I get insanely angry about those hits, because as a bantam football coach, whenever I see a hit like that, and don't see the player tossed or made an example of I minus 5 from any new players coming out to play football.
Why, because it feeds right into the parents fear that football is a brutal game where players get multiple concussions and year and suffer long lasting brain damage.
We don't get a chance to defend out program, or what we do in terms of teaching safe contact and how to play the game right because we never see these kids.
The CFL and the NFL are entirely losing the public relations battle and it creeps down to out level.
When youth football in Canada is gone, and it will vanish, I'll be able to say thanks a lot to the pro football players who go out and lead with their heads, or who blind side, or hit below the knees in the box, and then get up and celebrate that enormous on the edge hit while TSN crows about how awesomely physical that play was.
Part of me thinks that the only way that the game can be saved is if the CFL loses its concussion lawsuit in a devastating fashion and starts taking this stuff seriously.
Sorry fellas, it just pisses me off.
__________________
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
|