Ben Mcgrath's Does Football Have A Future?

Football. America’s game. Giants being cheered on by millions of fans every Sunday. However, behind the smoke and flashy showmanship lies a far greater problem. Every player who steps out on the field plays Russian Roulette with his life. Ben McGrath’s “Does Football Have a Future?” delves into the issue of the deterioration of former players, the culture of football, and efforts to reform by using anecdotes from his own life that allow him to connect with the reader, as an emotional appeal, and credible sources, as an ethical appeal. He allows the reader, hardcore fans and parents of young players, to question their own feeling of the sport that has grown to be one of the most important institutions in the country.
McGrath begins with a short anecdote of his first football game and the standout player of the game, Craig Heyward (1). He does this so that the reader can reflect on his or her first time attending a football game. Craig Heyward, a hard-hitting lineman, died before age forty so McGrath’s use of him in his introduction shows that the focus of the piece will be on the dangers of the sport and efforts to make it safer (McGrath 1). Mentioning someone passing away due to football related complications triggers grief in football fans as …show more content…
If he only included statistics instead of anecdotes, the players would become numbers ad figures, but by including names and specific injuries, the audience forms a mental image of a once healthy athlete deteriorating from CTE related symptoms such as dementia and depression (McGrath 3). By including examples of player suicides and other medical disabilities, McGrath shows that he believes the sport must be changed, however he does not offer a solution as this would take away from his purpose of informing and allowing the audience to develop their own questions and form his or her opinion on