… that’s how I explain the Grey Cup to Americans. The rules are obviously different and we have way less money, but the teams in our little football league still want to win The Big One.
Our Roughriders will take on the Montreal Alouettes tonight in Calgary. Not bad for a team that was expected to finish last in their division. After losing to Calgary last year, I know Montreal will double their efforts. Calvillo probably expects to break another record or two. I just hope we can give them a good run for their money.
Here’s wishing all of the loyal and hardy Saskatchewan fans a safe trip to-and-from McMahon Stadium. Especially Tina, who is 39 weeks pregnant!
I hear the grocery stores in Calgary are stocking watermelons and advertising “Grey Cup Hats $0.69LB!”
it’s always sad when two of my favourite subjects come together in a negative way.
Two neuropathologists are prominently spotlighted in an article by Malcolm Gladwell in the October 19 issue of The New Yorker. The article explores a provocative question raised by autopsy results on football players: namely, should football be illegal?
Featured are Dr. Ann McKee, neuropathologist at the Veterans Hospital in Bedford, Massachusetts and Dr. Bennet Omalu, forensic neuropathologist and San Joaquin Valley (CA) chief medical examiner. Drs. McKee and Omalu have done some interesting autopsy work which suggests that chronic traumatic brain injury leading to dementia suffered by football players is much more common, even among high school players, than previously realized.
What’s alarming is the presence of abnormal collections of a protein known as tau, one of the proteins one sees in cases of Alzheimer disease, in brains of young ex-football players. As an example, McKee provides photomicrographs from a case of an 18-year-old high school football player and says: “He’s got all this tau. This is frontal and this is insular…. This is completely inappropriate. You don’t see tau like this in an 18-year-old. You don’t see tau like this in a fifty year old.”
You might counter that this is simply the result of a few bad-luck hits on the field, but research involving the University of North Carolina football team suggests otherwise. Players at UNC wear impact sensors in their helmets throughout the season. Results from these investigations suggests that even routine hits during practice can add up to cause concussions and, theoretically, set the stage for chronic traumatic encephalopathy. (On the first day of training camp one UNC lineman was recorded as having been hit in the head thirty-one times!)
Back in 1905, Gladwell reports, the question of whether football should be played in our nation’s schools was raised to the level of the White House, when President Theodore Roosevelt called an emergency summit to discuss the issue. At the time, a professor at the University of Chicago called football a “boy-killing, man-mutilating, money-making, education-prostituting, gladiatorial sport.” And in December of 1905, presidents of twelve prominent colleges met in New York and came within one vote of abolishing the sport at their institutions.
What does this mean for football in America? Nothing. Fans are willing to spend a lot of money to see men slam into each other’s heads on the field. But, as a parent, you can do something.
You can forbid your son from playing football.
~ Brian E. Moore, MD (via KevinMD.com)
as you can tell by that immaculate blue sky, it was a sunny day in Waco. Brandon and i both ended up the same colour as our Husker pride gameday gear. his, a t-SUH-nami weather prediction. mine, a smaller version of Johnny Rodgers’ infamous #20. red. red! RED!
we rolled into Texas pretty late at night, expecting to pick up a couple of Omaha comrades at the Dallas airport. unfortunately, they never made it past their connection in Denver and we ended up with the hotel room all to ourselves and two extra tickets to get rid of. while we didn’t mind absorbing the extra expense of splitting things two ways instead of four, we were sad not to have another couple of friendly faces so far south.
then we headed to Floyd Casey Stadium and realized half of Nebraska is down here anyway. plenty of friendly red to go around! i thought i was going to experience my first away game, but it felt like we were back in Lincoln!
Larry the Cable Guy watched the entire game from the Husker sidelines. we were only 8 rows off the field and i imagined him shouting “GIT ‘ER DONE!” as the offense let us down on drive after drive.
this photo of Herbie (on the right) is for Dann. yes, the same Dann that introduced Brandon and i to Mr. & Mrs. Miller last summer. Dann’s good friend Kenn Kramer thought Herbie was important and so do we!
it wasn’t as pretty or thorough or decisive as we had hoped, but the Huskers prevailed over the Bears as we advance to 5-3 on the season. whether you want to blame Watson or Green or Lee or Bo, next week’s game in Lincoln against Oklahoma promises to be disappointing.
“The effort wasn’t good enough. There wasn’t any phase of what we did that was good enough today.”
~ Bo Pelini
i’ve had days like that too. thankfully, they aren’t in front of 80,000+ people.
October 16, 2009
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headed back up to Lincoln to cheer on the Huskers against Texas Tech! many, many thanks to Uncle Lodge and Aunt Donna for putting up with us us up again. it’s so great to spend time with family.
have an awesome football-filled weekend!
