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When I was a kid, concussions were funny. It was kinda the football version of that pull-my-finger gag.
It’d be Monday Night Football, and you’ve got your buddies over. Maybe you’re munching on nachos. Then, some receiver runs over the middle and BOOM — a linebacker knocks him out of his socks. The poor receiver would stagger to his feet and wobble around, and the commentators would giggle about it: “Haha, he sure got his bell rung! He went to the wrong sideline, too! Heehee! Oh, he’ll feel that in the morning! Anyway…”
In fact, all the way until 2006, ESPN featured a segment called “Jacked Up!” It was nothing but devastating, ungodly collisions — and concussions galore.
No hyperbole, folks. Check out this snippet from 2004. It’s less than two minutes long. Note how gleeful and giddy the hosts are:
Was I lying? Did you see them giggling and laughing? I told you: Concussions were funny!
Now, as a football fan and/or semi-evolved ape who craves violence and mayhem, those hits were GREAT! You could almost imagine John Madden yelling “Boom!” from the studio booth. But in 2024’s culture and social norms, there’s absolutely no way whatsoever ESPN would even consider airing a show like this. In less than 20 years, it went from (literally) the highlight reel to The Book of the Banned.
Concussions are no longer funny. They’re deadly serious.
The more we’ve learned about neurological health, the more we realize that full-contact football is an inherently unsafe sport. You can have all the padding in the world, but your brain is still surrounded by a thick, hard skull. (As anyone who’s written about politics can attest, some skulls are thicker than others.) It’s sauteing in a thin brew of cerebrospinal fluid.
