One one thousand. The stands are filled with men, women, and children waving their hands and homemade signs. The cheers coming from the crowd make it hard for me to hear. I smell the hot dogs, popcorn, and pizza being sold at the concession stand. The marching band has just left the field with the tuba player’s last note still ringing in my ear. In the fourth quarter with us in the lead by five the scoreboard shows six seconds. The coach yells, “It’s time to go”! I strap on my helmet with great enthusiasm and head towards the field to take my position.
Two one thousand, three one thousand. Their quarterback quickly shouts out a play. I think to myself “Are my pads secure?” My thoughts quickly turn back to the game as I look up just in time to see two hundred and fifty pounds of blue and white running toward me at full speed. As the sweat rolls down my face my eyes start to burn. My legs suddenly grow weak with fatigue. My hands start to shake as I start to run towards my opponent. I feel a sudden breeze. I start to gag on my mouthpiece. I look up, but all I can see is a glare from the sun, which begins to blind me.
Four one thousand, five one thousand. My bones start to crack. I suddenly realized that I have been hit, and hit hard. I’m now lying on the ground thinking to myself “What happened?” I taste a thick substance and quickly realize that my lip was bleeding. Now I’m in so much pain, my bones ache as I start to get a headache. I hear a whistle and see my opponent standing over me. His sweat starts to drop down from his face to mine. I’m thinking to myself “What went wrong”? I feel the mud on my hands as I slowly start to come back to the rest of the world. I hear the crowd roar. What is going on? Who has won the game? Is it over? I turn my head a little to the left to see the scoreboard. They’ve won by one, and we’ve lost.
Six one thousand. Crowds heading for the exit. Staring at the field covered with empty cups and trash left behind by careless children, I notice that everyone is starting to leave.
Over the past years, many will say that football has become America’s new pastime, taking over our weekends for almost half of the year. Fans travel from all over the country to see their favorite college or professional teams play, and once the football season is over, the countdown clock for the first game of fall begins. There are many positive aspects to the sport, and the fans and players love it, but in John McMurtry’s “Kill ‘em, Crush ‘em, Eat ‘em Raw”, the reader is introduced to a side of football that some have not seen, and many choose to ignore. McMurtry believes that the game of football has become one of people just wanting to hurt other people and too many injuries are occurring to justify the fun
Douglas E. Foley offers an interesting analysis of American football culture in high schools, in his article titled “The Great American Football Ritual: Reproducing Race, Class and Gender Inequality”. The author covers the ways that the football culture splits people apart and segregates them into groups based on what they contribute to the football scene. The football scene seems to bring negativity to the lives of every group it touches, yet it is still a staple in American culture to this day.
The novel begins with preseason football in the heat of a Texas summer. The players and coaches practice over 4 hours a day in 100-degree weather. The media is affecting every player pushing for a state championship and college scouts at every practice. A star player named Boobie Miles is in the spotlight and is expected to attend and earn a scholarship to a large state college. The community cannot wait for the season to start to see the greatest team in Texas history, continue the winning tradition of the Permian Panthers. In one of the first games, Boobie Miles sustains a serious injury and will likely play again. Coach Gary Gaines, the head coach, had almost every play setup up for Boobie and will have ...
American football can be joyful and entertaining to watch but what people do not know is that players are suffering a disease that has never been discovering before. In 2009, Jeanne Marie Laskas novel “Concussion,” brought one question to American. Can football kill people? She concludes that playing football can cause permanent brain damage, cause a person to go crazy, and to the point of death. She uses diction and anecdotes to bring a threat to football players in America to light.
“The Problem with Football: How to Make It Safer.” New York Times. 28 Jan. 2010. Newsstand, Web. 28 Feb. 2012.
...Down and Inches: Concussions and Footballs Make or Break Moment. Minneapolis, MN: Lerner Publishing Group, 2013. Print.
The Road Less Traveled People often go through their life working-out and going to the gym to get “buff.” For ninety-five percent of Americans that do work out, few can say that they have pushed themselves as hard as possible, but I have the distinct, and often painful, pleasure of knowing that there is another way to work out. This option is unlike any other that I have ever personally been through and is a way that I would not wish on any average American. 4:55 a.m. Seventeen degrees Fahrenheit, a mild breeze of ten miles per-hour. For the fifth day in a row and second consecutive month, it is time for me to wake up, make the face-numbing, core-hardening walk through the snow to the Mildred and Louis Lasch Football Building.
Even though football players are aware of the dangers the game can bring upon them, they take part despite it. The passion, the joy it creates; for professionals it’s also the devoted fans and compensation they receive is what keeps the players motivated. Today players are much bigger, faster, smarter, bigger, better. The game is more physical. The sport has never been so competitive. The popularity has reached new peaks, as much that the NFL has thoughts of moving a team to London, England. Additionally, Super Bowl XLVII (47) was one of the most watched television events of all time; an astonishing 108.4 million viewers (The Associated Press). Fans worship their teams and love to see big hits. Football is a contact sport; injuries are no doubtingly part of it. Concussions are one of the many detriments caused by the ruthlessness, but one of the few with perpetual effects: consequence of the brutality.
“‘Athletics last for such a short period of time. It ends for people. But while it lasts, it creates this make-believe world where normal rules don’t apply. We build this false atmosphere. When it’s over and the harsh reality sets in, that’s the real joke we play on people’” (Bissinger xiv). “Friday Night Lights” shows the darker side of high school football. Players are taught to play games to win, and thats all that matters. Football players are put under a tremendous amount of pressure, almost enough to be considered unfair. Even though football is a “team sport”, pressure on individual players is unnecessary. Some players have the burden of the team, the city, their family, and their future, resting on their shoulders. These players are put under pressure that is physically and emotionally damaging, not to mention future ruining.
The National Football League (NFL) has come under fire for the long-lasting medical consequences of players’ game-related head injuries. The question that arises is; is the NFL to blame for the deaths of former players such as Junior Seau, Jovan Belcher, Ray Easterling, and/or O.J. Murdock? The medical and scientific factors in addition to legal liabilities in regards to brain injuries will be outlined in this paper.
The roaring of the crowd on November 17 at Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte, NC finally fell silent late in the fourth quarter after star linebacker Luke Kuechly was slow to get off the field after a huge hit to the head. American’s live to be entertained, and the football field is one of the main sources of enjoyment for many. Immediately after Kuechly’s hit, it was quiet in the stadium for the first time that day. The fans watched in fear, waiting to see if their star player could finish the game and bring out the win. However, they all became disappointed as Kuechly shed tears while being carted off the field, not because they were worried about the player and his head but because they feared about losing the game. Americans want excitement,
Success without adversity is impossible. Everyone in life has their ups and downs and nothing in this world is perfect. At some point in life, hardships begin to occur and that’s when the real test begins. Some people rise up and try their absolute best to take a stand against the challenge. Then there are others that would crawl back into their shells, crying for mercy. There should be no excuse for giving up or not putting in the effort. People are only successful in winning the battle of adversity when they are mentally tough. The intense game of adversity can be referred to football.
The horn blew and the game started, Dedham won the face off and is running down the field at a faster pace than I was used to. They shot the ball! I couldn’t move my stick quick enough to save it, so I threw my body in front of it and got hit right in the shoulder. It hurt a lot, but what I hadn’t realized was that it hit my shoulder and reflected ten feet away from the net where my player caught it and ran down the field and scored. The other team didn’t know what hit them. It was the half now and the score was three to nothing in our favor. Our couch told us that we needed to keep up the good work.
First of all, the rules of football require one to equip himself with approximately twenty pounds of equipment, including a helmet, shoulder pads, and girdle pads. This is because football has the most contact involved out of all sports. In a football game, the norm is that the home team wears colorful jerseys and the visiting team wears white jerseys. Moreover, if a team’s offense is on the field, their defense is on the sideline. A team’s offense includes a center, who snaps the ball to the quarterback. The “QB” then has a choice to run with the ball, hand it off to a running back, or throw it to a wide receiver. The quarterback has an offensive line to protect him from the assailing defense. If a teammate happens to score a touchdown, he earns his team six points, which allows for the kicker to kick an extra point, and give his team a total of seven points. However, if the offense fails to travel at least ten yards within four attempts, or “downs,” they have the opti...
Friday night rolled around, it was the game we had all been working so hard for. Knowing we were seniors, we knew it would be the end of the journey.