Beyond the obvious example of football players carrying more weight than their joints were designed to bear... a lot of other sports seem to be stressing us unduly.
Baseball pitchers, for example, just don't last like they once did and even golfers don't hold up like in the old days.
'Football degraded in the 1890s to a sport that left many of its participants crippled, disfigured or worse. In 1897, a member of the Georgia football team died in a game against Virginia — an incident that nearly led the state of Georgia to ban football. Two weeks later, the New York World reported that at least eight people died playing the sport that season, and it listed more than 200 additional serious injuries that had occurred. “The list,” the World reported, “is a gory calendar of human anguish, an encyclopedia of broken bones, torn ligaments, fractured skulls, twisted necks, shredded muscles, broken ribs, gashed bodies, dislocated joints, backs and chests crushed in, scalps ripped off and jaws mashed.”'
Link: https://www.tnmagazine.org/football-was-so-brutal-in-the-1890s-that-many-called-for-its-ban/
Probably not correct to say that it was almost banned, though many called for its abolishment. President Teddy Roosevelt summoned the leading head coaches to the White House and pressed for changes to make the game safer. Unsurprisingly, Teddy loved college football and wanted to preserve it.
I have recommended this book before and will do so again. A must read for any college football fan - The Opening Kickoff.
Link: The Opening Kickoff
If you were hit, you'd sit out until last man standing. Then it was their turn to throw the golf balls. Sometimes, the ball would miss a dude but richochet off the wall and get him in the back. LOL. This was back in middle 1960s when it was every man for himself at the playground.
and everyone loved it. In a class of about 40 it was the one last standing that one. Great, great fun. I am lucky to have experienced most of my life being non woke.
And none of them are going to the Pros (unless you ask their parents). Takes a lot of the fun out of it.
focus in the "offseason." My daughters loved each sport they played but felt pressure to do the AAU season for basketball in the spring which made it tougher for them in their high school sports of track and softball respectively. And in the summer they were pressured to go to basketball camps and volleyball camps or play for softball teams. It only slightly improved them as high school players but at least it gave them something to do during the day. To their credit they each worked jobs at night in the summer. It cost the family money and it was bs seeing so many parents push their kid like they were the next All American. The money spent on travel I guess was worth it because if was fun for us to watch them play. When I look at it objectively though, who would want to watch those games at that level. Pretty boring if you want to speak objectively.
For example, It used to be football in the fall, basketball in the winter, track in the spring, baseball in the summer, etc.
Now they pick one sport at the age of 8, and train a limited number of muscle groups while still developing.
He has private conditioning coach, private position coach, private speed coach. He's at camps most of the summer when the team isn't going 7 on 7s with other programs. The problem is, he loves every second of it. The dual sport guys are just as nuts. HS football is a year round sport unlike when Grandpa played 50 years ago. And now my grandson has discovered golf so when it's not football, he is zeroed in on golf.
To baseball players, especially pitchers is staggering
quite as hard with the exceptions of Ryan, Koufax, Feller and I cannot remember whether Spahn threw hard, but he won like 370 games I believe. One reliever who threw hard was Ryne Duren, plus he was blind as a bat and used to throw the first warmup pitch to the backstop to intimate hitters. I thought of another one who went 9 and threw hard, that tall guy that pitched for Arizona and the Yankees.
