Is American football morally defensible?

[Birdjaguar]

The easiest way to make American football safer is to cap player weight at 200 lbs. Once you do that, you can work on the other unsafe stuff.

 

[Samson]

If you have a choice at all, any choice, no matter how bad that choice is and nobody is forcing you to pick one or the other than you are not being coerced. End of story.

Work for me or I will kill you. Is that coercion?

 

[PPQ_Purple]

Work for me or I will kill you. Is that coercion?

That is a threat of violence. Work for me or work minimum wage flipping burgers and remain poor however is not.

 

[danjuno]

Are we sure we've hit the max for padding? Why not just keep piling on till they're bigger than the mascots?

@PPQ_Purple, what if the guys in question is the guy hiring burger-flippers for minimum wage? Then the alternative becomes starvation.

 

[Lexicus]

The easiest way to make American football safer is to cap player weight at 200 lbs. Once you do that, you can work on the other unsafe stuff.

Surely making it touch instead of tackle would be easier than this

 

[PPQ_Purple]

what if the guys in question is the guy hiring burger-flippers for minimum wage? Then the alternative becomes starvation.

You have ventured far, far away from the original point of the discussion. That being that the original person insisting that people being given university scholarships in exchange for practicing sports was coercion. And I insisted that it is in fact not because there are plenty of other things that person could do in life. Go flip burgers or learn a trade or become a taxi driver or prostitute or construction worker or any other occupation. It's not sports or die.

I don't know where you are, so I don't know where "over here" is,...

To clear up what I was talking about when I said that I was specifically talking about tie between universities and sports exploitation.

It is my understanding that american universities reserve a number of places for so called sports scholarships. And this is basically some sort of program where they give you a scholarship but only under the condition that you play in their sports team putting in all the effort of a professional athlete for free. Like, I am not even sure they test the people for actual qualifications beyond athleticism. And that this is done with no care to the actual education of the individuals and with absolutely no compensation as a sort of giant money making scheme. They even seem to have an entire sports league for that stuff.

Which is a bit wild for me because I am used to most universities not even having sports as a possible class. Like not even elective. And why would they? Why would say a math or biology or art degree or a university specialized in them offer sports as an option? That's like stocking petrol in a candy store. Instead, if people want to go into sports they attend specialized sports programs such as the one you described.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Surely making it touch instead of tackle would be easier than this

Maybe, but going to touch might have more of a poor fan response. A weight cap just takes the biggest guys out of the game but leave the rest intact.

 

[PPQ_Purple]

Maybe, but going to touch might have more of a poor fan response. A weight cap just takes the biggest guys out of the game but leave the rest intact.

Worse yet a weight cap would just encourage the sort of insane and idiotic behavior we see in fighting sports where everyone strives to ride the red line at the edge of the maximum weight limit and than do insanely unhealthy things just before the weighing to be just under due to the sheer physical advantage that being at the top of the limit gives you. And that is the place where even I draw the line at what people should be allowed to do with their body.

 

[Voidwalkin]

Surely making it touch instead of tackle would be easier than this

Maybe, but going to touch might have more of a poor fan response. A weight cap just takes the biggest guys out of the game but leave the rest intact.

Touch removes physicality. Physicality is the defining feature of football. It's a physical team sport.

It'd lose half its fans overnight. The NFL would never legislate this. Congress would have to legislate this.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Worse yet a weight cap would just encourage the sort of insane and idiotic behavior we see in fighting sports where everyone strives to ride the red line at the edge of the maximum weight limit and than do insanely unhealthy things just before the weighing to be just under due to the sheer physical advantage that being at the top of the limit gives you. And that is the place where even I draw the line at what people should be allowed to do with their body.

So a quick rush to lose 5 lbs before a game (to be below the 200 lb limit) is worse health wise than weighing 300 pounds?

 

[Samson]

So a quick rush to lose 5 lbs before a game (to be below the 200 lb limit) is worse health wise than weighing 300 pounds?

My understanding is that in boxing this is true, such that there is more long term damage in the lighter weights where there is an incentive to dehydrate oneself that in the heavy weight class where there is not.

I think the rules have got better for this though, having the weigh in well before the fight.

 

[Lexicus]

Touch removes physicality. Physicality is the defining feature of football. It's a physical team sport.

It'd lose half its fans overnight. The NFL would never legislate this. Congress would have to legislate this.

Touch football absolutely would still be a physical sport. What you mean by "physicality" here is clearly something more like "violence"

 

[sophie]

So a quick rush to lose 5 lbs before a game (to be below the 200 lb limit) is worse health wise than weighing 300 pounds?

Yes! It's been a huge issue in pretty much every sport which employs weight ceilings/floors/classifications. Chronic cyclical swings in weight and the eating disorders which they tend to produce are both extremely dangerous. We still don't fully know the extent to which the negative health outcomes associated with obesity are actually a consequence of the obesity per se and how much are the result of the intense caloric restrictions, weight cycling, and social shame we impose on people we deem to be obese.

It also doesn't really address the main culprit of what makes football such a notoriously dangerous sport, i.e.:
1) the subconcussive injuries that result from ramming one's head at speed (however cushioned) into a hard surface hundreds upon hundreds of times over the course of a decade+
2) the open field tackles in which a 200lb safety launches himself into a wide receiver at full speed

And for CTEs (i.e. point 1) it again must be noted that we aren't talking about "hard hits" like when a lineman flattens a QB or WR, but rather the routine sorts of blocks and offensive and defensive linemen coming together that happen in literally every play and arouse little notice or alarm from anybody.

 

[PPQ_Purple]

My understanding is that in boxing this is true, such that there is more long term damage in the lighter weights where there is an incentive to dehydrate oneself that in the heavy weight class where there is not.

I think the rules have got better for this though, having the weigh in well before the fight.

They starve, dehydrate and even have blood drawn just to loose some extra grams. It's literally insane. There was a scandal at the Olympics where one of the (I think it was a boxer) women did all that and more just to stay the bare minimum under the limit but than failed because they introduced a last minute check and she obviously could not keep that up right up until the actual match because it's hilariously bad for you.

 

[lymond]

They starve, dehydrate and even have blood drawn just to loose some extra grams. It's literally insane. There was a scandal at the Olympics where one of the (I think it was a boxer) women did all that and more just to stay the bare minimum under the limit but than failed because they introduced a last minute check and she obviously could not keep that up right up until the actual match because it's hilariously bad for you.

I know a lady wrestler had that happen right before the championship match. I think she was from India if I recall. (I watch all the Wrestling)

 

[PPQ_Purple]

I know a lady wrestler had that happen right before the championship match. I think she was from India if I recall. (I watch all the Wrestling)

Yes, that was the one. I got the sport wrong.

 

[Voidwalkin]

Touch football absolutely would still be a physical sport. What you mean by "physicality" here is clearly something more like "violence"

Yes. Physicality is common football parlance for violent play. It is built into the game at its core. Approximately half the positions on the field, linemen, have the sole job of simply pushing another man better than he pushes them. Making it touch only? Very few buyers. It would be condemned by players and fans alike.

If anyone would prefer to call football violent, I wouldn't object, though. It is. Making it touch, taking the violence out, would just be a far harder sell than weight classes. It would probably require political action, tbh.

 

[Core Imposter]

Worse yet a weight cap would just encourage the sort of insane and idiotic behavior we see in fighting sports where everyone strives to ride the red line at the edge of the maximum weight limit and than do insanely unhealthy things just before the weighing to be just under due to the sheer physical advantage that being at the top of the limit gives you. And that is the place where even I draw the line at what people should be allowed to do with their body.

You had me until you thought you have a right to draw a line.

 

[PPQ_Purple]

You had me until you thought you have a right to draw a line.

Basically I am morally against putting people in situations where such behavior is encouraged. It's one thing to talk about the hypothetical effects of potential sports injuries over a carrier and quite another to have people literally bleed one self before each match. As an organizer you just should not encourage people to do that. As well as that I consider such behavior to be blatant cheating. After all, if you do not belong in a weight class temporary measures to drop the load just for a weighing are cheating. And finally, given the sheer advantage that being at the top of the weight bracket gives you in some sports I actually consider this to be one situation where there actually is coercion on the other athletes to do the same. Because it becomes something they have to do in order to compete. Which in it self is obviously bad.

 

[EgonSpengler]

To clear up what I was talking about when I said that I was specifically talking about tie between universities and sports exploitation.

It is my understanding that american universities reserve a number of places for so called sports scholarships. And this is basically some sort of program where they give you a scholarship but only under the condition that you play in their sports team putting in all the effort of a professional athlete for free. Like, I am not even sure they test the people for actual qualifications beyond athleticism. And that this is done with no care to the actual education of the individuals and with absolutely no compensation as a sort of giant money making scheme. They even seem to have an entire sports league for that stuff.

Which is a bit wild for me because I am used to most universities not even having sports as a possible class. Like not even elective. And why would they? Why would say a math or biology or art degree or a university specialized in them offer sports as an option? That's like stocking petrol in a candy store. Instead, if people want to go into sports they attend specialized sports programs such as the one you described.

I think I understood what you meant. All I was saying is that if you think American universities are unusual among profit-seeking organizations in their exploitation of the people who generate said profits, I have a bridge to sell you. I don't even know for sure that they're particularly bad, in that regard, or are just kind of run-of-the-mill profit-seeking institutions. Also, the sentence where you say "some sort of program where they give you a scholarship" is self-contradictory. If they're giving you a scholarship, you're not doing it for free, because one of the big problems in this country is the cost of education, especially higher education. The argument in support of some of these athletics programs is that they give kids a chance to go to college who might not otherwise have one. And I think that may be true. But that's a problem with our education system.

Your question about whether student-athletes get a good education while they're playing sports is valid, although it may be more worth pointing that particular barb at American high schools, before American universities. I think even U.S. state schools (e.g. public schools) get pretty solid funding streams, and provide decent educations. But (some) people arrive at American colleges and universities needing remedial classes to make up for the lack of education they received in high school. Some years ago, there was a case pitting a high school in a well-to-do town against its neighbor in a poor and working-class town next door. I forget what the claim was, but I remember Justice Samuel Alito Antonin Scalia writing against the poor school that while American students are entitled to an education, they are not entitled to a good one. Yup, that sounds like the U.S. That checks out.