Football Violence - How Much Is Too Much?

For quite some time I have wondered whether or not it is appropriate for Christian schools to have football teams because of the violent nature of the sport. One friend's comment points out that football doesn't have to be about violence, but is meant to be about strength and technique. Very possible, but a recent Sports Illustrated piece affirms what is clear to most anyone who watches football games -- football is violent.

Michael Rosenberg asks the question, "What would it take for you to give up football?" And he means it as "a conscience-searching, soul-defining question. How much suffering should others endure for our entertainment?" He wonders how many deaths or tragic injuries does it take before someone says, "Enough." Recent studies about the effects of concussions and various syndromes that result have raised the issue once again. It appears that we won't be able to design helmets that prevent concussions, so what needs to happen?

Rosenberg provides reasons why football is so popular, and one of the reasons is violence:

There are many reasons football is our most popular spectator sport -- it has the perfect pace, just the right amount of scoring and luck, and it's ideal for television, to name a few -- but high on the list is this: it has always seemed to feature the appropriate level of violence.

Players get drilled, but they almost always get up. At worst, they break a limb or are too woozy to return. But we don't see them killed and we rarely even see them bloodied as much as boxers.

We get three things out of this:

1. The undeniable visceral thrill of seeing a great hit.

2. The emotional attachment that comes with knowing these men are willing to endure pain for the game; it gives the games a gravitas that is missing from, say, an NBA game.

3. A clear conscience. We usually see the players get up. Truly awful, career-ending, I-can't-look-at-the-replay injuries (the most famous example: Joe Theismann's shattered leg) are rare enough that we can dismiss them as aberrations.

Rosenberg then states his opinion that "it has become increasingly apparent that football features an inappropriate level of violence. We just don't see the effects of it right away."

For example, Rosenberg points to the story of Owen Thomas, a junior Penn football player who committed suicide, whose autopsy revealed significant trauma-induced brain disease. Rosenberg concludes that at age 21, "Owen Thomas probably did not die because of a single hit or ignorant trainers, but simply because he chose to play football."

Reports on a study that came out in August raise the possibility that many athletes who are diagnosed with ALS (Lou Gehrig's Disease) may not have ALS, but rather have brain neural disease that results from traumas like repeated significant concussions. Gehrig is known to have suffered a number of significant concussions, raising the possibility the Lou Gehrig didn't die from Lou Gehrig's disease, but rather from brain trauma.

So how much is too much? How violent is too violent?

And still I wonder… is it appropriate for a Christian school to have a football team?