The Baseball Of The Nfl - 3626 Words

Bright lights, big hits, and postgame interviews, to television commercials, team camaraderie, and multimillion-dollar deals. The National Football league or better known as the NFL created in 1920 has become part of the American culture. To fans the NFL is a gift like no other. The glamour, passion, and fame that the NFL displays for its professional athletes comes with a price. The NFL is a league filled with violent collisions from some of the world?s most athletically gifted players. Players are progressively being diagnosed with significant brain trauma due to the size and athleticism of the players in a game. The effects of the collisions are far more impactful than the instant headache; the bipolar behaviors, dark depression, and†¦show more content†¦Once believed to be found in football players and boxers, and commonly referred to as the ?punch drunk syndrome,? Robert A. Stern and Christine Baugh of Boston University have experimented with over 50 former NFL players insinuating the research of Alzheimer?s disease as an origin of their discovery. The potential scare of contracting a life changing disease like CTE has forced players to consider early retirement and taking on another profession, ultimately putting the future of the NFL and its profits at risk. Tests such as spinal taps and brain scans have provided discoveries of an amino acid pronounced ?tau,? which previously could only be discovered through dissecting the brain post mortem. Patients suffering with Alzheimer?s disease have been known to carry the same large amounts of tau in their spinal fluid, presumably due to nerve destruction within the brain. The center has found CTE in the brains of 34 of the 35 deceased players it has examined, a 97% success rate. Being that the majority of the organs donated were from players believed to have had CTE symptoms, the sample was very selective. ?Is it a threat only to thousand of current and former players? What about more than 60,000 active players in college football? The 1.1 million children playing in high school? The two million