NFL: Results Of Becoming A Superstar

NFL: Results of Becoming a Superstar While growing up, most young boys pretend they are athletic superstars. They see themselves as Quarterbacks like Joe Namath and Roger Staubach, or Wide Receivers like Jerry Rice. They even dream of scoring that winning touchdown in the Super Bowl and becoming a hero. They eat, sleep, and breathe football. Some even go on to become that super athlete they have worked hard for their whole life. However, they do not picture themselves becoming a medical statistic that some have become. Due to the nature of football, current and former players experience chronic pain, a loss of money, and some even go on to commit suicide from frequent head trauma. Many National Football League (NFL) players seem like happy invincible superstars on the outside. They jump up and down and …show more content…
Upon retirement, many players have scientifically proven to suffer from Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy or CTE. Former Linebacker, Junior Seau for the San Diego Chargers also suffered from CTE (Samson 159). CTE is commonly initiated by multiple head injuries, which leads to brain degeneration and dementia (McKee 169). Seau’s son Tyler claims his father exhibited “wild mood swings, irrationality, forgetfulness, insomnia and depression” (washingtontimes.com). Multiple former players have shown these same symptoms, and ultimately committed suicide. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) conducted blind brain studies on multiple brains, one of which included Seau’s brain. The findings on Seau’s brain were similar to people with multiple head injuries (washingtontimes.com). Therefore, there has been a decline in youth sports participation. During 2010 and 2012, there was a 6.7% decrease in kids playing Pop Warner Football (Fainaru 169). If these declines continue in the future, the amount of athletes playing NFL football will be