Photo Courtesy: cnn.com
During My college years, I used to here in some countries, the child slavery was very high and some of them were even used in Camel Races as Jockeys. Some of these kids died during those races. This thought of kids as Camel jockeys during a race always baffled me. Fast Forward few more years, I watched an Academy Award Best Picture winner Gladiator. The movie ignited a curiosity in me about Gladiators, So I started researching about them. Things I found out about how Gladiators were made out of slaves and people in those days really enjoyed those games, made me sick to my stomach. Maybe we are the only race that find entertainment in others misery.
Then I moved to the US, The Land of Opportunity, to chase my dreams. As any immigrant, I started to embrace the American culture and sports. The first sport I liked is MLB, since it, some what similar to Cricket. Then some of my friends and family introduced me to NFL. At first, I wasn't into NFL as the rules are too complicated for me, but call it peer pressure or high of watching the game, I slowly fell in love with the game.
A few years later, I started to read articles about how retired NFL players are suffering chronic traumatic encephalopathy, known as CTE is a progressive degenerative disease of the brain found in athletes (and others) with a history of repetitive brain trauma, including symptomatic concussions as well as asymptomatic sub concussive hits to the head. CTE has been known to affect boxers since the 1920's. The recent study by U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and Boston University has found 87 of 91 Ex-NFL players have this disease. Some of Ex-players even complained about suicide tendencies.
This brings me back to the most important questions, the first question is, What makes us get so high in others misery? and next question is, Who's fault is this. The league which keeps on saying that they are taking all kind of precautions or the fans, who are watching more NFL games than any other TV program. I heard on Mike & Mike radio show 29 of 30 NFL markets in week one of NFL had an NFL game as their top rated show. The one another market is Cleveland, which rated Ohio State college football game as their top show.
I am not trying to bash anyone here, but asking everyone to pause a little and think where we are going as Humans. As nature and humanity always rights itself, I think and hope NFL will fix itself. If it doesn't, it will end up like Boxing.
