WAPO Op-Ed —> Prehistoric college football coaches are killing players

[jserraglio]

Prehistoric NCAA football coaches are killing players
By Sally Jenkins
Columnist
August 21

Heatstroke didn’t kill Jordan McNair, the berserk excesses of coach DJ Durkin and his staff did . . . . https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/c ... 0b0b5e1291

[jbuck919]

All I can say is that I have always hated and disapproved of this sport. All contact sports present danger, but perhaps none (except boxing) as much as American football. I am thinking more about high school players, several of whom die or are very seriously injured every year. Wrestling, in which the competitors seem to be tearing each other apart, is actually safer assuming the players are fit and properly refereed. (As a non-goal-oriented sport, it is also more fun for me to watch, but that is irrelevant.)

When I was teaching in Maryland, someone from outside the school was trying to start a rugby club. It did not fly within the school, probably because rugby has little in the way of protective equipment. Nevertheless, I'm not sure it is not a safer sport than football. On the other hand, we had a teacher who started a hockey team, and emphasized sportsmanlike playing and no fighting. Rots of ruck.

[Modernistfan]

This has happened all too frequently. The coaches regard the players, particularly if they are African-American, as barely human expendable cannon fodder. Why are they holding these sorts of practices in August where the temperature is 95 degrees with very high humidity (I have been in Washington and Baltimore in the summer and know what it is like; in the days before air conditioning, foreign diplomats considered being posted to an embassy in Washington as a hardship assignment)?

[jserraglio]

When I was teaching in Maryland, someone from outside the school was trying to start a rugby club. It did not fly within the school, probably because rugby has little in the way of protective equipment.

We played intramural flag football. Best practice was to shred the flags into thin strips and tie them into our jeans pockets! That yielded tackle football w/o the pads. Knees blew out routinely--I blew out both shoulders. Would do it all over again. Violent and fun. And the orthopedic surgeons loved the business.

BTW, our school has had a rugby club for almost 20 years now, begun by an inspirational and brilliant New Zealander who later became principal and then president of two Baltimore Catholic schools. Kids love this sport. You don't have to be monster man to play it.

As for scholastic wrestling, there are 35 state and 11 national championship banners hanging from our school's rafters alongside 11 hockey states, 3 apiece of football, baseball & rugby, 2 each of basketball & track and 1 of both volleyball & rowing. https://www.flowrestling.org/articles/5 ... can-streak

[jbuck919]

When I was teaching in Maryland, someone from outside the school was trying to start a rugby club. It did not fly within the school, probably because rugby has little in the way of protective equipment.

We played intramural flag football. Best practice was to shred the flags into thin strips and tie them into our jeans pockets! That yielded tackle football w/o the pads. Knees blew out routinely--I blew out both shoulders. Would do it all over again. Violent and fun. And the orthopedic surgeons loved the business.

BTW, our school has had a rugby club for almost 20 years now, begun by an inspirational and brilliant New Zealander who later became principal and then president of two Baltimore Catholic schools. Kids love this sport. You don't have to be monster man to play it.

As for scholastic wrestling, there are 35 state and 11 national championship banners hanging from our school's rafters alongside 11 hockey states, 3 apiece of football, baseball & rugby, 2 each of basketball & track and 1 of both volleyball & rowing. https://www.flowrestling.org/articles/5 ... can-streak

I want to know which two Baltimore Catholic schools, since I know all of them.