For this mastery quest, I chose to analyze this article, written by my fellow classmate. The article that was examined was an OP-ED article written by Kevin Cook titled, "Dying to play," published on september 12, 2012 in the New York Times News Paper. In this article Mr. Smith brings to light the devastating injuries, as well as prolong medical problems faced by pro athletes, especially players of the National Footbal League. My fellow classmate correctly identified the basis for this article, which is the very high occurance of head, neck, and spinal injuries suffered by the both college level and professional level football athletes. The original article, written by smith gives a statistic that states,
"the journal Neurology carried the results of a study of 3,439 retired pro football players. It reported that veterans of N.F.L. combat are more likely than the rest of us to die from brain diseases including Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. Not 50 percent more likely, or twice as likely, but three to four times more likely."
I tried researching the name "The journal Neurology," just as it is written in the direct quote above and I was unable to find any such website under that name, nor any search results that would show that it was perhaps a print only publication. Digging a little bit deeper, I was able to do a google search using the search "nfl football players 3-4 times more likely to receive," which resulted in finding an article by www.ScientificAmerican.com titled, "Concussions Exact Toll on Football Players Long After They Retire." On this page I was able to uncover a link to the "Journal of Neuroscience," an actual website with an actual accurate statistics concluding the correlation of concussions suffered by retired NFL football players and neorological deficits. Though, in the JON article the number of tested players was listed as 2,552, not the 3,439 that Smith claims in his original article. Also it is unclear what type of testing in Smith's statistics were performed on these unsubstatiated number of players as his statistics cannot be verified with his information given. The JON article does however, rate the number of retired NFL players at about 5 times more prevelance of some sort of neorologic deficit in correlation with multiple concussions sustained.
Another area mentioned in the article, that my contemporay hit on was the increased level of awareness by the NFL to begin actually researching these claims, and also to put protocols in place to better protect the players in the league. This is actual very apparent nowadays even by a casual observer of the game that the penalties for even unintentional helmet to helmet contact can result in hefty penalties, fines, and even suspensions for the at fault players. The leagues seriousness about this issue can actually be seen by the infamous New Orleans Saint's(an NFL team,) "Bounty Gate" scandal, in which apparent bonuses were paid to players who initiated "game or season" ending injuries onto the opposing team. The monetary penalties, and organization wide suspensions handed down by the commisioner of the NFL to anyone found to be involved, were very serious and had never been seen prior.
According to Smith the league donated $30 million dollars to research the long term effects neurological deficits, of concussions sustained by NFL football player, . This along with the newer protocoled cognative sideline tests administered to an injured player before they are allowed to re-enter a game are about the only verifiable things in Smiths article. Though again, it is easy for even the non-fan, casual observer to see that the game of professional football has inherent dangers associated with it, from the violent full speed "hits" that crash with the correlative sound of a monsoon thunderclap, to the twisting of ankles and knees. Smith however loses credibility in his OP-ED because the source he cited was incorrect. As such it makes me that much more leary to value the rest of his article. Though my classmate did a good job in finding and dissecting Smiths article, I'm unable to be convinced that smiths article should have been published in the first place. Though I do think that even with noncredible, and unreliable sources, this still sheds valuable light on what is a very real problem of the injuries sustained by these players for our collective entertainment and enjoyment.
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