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“Sport is to war as pornography is to sex.” This (rather crass) statement belongs to Jonathan Haidt and although Haidt is a political psychologist in the US, you’d think for sure that he’d been in Australia for the lead up to ANZAC Day this year.
New TV ads featuring Australian netballers and footballers telling us to text our support to the troops is just the latest way that sports are being used to promote ANZAC Day. We already have the “traditional” ANZAC Day football clashes between Collingwood and Essendon in AFL and the St George Illawarra Dragons and the Sydney Roosters in NRL. Not to be out ANZACed, this year netball is promoting the Queensland Firebirds and West Coast Fever match as its contribution. Growing up I never understood how these were “traditional” ANZAC Day matches since none of the teams were from New Zealand or Turkey and it’s certainly not like those games have been played since 1915. (As it turns out all of these “traditions” are less than 20 years old). Very strange indeed.
Even though I studied the sociology of sport at university, no one ever explained that sport and war go together, well, like porn and sex. In many societies over the course of history sport has been used as preparation for war. The Aztecs, the Kingdom of Castile in Spain and the Native Americans are just a few of the recorded cases.
Set your time travelling machine back to today and it’s not difficult to see the connections between modern sport and war. Picture rugby league teams running at one another on a field and compare it with the image of opposing armies on a battlefield. We’re told that qualities like mateship, courage, teamwork, leadership, loyalty and physical prowess are required in our athletes and our soldiers. How many times have you heard Ray Warren speak of Darren Lockyer “marshalling his troops” or the State of Origin teams “going into battle” or Jonathan Thurston "putting up a bomb"? In addition, the skills and fitness acquired through playing sports is an asset to all armies during war. Sheffield Shield cricketer Frank Lugton was killed in the First World War but his Commanding Officer said that his cricketing skills made him a fine grenade thrower.
During World War I sportsmen were a particular target for recruiters. The army set up Sportsmen’s Battalions – special units manned entirely by sportsmen. One recruitment poster appealed for sportsmen to “Join together, train together, embark together, fight together. Enlist in the sportsmen’s thousand, show the enemy what Australian sporting men can do.” Other posters called on sportsmen to enlist in the “Greater Game”.
Don’t think that this means that between world wars ANZAC Day is a time for everyone to get out and compete in your local fixture though. In many states including Victoria there are Acts which prohibit any organised sport until after midday to encourage everyone to go to ANZAC marches. The Acts also force sporting bodies to hand over profits made by any sports events on this day to the various ANZAC Trusts. These trusts fund support for returned service men and women – a job that the government should already be doing.
ANZAC Day was first celebrated in 1916 at a time when the First World War was becoming an increasingly unpopular blood bath. Since its inception the day has played a large role as a recruitment and PR exercise for the military.
Today, the ANZAC Day message promoted by politicians, the media, culture and sport is not overtly about recruitment. You will hear speeches repeating the familiar mantra, “They died for us”. Never will you hear, “They killed for us”. Killing provokes distasteful images whereas dying is much more savoury. Who is this “us” they’re dying for anyway? The troops in Afghanistan certainly aren’t there for me or the 61% of Australians who are against the war.
And when Bec Bulley from the Australian Diamonds tells us to support our troops and “let them know you’re proud of what they’re doing”, despite the fact that most Australians are against the war, no one is going to send a message saying, “I think you’re carrying out an imperialist intervention in the Middle East which will only lead to death and destruction for Afghan people. Instead, I think you should be at home with your family and friends.” For some reason, supporting our troops always means sending them off to the perils of war and never means keeping them safe at home.
In some ancient societies sport was used to decide disagreements as a substitute for war. Of course, capitalism would never allow for that today. While we live in a system where a small minority at the top of society get to send others off to kill and be killed with no consequence to themselves wars will continue. However, if the majority of the population including the workers who are most likely to become front line soldiers got to vote about how to settle disagreements, it may be a different story. Let’s hope such a world exists one day.
Sunday, April 24, 2011
Saturday, April 23, 2011
‘This is a barbaric game, this game is not for the weak. You play football, you understand that.’ Former gridiron player Marshall Faulk is blunt in his assessment of the violence involved in American football.
This year, for the first time, AFL players are banned from returning to the field if they are diagnosed with a concussion. The rule was rushed in three days before the season opener and it didn’t impress players like Carlton captain Chris Judd who rebuffed, ‘You'll just never get anyone concussed anymore.’ He’s probably right – players may get concussed, but the new rule will be a disincentive for doctors to diagnose it. The rule isn’t accompanied by any guidelines for diagnosis or independent doctors’ rules to keep team physicians accountable. But nonetheless, it’s clear the AFL felt it had to do something.
News coming out of the US on the long-term effects of football head injuries is horrific. Former Chicago Bears player Dave Duerson shot himself in the chest last month after he suspected he was suffering long-term brain damage. He left behind clear instructions for his brain to be donated to the NFL’s brain bank for research purposes. Duerson’s death sent shockwaves through the NFL and was a wake-up call to football codes all over the world to take brain injuries more seriously.
Unfortunately Duerson was only the latest in a long line of NFL players who have suffered from the effects of a brain disease called chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE). The disease is caused by repetitive head trauma and displays symptoms such as depression, erratic behaviour and premature memory impairment. In 2008, Tom McHale was found dead at forty-five from a drug overdose after battling years of addiction. Before him Andre Waters and John Grimsley both died of suspected suicides. The symptoms of CTE eventually progress into full-blown dementia. It can only be diagnosed posthumously and so far, almost all NFL players examined in the NFL brain bank study at Boston University had the disease.
A separate study of retired NFL players found that 6.1% of retired players over fifty had been diagnosed with dementia, Alzheimer’s disease or other memory-related disease – five times more than the general population of men over fifty.
Such controversy has meant that the NFL leads the world in rules changes to prevent head injuries. Not only do players in the NFL have to sit out the game if they are concussed but also if they have less serious head injuries and can’t pass the NFL’s health test. The NFL also provides independent neurological consultants to examine players with suspected head injuries to prevent the issues of under-diagnosis that concern Chris Judd. Some states in the US even have laws which force coaches to refer young players to a doctor if they have suspected head injuries. Recently the NFL has introduced harsher penalties for helmet-to-helmet hits.
In Australia, the AFL, ARU and NRL have made a number of rules changes to minimize head and neck injuries. Before the concussion rule, they tried the ‘head down over the ball’ rule in AFL, the spear tackle and head-butting rules in NRL, banning gang tackles and shoulder charges in rugby and tougher penalties in all codes. The AFL is the first to try the concussion rule and reduce the number of interchanges to slow the game down. Rugby codes are already discussing the concussion rule and expected to follow suit.
Adrian Anderson, the AFL’s General Manager of Football Operations, says that rules changes are working and that head and neck injuries are at the lowest on record. But after watching the five concussions or serious head blows which occurred in Round 1 and considering that at time of writing, 116 AFL players are on the injury list, I find this very hard to believe.
The truth is that football is still as violent as ever. While the rules changes are attempting to slow down the play, players are encouraged to get bigger and hit harder. It’s these big hits that get replayed and used to advertise the game, especially in rugby league.
Players do what they’re told by coaches and are under pressure to win by brute force when necessary. As a result, football continues to be extremely dangerous despite the rules changes.
According to Manly hooker Matt Ballin who suffered a concussion in his first NRL game this year, it’s all in a day’s work. ‘It’s a tough game, you’ve got to expect a few hits and injuries. It’s a contact game and you don’t want to go out and injure players but we always know it’s going to happen from time to time.’ So is it just all part of the game? Or is it possible to have a game that is both entertaining and enjoyable to play without using young people’s bodies as consumer products, to be tossed away when they are broken at the end of the season?
Sean Gregory from Time magazine thinks that ‘the boxing analogy is fitting’. Gregory’s argument is that (American) football can’t be steered off its violent course. He believes that eventually it will be up to fans and parents to decide for themselves whether football is too violent for the mainstream. They’ll have to consider whether the average 950 blows to the head that a college footballer takes in a season is a good investment in their child’s future and fun Friday night entertainment.
Players and parents who register their children with a football club generally do understand the risks, though more could be done to make the effects of brain injury explicit. In addition to this, football administrative bodies and team owners have a responsibility to look after their players.
At the moment, players’ bodies are thrown around for all their worth and then delisted when they’re not useful to win football games. Daniel Bell, who is only 25-years-old, is already seeing the effects of multiple head injuries during his years playing Australian Rules football. He is entitled to claim half of his last AFL contract salary in compensation and is doing so at the moment with the help of the Players’ Association. The amount he is claiming will be under $100 000, according to the Age.
The process for claiming compensation is strict and claims must be lodged within six months from the player’s final contract. But it’s worth noting that symptoms of CTE develop over time and can be degenerative, so players may not realize the seriousness of their injuries until it is too late.
Bell suffers memory loss, poor concentration and blurred vision. The amount he has lost by not being able to perform at his peak on the football field and in other workplaces will almost certainly be more than $100 000. In any other workplace, an injury such as this would attract higher compensation, especially if Bell suffers an ongoing problem with his work capacity. But as is so often the case in sport, players walk a fine line between being professionals and being expected to accept poor treatment because they are apparently lucky enough to be doing what they love.
According to a recent Age newspaper poll, 88% of respondents thought that AFL players who suffer severe concussion should be banned from playing the following week. Fans care about the players they watch and it looks like Gregory’s boxing analogy may be coming true. But football administration bodies can be doing much more to look after their players. A national insurance scheme that properly compensates injured players at any time their symptoms present would be a good start.
This article was first published at Overland
This year, for the first time, AFL players are banned from returning to the field if they are diagnosed with a concussion. The rule was rushed in three days before the season opener and it didn’t impress players like Carlton captain Chris Judd who rebuffed, ‘You'll just never get anyone concussed anymore.’ He’s probably right – players may get concussed, but the new rule will be a disincentive for doctors to diagnose it. The rule isn’t accompanied by any guidelines for diagnosis or independent doctors’ rules to keep team physicians accountable. But nonetheless, it’s clear the AFL felt it had to do something.
News coming out of the US on the long-term effects of football head injuries is horrific. Former Chicago Bears player Dave Duerson shot himself in the chest last month after he suspected he was suffering long-term brain damage. He left behind clear instructions for his brain to be donated to the NFL’s brain bank for research purposes. Duerson’s death sent shockwaves through the NFL and was a wake-up call to football codes all over the world to take brain injuries more seriously.
Unfortunately Duerson was only the latest in a long line of NFL players who have suffered from the effects of a brain disease called chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE). The disease is caused by repetitive head trauma and displays symptoms such as depression, erratic behaviour and premature memory impairment. In 2008, Tom McHale was found dead at forty-five from a drug overdose after battling years of addiction. Before him Andre Waters and John Grimsley both died of suspected suicides. The symptoms of CTE eventually progress into full-blown dementia. It can only be diagnosed posthumously and so far, almost all NFL players examined in the NFL brain bank study at Boston University had the disease.
A separate study of retired NFL players found that 6.1% of retired players over fifty had been diagnosed with dementia, Alzheimer’s disease or other memory-related disease – five times more than the general population of men over fifty.
Such controversy has meant that the NFL leads the world in rules changes to prevent head injuries. Not only do players in the NFL have to sit out the game if they are concussed but also if they have less serious head injuries and can’t pass the NFL’s health test. The NFL also provides independent neurological consultants to examine players with suspected head injuries to prevent the issues of under-diagnosis that concern Chris Judd. Some states in the US even have laws which force coaches to refer young players to a doctor if they have suspected head injuries. Recently the NFL has introduced harsher penalties for helmet-to-helmet hits.
In Australia, the AFL, ARU and NRL have made a number of rules changes to minimize head and neck injuries. Before the concussion rule, they tried the ‘head down over the ball’ rule in AFL, the spear tackle and head-butting rules in NRL, banning gang tackles and shoulder charges in rugby and tougher penalties in all codes. The AFL is the first to try the concussion rule and reduce the number of interchanges to slow the game down. Rugby codes are already discussing the concussion rule and expected to follow suit.
Adrian Anderson, the AFL’s General Manager of Football Operations, says that rules changes are working and that head and neck injuries are at the lowest on record. But after watching the five concussions or serious head blows which occurred in Round 1 and considering that at time of writing, 116 AFL players are on the injury list, I find this very hard to believe.
The truth is that football is still as violent as ever. While the rules changes are attempting to slow down the play, players are encouraged to get bigger and hit harder. It’s these big hits that get replayed and used to advertise the game, especially in rugby league.
Players do what they’re told by coaches and are under pressure to win by brute force when necessary. As a result, football continues to be extremely dangerous despite the rules changes.
According to Manly hooker Matt Ballin who suffered a concussion in his first NRL game this year, it’s all in a day’s work. ‘It’s a tough game, you’ve got to expect a few hits and injuries. It’s a contact game and you don’t want to go out and injure players but we always know it’s going to happen from time to time.’ So is it just all part of the game? Or is it possible to have a game that is both entertaining and enjoyable to play without using young people’s bodies as consumer products, to be tossed away when they are broken at the end of the season?
Sean Gregory from Time magazine thinks that ‘the boxing analogy is fitting’. Gregory’s argument is that (American) football can’t be steered off its violent course. He believes that eventually it will be up to fans and parents to decide for themselves whether football is too violent for the mainstream. They’ll have to consider whether the average 950 blows to the head that a college footballer takes in a season is a good investment in their child’s future and fun Friday night entertainment.
Players and parents who register their children with a football club generally do understand the risks, though more could be done to make the effects of brain injury explicit. In addition to this, football administrative bodies and team owners have a responsibility to look after their players.
At the moment, players’ bodies are thrown around for all their worth and then delisted when they’re not useful to win football games. Daniel Bell, who is only 25-years-old, is already seeing the effects of multiple head injuries during his years playing Australian Rules football. He is entitled to claim half of his last AFL contract salary in compensation and is doing so at the moment with the help of the Players’ Association. The amount he is claiming will be under $100 000, according to the Age.
The process for claiming compensation is strict and claims must be lodged within six months from the player’s final contract. But it’s worth noting that symptoms of CTE develop over time and can be degenerative, so players may not realize the seriousness of their injuries until it is too late.
Bell suffers memory loss, poor concentration and blurred vision. The amount he has lost by not being able to perform at his peak on the football field and in other workplaces will almost certainly be more than $100 000. In any other workplace, an injury such as this would attract higher compensation, especially if Bell suffers an ongoing problem with his work capacity. But as is so often the case in sport, players walk a fine line between being professionals and being expected to accept poor treatment because they are apparently lucky enough to be doing what they love.
According to a recent Age newspaper poll, 88% of respondents thought that AFL players who suffer severe concussion should be banned from playing the following week. Fans care about the players they watch and it looks like Gregory’s boxing analogy may be coming true. But football administration bodies can be doing much more to look after their players. A national insurance scheme that properly compensates injured players at any time their symptoms present would be a good start.
This article was first published at Overland
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