But Let’s Discuss Something Wholesome: Sports

5/5/2018

We are learning that the National Football League provides equal-opportunity fairness.

While encouraging male athletes to ruin their brains, one club has also put female cheerleaders in danger by shuttling them out of the country, confiscating their passports, and telling them to get naked around wealthy creeps.

Just about all sports are corrupt – from so-called “college” basketball and football to gymnastics to the National Hockey League. I’m not even getting into the steroid era of baseball.

The N.F.L. is the most popular sport in the U.S. as well as the most pompous, overlooking the fact that in recent years former athletes have been shooting themselves in the chest to preserve their brains for the autopsy that will confirm the trauma.

Now, my colleague Juliet Macur has written a grim and comprehensive article about the expectations of the Washington football team (that goes by a racist nickname.)

Under owner Daniel Snyder, the cheerleaders were expected to do more than the traditional NFL duties of performing while network camera-wielders wriggle on the ground for the so-called “honey shot.” (One TV production guy became famous for encouraging up-close-and-personal glimpses of cheerleaders.)

The Washington cheerleaders were encouraged to take evening cruises on the Potomac as part of their “job” (for which they receive minimal compensation, unless you want to count photo shoots observed by leering rich guys with yachts.)

In Macur’s excellent article, the female overseer of the cheerleaders expressed shock, shock, that some of her charges felt used by these experiences.

In fairness to the N.F.L., the league has been busy lately, dealing with evidence of brain damage – over 100 former players, by recent count. The league had third-and-long defensive specialists and snapping specialists for punting but for many years, for its neurological expertise, the N.F.L. relied on a doctor who, well, knew nothing about brains.

But don’t worry, the owners are vigilant about something: they are all over the kneeling demonstrations by some players during the national anthem.

In other recent sporting developments, it turns out that the sainted Karolyis, Bela and Martha, had a glimmer of the widespread abuse by the now-convicted gymnastics doctor in Michigan.
Martha Karolyi heard about it years ago but, in classic boarding-school in-loco-parentis tradition, she did nothing to warn the girls and their parents. After all, she and Bela had to keep the production line humming at their gymnastics ranch in deepest Texas.

Then there is the National Hockey League, which traditionally tolerated the unofficial but very real job of “goon” – a player paid to fight opponents. To its credit, the league has cut back on mass brawls that were common a generation ago, but too late to help Jeff Parker, a former enforcer who died last year at 53 and was diagnosed, posthumously, as having
C.T.E., or chronic traumatic encephalopathy.

The N.H.L. seems to be taking its medical advice from the long-time avoidance tactics of the N.F.L. At least the N.H.L. does not stoop to confiscating passports from cheerleaders ferried out of the country.

Enough of this sordid business. It’s time for a truly clean sport: Coming up next month – from Russia! – the FIFA World Cup.

Mendel

5/5/2018 01:58:22 pm

Why are cheerleaders a thing at all?

Brian Savin

5/8/2018 06:12:21 am

From a Rhoden column of a few years ago, one owner keeps a tradition of his Father and Grandfather:

“Philosophically we have always had issues with sending scantily clad women out on the field to entertain our fans,” said John Mara, the Giants co-owner. “It’s just not part of our philosophy…..It’s not something you’re going to see the Giants do. Not while I’m around, anyway.”

I've always thought the Mara's should run the NFL....or George.

George

5/8/2018 08:36:30 am

Brian: thanks for remembering Rhoden's column. He's a good friend. I have known John Mara since he was a young ballboy at Giant camp. He and his dad and george young and Ernie Accorsi made me respect Giants and Mara values. What a great quote for Rhoden to use and you to remember. GV

Edwin W Martin

5/5/2018 05:01:02 pm

Time to forget about cheerleaders at all levels. Girls, women Excel at many sports and participate in virtually all.

John Jeansonne link

5/6/2018 02:34:26 pm

Bravo. As always.

George

5/6/2018 07:26:03 pm

Dear Mendel, Ed and John: Thank you for the comments. It's shocking how many sordid stories can hit at once.
I agree about cheerleaders. One of my best friends was captain of the cheerleaders in high school -- a born leader, our class president for life. We talk about it sometimes -- there were no sports for girls in the PSAL. By the time my oldest was in high school, her name was on a roster on the high-school scoreboard -- a starter on the school varsity. What a shift from generations. When I see NFL immorality toward money and sex , I think sports should get out of the cheerleading business. GV

Joshua Rubin

5/7/2018 12:26:10 pm

I can't watch (American) football anymore, not that I was ever a big fan. It is like watching slo-mo suicide or watching someone chain smoke for two hours.. Perhaps they can post a picture of each player's most recent brain scan along with his stats when they announce the starters. .We know too much now.

George

5/8/2018 08:40:20 am

I prefer the individual choices, offense and defense, in the real football. Footballers must make dozens and dozens of snap judgments -- sometimes sheer genius, sometimes disasters. GV

Alan Rubin link

5/9/2018 04:18:06 pm

Janet Macur has done an excellent job covering many aspects of women’s sports over the years.

Unfortunately, sexism seems to permeate all aspects of our society, not just pro football.

I have been a volunteer high school soccer goalkeeper coach for the past ten years. After seven years of coaching boys, I switched to coaching the Taconic HS girls’ soccer team which is 2 miles from my home.

I also privately coach youngsters ages 8-18, Co-Ed.

I much prefer coaching the girls as they seen to be naturally more supportive of each other, bond as teammates better and pay attention. They have none of the macho-ism evident with the boys who are often distracted by showing how good they are.

Also, too many of the youth club and team coaches do not take the girls seriously. Some of female keepers have quit their “elite” clubs because a sexism.

Sad, but true –but there is hope with the #metoo movement.

Ed Martin

5/9/2018 07:39:57 pm

After 🤔 thinking about Alan’s observation on the girls and boys he coaches, it occurred to me, that maybe the boys should be the cheerleaders and the girls the “jocks.” ( we will need a new word.”

George Vecsey

5/10/2018 08:41:05 am

Alan, Juliet was a rower at Columbia. And she is a great reporter -- her work on Lance Armstrong has been terrific.
One hates to make stereotypes about male/fame athletes, but Tony DiCicco often said that women were great to coach because they listened to instruction and they took care of their locker room.
Of course, he had a squad full of some of the best leaders I have ever met -- Foudy, Chastain, Akers, Lilly, Fawcett, Hamm. GV

George Vecsey

5/10/2018 08:41:43 am

male/female (stuck keys) GV

Alan Rubin link

5/10/2018 08:16:22 am

Ed--Lehigh was all male when I attended in the 1950's. The football team had two strong seasons then, 15-3. In 1957 their only loss was to 20th ranked VMI 12-7 with the game ending with Lehigh on VMI's 5 yard line.

A terrific all male cheer-leading squad energized the crowd at all the right times. No cleavage or butts were necessary.

Unfortunately, they were available for our soccer games where the crowd size depending upon how many of the team members friends were there. They sometimes swelled to about 40, which could have been considered an over-flow.

Today the soccer team play Div 1 and has almost as many coaches.

George Vecsey

5/10/2018 08:47:19 am

The real football doesn;t need cheerleaders because any crowd -- not just British singalong fans -- will rise to the flow of the match. But I do recall how nice it was to have a few fans for our home games at Jamaica High. One friend, Ronnie Hammer, came out to cheer; her kid brother Jerry Warshaw was on the squad....and one day the cheerleaders, gearing up for the basketball season, came out and cheered for us. Grover Cleveland played at Met Oval in Ridgewood -- the Colosseum of Queens -- and had real fans who knew the game. GV

Alan Rubin link

5/10/2018 09:29:02 am

George, you are right about small crowds being very supportive. We changed sides every quarter back then, but came to the bench at half time. Friends would come close to the huddle and give words of praise or encouragement. Nice feeling.

There was such a feeling of pride representing your school. I often think about the pride and emotions of our national soccer team's players when they play.

Comments are closed.

QUOTES
Measuring Covid Deaths, by David Leonhardt. July 17, 2023. NYT online.
The United States has reached a milestone in the long struggle against Covid: The total number of Americans dying each day — from any cause — is no longer historically abnormal….

After three horrific years, in which Covid has killed more than one million Americans and transformed parts of daily life, the virus has turned into an ordinary illness.

The progress stems mostly from three factors:
First, about three-quarters of U.S. adults have received at least one vaccine shot.
Second, more than three-quarters of Americans have been infected with Covid, providing natural immunity from future symptoms. (About 97 percent of adults fall into at least one of those first two categories.)
Third, post-infection treatments like Paxlovid, which can reduce the severity of symptoms, became widely available last year.
“Nearly every death is preventable,” Dr. Ashish Jha, who was until recently President Biden’s top Covid adviser, told me. “We are at a point where almost everybody who’s up to date on their vaccines and gets treated if they have Covid, they rarely end up in the hospital, they almost never die.”

That is also true for most high-risk people, Jha pointed out, including older adults — like his parents, who are in their 80s — and people whose immune systems are compromised. “Even for most — not all but most —immuno-compromised people, vaccines are actually still quite effective at preventing against serious illness,” he said. “There has been a lot of bad information out there that somehow if you’re immuno-compromised that vaccines don’t work.”

That excess deaths have fallen close to zero helps make this point: If Covid were still a dire threat to large numbers of people, that would show up in the data.

One point of confusion, I think, has been the way that many Americans — including we in the media — have talked about the immuno-compromised. They are a more diverse group than casual discussion often imagines.

Most immuno-compromised people are at little additional risk from Covid — even people with serious conditions, such as multiple sclerosis or a history of many cancers. A much smaller group, such as people who have received kidney transplants or are undergoing active chemotherapy, face higher risks.

Covid’s toll, to be clear, has not fallen to zero. The C.D.C.’s main Covid webpage estimates that about 80 people per day have been dying from the virus in recent weeks, which is equal to about 1 percent of overall daily deaths.

The official number is probably an exaggeration because it includes some people who had virus when they died even though it was not the underlying cause of death. Other C.D.C. data suggests that almost one-third of official recent Covid deaths have fallen into this category. A study published in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases came to similar conclusions.

Dr. Shira Doron, the chief infection control officer at Tufts Medicine in Massachusetts, told me that “age is clearly the most substantial risk factor.” Covid’s victims are both older and disproportionately unvaccinated. Given the politics of vaccination, the recent victims are also disproportionately
Republican and white.

Each of these deaths is a tragedy. The deaths that were preventable — because somebody had not received available vaccines and treatments — seem particularly tragic. (Here’s a Times guide to help you think about when to get your next booster shot.)
***

From the great Maureen Dowd:

As I write this, I’m in a deserted newsroom in The Times’s D.C. office. After working at home for two years during Covid, I was elated to get back, so I could wander around and pick up the latest scoop.
But in the last year, there has been only a smattering of people whenever I’m here, with row upon row of empty desks. Sometimes a larger group gets lured in for a meeting with a platter of bagels."

--- Dowd writes about the lost world of journalists clustered in newsrooms at all hours, smoking, drinking, gossipping, making phone calls, typing, editing.
***
"Putting out the paper," we called it.
Much more than nostalgia.
---https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/29/opinion/journalism-newsroom.html

But Let’s Discuss Something Wholesome: Sports

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