare on our big-time fields of play, struck-by-lightning occurrences that happen once every several generations.

               Indeed, one reasonably might ask if Hamlin’s heart attack should be blamed on football. The tackle that preceded it was unremarkable and would have gone unremarked if not for its result. One interpretation was that it involved a sharp blow to the chest that upset his heart’s cycle, but an underlying condition might have been involved that further investigation could uncover. If someone suffers a heart attack on the tennis court should it be counted as a tennis injury?

               Only twice have big-league American athletes died as an immediate result of a playing-field injury, and neither involved football: Ray Chapman of the Cleveland Indians succumbed after having been hit on the head by a pitch in a 1920 baseball game and Bill Masterton of the Minnesota North Stars after striking his head on the ice following a check in a 1968 hockey game. Chuck Hughes of the Detroit Lions suffered a fatal heart attack in a 1971 NFL game after a play in which he wasn’t involved.  His death later was ascribed to an advanced case of arteriosclerosis.

               Football is a dangerous sport but ranks well behind others as an immediate cause of death. Besides boxing, which aims to injure, in most risk are thoroughbred-racing jockeys, who are killed at a rate of more than one a year and whose serious-injury stats are cataclysmic. When the great jockey Laffit Pincay retired after a suffering a broken neck in a spill, it was reported he’d sustained 11 broken collar bones, 10 broken ribs, two spinal fractures, two punctured lungs and two broken thumbs, among other things, in a 30-plus-year career. 

               The real danger in football isn’t in any “big bang” but in the sometimes-muted bang, bang, bang of everyday play, in practice sessions as well as in games. That the effects of such injuries were cumulative and often delayed long was suspected and finally made clear as a result of 2005 and 2006 papers by Dr. Bennet Omalu, then of the Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, coroners’ office. Following examinations of the premature deaths of Pittsburgh Steelers’ players Mike Webster and Terry Long, he found evidence of a protein buildup in their brains called Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy, or CTE, similar to that of much-older victims of Alzheimer’s Disease. In sports the condition formerly had been associated mainly with boxers.

 Subsequent autopsies of the brains of more than 200 former footballers by Boston University showed the disease to be common among that group. One recent study showed that ex-NFLers in their 50s were 10 times more likely to be diagnosed with dementia than men in the general population.

               The crunch and grind of football, plus the explosion in the body weights of many of the men who compete at its highest level, have had other unfortunate, long-term results. Present and former NFL players have been shown to have 3.5 times more Parkinson’s disease, three times the rate of arthritis and 2.5 times more cardiac disease than other men. Opioid addiction, stemming from years of gulping pain killers to cope with football’s ordinary bruises and sprains, is frequent among the recently retired. Visit any NFL locker room after a game and you’ll see men creeping around like those 30 years older.

               After an initial period of denial the NFL has recognized those truths and acted on them. On the gridiron it has improved helmet design, instituted concussion protocols and made it easier for injured players to seek their own medical diagnoses and treatment. It’s reportedly paid out more than $1 billion in additional benefits to ex-players coping with their game’s ravages.   

               None of that, however, changes the fact that football is a gladiatorial sport, one that should come with a warning label. Players should play, and we should watch, with that in mind.

 

                

              

              

Monday, January 2, 2023

WRETCHED EXCESS

 

               “No tree grows to the sky” is a Wall Street adage, applicable in just about all cases. All except sports in these United States, that is. There the trees have penetrated the clouds and are heading starward, with no limit in sight.

               Annual salaries of our leading professional-team athletes have topped the $40 million mark across sport lines, as part of long-term contracts in the low-to-middle nine figures. Basketballers LeBron James and Kevin Durant, footballers Russell Wilson and Kyler Murray and baseballer Aaron Judge are among those in that category—Murray at age 25, for heaven’s sake. Can the first ten-figure contract be far behind?

               Up in the executive suite, the Phoenix Suns just changed hands for a reported (and record) $4 billion, that for a franchise rated by Forbes magazine the 13th most-valuable in the National Basketball Association. One only can imagine what the likes of the New York Yankees, Dallas Cowboys or Los Angeles Lakers might bring when their owners decide to cash out.

                The erstwhile amateur side of the scene has kept pace nicely, thank you. As I noted in my last blog, college-football bowl games continue to climb in number, and the game’s powers-that-be just decreed that the field in the season-ending national-championship football tournament will increase to 12 schools from four beginning in 2024, bringing an estimated $500 million more in revenues to our institutions of higher learning.  Twelve is a bad number for such a go-round, 16 a better one. A college-football season stretching into February seems inevitable.

               The main individual beneficiaries of the college-sports money gusher have been the head football and men’s basketball coaches of the 65 members of the “Power Five” conferences (Big 10, SEC, ACC, Pac-12 and Big 12), plus Notre Dame, that comprise the game’s upper tier. Once looked upon as amiable, whistle-wearing pedagogues, those guys now have all the trappings of corporate CEOs, paychecks included.

               The first college coach to hit $1 million-a-year in base pay was Steve Spurrier of the U of Florida, in 1975. That ceiling didn’t last long—the Gators doubled Spurrier’s salary the next year. Now, some college assistant coaches top the million-dollar mark. The current best-paid college football coach is Alabama’s Nick Saban at a reported base of  $11.7 million a year, followed by Dabo Sweeney of Clemson at $10.5 million and Kirby Smart of Georgia at $9.8 million. Bill Self of Kansas tops the basketball list at $10.2 million, with John Calipari of Kentucky next at $8.6 million.

               The public, me included, used to flinch when coaches landed big-money deals, but no more. Our universities are so entrenched in the entertainment business that little they do in that realm still seems excessive. Nonetheless, I was taken aback a few weeks ago when Arizona State University, my neighborhood Mega U., announced the hiring of a new football head coach to replace old-pro Herm Edwards. The new guy is Ken Dillingham, who at age 32 became the youngest football head coach in the top echelon. 

               ASU noted in announcing the move that Dillingham’s starting annual base salary of $3.85 million would be a tad under the $3.9 million Edwards was making, and about average for his counterparts on other PAC-12 sidelines, but the hire stood out on grounds besides the newcomer’s youth. Dillingham had been offensive coordinator at several schools, most recently the U of Oregon, but never had been a head coach at any level. Indeed, he never played football beyond high school.  

               And as the TV pitchmen say “Wait! There’s more!” According to the Arizona Republic and online sources, Dillingham’s pact contains guaranteed annual base-pay increases of $100,000 for each year of its five-year run, meaning he’ll be paid at least $4.35 million in 2027. He’ll get an extra $200,000 if any of his teams wins nine of its 12 regular-season games, another $300,000 if it wins 10, another $400,000 for 11 and another $500,000 for 12, which would come to $1.4 million for a clean sweep.

               If one of his teams plays in the PAC-12 title game he’ll get a bonus of 10%, or at least $385,000, and 20% ($770,000) if it wins it. If it makes any bowl game, which usually requires a mediocre six regular-season victories, he’ll get a bonus of 10%. That would rise to 15% if the bowl is “major,” whatever that means. He’ll get $100,000 for being named national coach-of-the-year and additional bonuses rising to $300,000 if team players meet certain academic goals. If one of his teams wins a national championship the school will erect a solid-gold statue of him. OK, I made up that last thing.

               One might think a young family man (Dillingham and his wife have one child) could afford some luxuries at $4m+ per annum, but ASU is kicking in some of those, too. They’ll get unlimited use of two cars or a vehicle stipend, free golf at the ASU course, dues at any private golf or social club, free use of a suite at ASU home football games and tickets to any others.

               In an earlier, less-expansive era, journalists would make the point of wretched excess by comparing sports salaries with those of ordinary and even extraordinary people, but the gap has become so great that seems kind of silly now. I’ll do it anyway: like just about every big-time state-school head football or basketball coach Dillingham will be his state’s highest-paid public employee (the governor of Arizona earns $95,000 a year). His $3.85 million base would cover the annual salaries of 70 K-12 public-school teachers in the state averaging $55,000 a year, or 33 ASU profs averaging about $115,000. ASU fans might give those numbers a thought while they cheer.