2 deaths that changed Charlottesville
by Hawes Spencer
published 5:03am Sunday Nov 22, 2009
published 5:03am Sunday Nov 22, 2009
Write a letter to the editor
Two deaths created big changes in Charlottesville, and both were reported last week on NPR. On November 18, after Daily Progress sportswriter Jerry Ratcliffe focused on the topic, Frank Deford recalled the 1909 death of UVA freshman player Archer Christian in recalling how football reinvented itself after a particularly deadly season. Then, on November 20, NPR aired a narrative recorded four years ago for StoryCorps about the local couple who lost their son, Brian Korbon, in 1993, shortly after Brian experienced premonitions of his own passing and then scored his first run at McIntire Little League, which then named one of its fields for the nine-year-old.
From Ratcliffe’s article “Soon, they proposed to end the mass play, which had caused several deaths on the collegiate and high school level. They didn’t stop there, also introducing a rule that required seven players on the line of scrimmage and that pushing or pulling the ball carrier would be illegal.
I’ve read many articles chronicling the relationship of football and future brain injury. Not being a football follower, is there a way to change the game, as Archer’s death did, to lessen these horrendous outcomes, which certainly lead to early death and disability for many players, from high school, college, and the pros ?
From Offensive Play
How different are dogfighting and football?
by Malcolm Gladwell
“An offensive lineman can’t do his job without “using his head,” one veteran says, but neuropathologists examining the brains of ex-N.F.L. players have found trauma-related degeneration.
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/10/19/091019fa_fact_gladwell#ixzz0XaxAI9vU