Biological Theory Of Football

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Recommended: The effect of violence in sport

Violence has for a long period of time reared its ugly head during sporting activities. Undoubtedly questions have been raised on whether football and other violent sports contribute to making human beings more civilized or they propagate the innate violent nature of human beings that has characterized their way of life. Several theories have been proposed to try to give an explanation to this peculiar human behavior. Among these theories are the biological, the psychological and the social learning theory.
Biological theory asserts that aggression is an inevitable component that is part and parcel of human relations (Maguire 2008 p 54). Based on this view some biologists and ethnologists have propounded that human beings are naturally killer …show more content…

However, it is not as physical as it was in times past. History is replete with incidences of brutality among the football fans that has led maiming of fans and in most cases resulting to death. Football in Brazil is regarded passionately. During the 1950 World Cup, Brazil competed against Uruguay in the finals and lost. What followed was devastating. First, Uruguay was handed the World cup without an award ceremony. Furthermore, a Brazilian fan committed suicide, three others succumbed to heart attacks, and Brazil never took part in the games for a period of two years. Ultimately Brazil had to change their uniform from white to yellow and green shirts. Between 1999 and 2008, forty two people reportedly succumbed to death. In the year 2012 alone there were 29 football related deaths. The deaths involve the fans who may either be struggling to get a place in the stadium to watch a match or the clashes of rival fans following a match …show more content…

Chronic traumatic encephalopathy (C.T.E) is a medical condition describing brain damage that affects the players that have been exposed to direct head impact. The diagnosis of the condition was first made in 2002 in a Pittsburgh player. Statistical figures have shown the seriousness of the harm that comes from games that impact and violence is involved. In the period of 1982 to 2009, statistical figures released by National Centre for Catastrophic Injury Research revealed that close to three hundred fatalities were victims of the impact of football in high-school. The results only represented injuries that occur over a long period of time. Further still, statistics indicated that there was over three hundred and thirty cases of instant damage on the brain coming from the impact in the period spanning from 1984 to

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    He Appeals to Logos when he writes, “Over the past two decades it has become clear that repetitive blows to the head in high-impact contact sports like football, ice hockey, mixed martial arts and boxing place athletes at risk of permanent brain damage….Why, then, do we continue to intentionally expose our children to this risk?” He continues by writing, “If a child who plays football is subjected to advanced radiological and neurocognitive studies, there can be evidence of brain damage at the cellular level of brain functioning…. If that child continues to play over many seasons, these cellular injuries accumulate to cause irreversible brain damage, which we know now by the name Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy,” a disease founded by Dr.Omalu in 2002. C.T.E can cause “major depression, memory loss, suicidal thoughts and actions, loss of intelligence as well as dementia later in life.” C.T.E has also been linked to “drug and alcohol abuse as children enter their 20s, 30s, and 40s.” Dr.Omalu Appeals to Ethos when he writes, “As physicians, it is our role to educate” and “protect the most vulnerable among

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  • Malcolm Gladwell's Essay 'Offensive Play'

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    Gladwell describes how the effect of contact to the head can have on the neurological system. He shows in his article that players that play in the league can suffer from brain damage that is similar to Alzheimer or dementia. This damage is called chronic traumatic encephalopathy and it occurs when individuals suffer from many concussions or any other form of head injury. This damage has a lasting affect and can cause people to die at an earlier age then which they should. The life expectancy goes down for people with chronic traumatic encephalopathy. In this article it talks about many play...

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  • How Playing Football Can Lead to Developing CTE

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    CTE stands for chronic traumatic encephalopathy. CTE is a progressive neuro- degenerative disease which had not been found in football players until recently. It was stated in the episode, “Repetitive brain trauma starts this cascade of events in the brain that changes the way tau [protein] looks and behaves. It goes awry, it starts destroying the integrity of the brain cells.” Doctor Omalu’s discovery was the first hard evidence which proved playing football could cause permanent damage. This finding was not well received by the NFL and Omalu was met with attacks by the MTBI committee and the NFL as a whole.

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  • Malcolm Gladwell Analysis

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    Gladwell provides research conducted by Anne McKee a neuropathologist who is involved in the detection of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (C.T.E) on football players which was caused by head trauma. Using the research of McKee who is deeply involved with C.T.E allows the reader to better understand C.T.E. First we are presented on how by autopsying a brain of a person who had received a diagnosis of dementia. McKee discovered that this patient was a boxer in his early days and due to many hits in the head he developed C.T.E. Unfortunately, this person was diagnosed with dementia but ultimately he had C.T. E “which is a progressive neurological disorder found in people who have suffered some kind of brain trauma”. (Offensive Play). We are also presented with a research done by Kevin Guskiewicz director of the University of North Carolina’s Sports Concussion Research Program. Guskiewicz carefully monitors North Carolina’s football team with sensors on the player’s football helmets. These sensors allow Guskiewicz to measure the force of the impacts the players receive while playing football. Guskiewicz compared the hits to the head a payer receives to a car accident: “if you drove your car into a wall at twenty-five miles per hour and you weren’t wearing your seat belt, the force of your head hitting the

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  • Persuasive Essay On Football Concussions

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    “Football’s Endgame: What would happen if America’s Pastime just...died” is the title that had heads turning when it made its way onto Sports Illustrated. Football is the United State’s favorite sport so an article like this one was sure to shock fans. The article was written to be set ten years from now when the game of football met its death. Giving the ongoing issues surrounding the game in 2016, the author Austin Murphy dated the article September 7,2036. In this article Murphy talks about the factors that led to the end of one of the U.S’s beloved sports. Factors like the AIG not protecting athletes against head injuries in the NFL, Pop Warner settling a death with the family of a former football player who committed suicide at the age of 25 from CTE caused by hits to the head, and the 10% rise in football concussions. A woman whose son had passed away from a motorcycle accident noticed changes in her boy. Playing football for almost a decade he was bound to get hurt, but it was after his death that doctors found he had CTE. CTE is a topic of discussion in this article. Sports Illustrated works to inform everyone about CTE and its effects on the mind. This disease targets the way a person thinks and changes their moods, “He had all these [football-related] problems with his knees and back, but his brain was

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  • Head Trauma In Athletes

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    In recent years, there has been an increase in research investigating the long-term effects of repeated head trauma on the brain, especially in athletes. Following his discovery of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), Dr. Bennet Omalu inspired a movement of research aimed at establishing better safety standards and protocols in football. It was not until 2002 that the initial connection between repetitive head trauma, such as concussions, and brain injury was suspected (Ott, 2015).

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  • Pros And Cons Of Youth Football

    551 Words  | 2 Pages

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  • What´s Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE)?

    1498 Words  | 3 Pages

    Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) is a neurodegenerative disease attributed to single, sporadic, or repetitive brain trauma, including concussions and subconcussive hits (Baugh et al., 2012; Wortzel et al., 2013). This disease was originally referred to as dementia pugilistica, and nicknamed “punch drunk,” because individuals suffering from this disorder would present symptoms that were similar to someone’s mannerisms while being intoxicated (Wortzel et al., 2013). This “drunken” behavior is thought to be attributed to the cognitive, mood, and behavioral alterations as a result of the repetitive hits to the brain over an extended period of time. Because individuals suffering from this disease are often exposed to conditions that allow them to sustain blows to the head multiple times, the populations most often examined in these studies are athletes (football, boxing, rugby) and/or individuals in the military (McKee et al., 2009). Individuals can be symptom free for several years (Baugh et al., 2012). The onset of symptoms are sometimes seen about eight to ten years after an individual retires from their sport, which roughly equates to someone aged thirty to fifty yeas old (Baugh et al., 2012; Wortzel et al., 2013; Karantzoulis and Randolph, 2013). As with all diseases, symptoms can range from mild to severe. Researchers have found a positive correlation between the number of brain injuries sustained during a length of time playing a sport and the severity of symptoms (McKee et al., 2009).

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  • Rhetorical Analysis Of Competitive Blowss To The Head While Playing Football

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    Through the use of advanced statistics, in-depth interviews with doctors and other professionals, and emotional appeal, Breslow successfully reveals to the audience the connection that the NFL has hid from players, parents, and fans for years: head injuries suffered while playing in the NFL are directly correlated with CTE and other traumatic diseases.

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  • Deviance in Sports: Four Categories of Violence

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    Coakley, J. J., & Donnelly, P. (2007). Violence in Sports . Sports in society: issues & controversies (9th ed., pp. 198-199). Boston: McGraw-Hill Higher Education.

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  • Concussions in Football

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    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.

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  • The Dangers of Playing American Football

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    From long practice hours, hot summer workouts, and many Friday nights, my personal observation of this dangerous sport is exceptionally prevalent. My initial experience of the damage that football brings came my eighth grade year when I witnessed a senior football player on my team try and eat a phone on the ride home after receiving a concussion in the third quarter of the game. Which is a prime example to defend the fact that football related injuries to the head result in people not “being all there.” Not only have I seen someone try and eat a phone, but I have also witnessed head injuries resulting in my own friend randomly yelling at me after a game for no reason, and also a friend trying to jump down a full flight of stairs thinking he was starring in a movie. The fast paced, high intensity contact that comes with playing football is nothing to think flippantly of when it plays a role on brain trauma, and the results of brain trauma.

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  • The Game of Football

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    From the early ages in history to the present day, sports have always been an important part of society. It teaches discipline, how to be a team player, how to interact with others and is a good source of physical activity. In specific, football utilizes all of these aspects of sports and it’s a great source of teaching self-restraint and perseverance. Some may say that football is a violent sport or it’s not beneficial in any way, but in reality it gives a person the basic tools needed not only for playing the game, but also how you interact with people in society.

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  • Correlation in Media Coverage of Sports and the Acceptance of Violence by Spectators and Competitors

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    ...ent behavior in order to win the game. Whereas, “sports violence can be seen as either an example of laudable competitive drive present in worthy participates or an underhanded attempts at rule bending” (Raney & Depalma, 2006). Moreover, decades of media exposure may have led to an increase in the acceptance of violence. Is media coverage exploiting sports violence and aggression for ratings? It’s unclear if fans are becoming desensitized and/or imitating the violence witnessed through the medium of media. Regardless, it’s abundantly clear the changes need to be made in light of the negative effects. Identifying and examining media’s role in the public’s acceptance of aggressive behavior in sports may aid society in minimizing the violence and aggression as much as possible surrounding sporting events to make sporting events safer for both players and fans.

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  • Hooliganism in Football (Soccer)

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    ...s between fans at local and national levels, the striking feature of the research is the high degree to which football unites people from varied backgrounds across the whole of Europe, and undoubtedly beyond. The prevention of football hooliganism requires a concerted and continuous response. Cross-national and cross-local dissimilarities in the patterns and forms of football hooliganism reveal that, despite important transnational resemblances, football hooliganism is nested within particular (local) fan cultures. Prevention strategies should therefore be designed to fit local needs. The good practices discussed in this paper may help to promote a more profound understanding of possible strategies for the prevention of football hooliganism. To advance such an understanding, the transnational exchange and dissemination of local knowledge and practices are required.

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