Soccer scares the bejabbers out of me. And not just because there are statistics indicating the sport has more serious injuries and deaths per year than American football.
What I'm most concerned about right now is that all those headers, those fierce directional bonks on the bean, can lead to brain damage leaving people in the sad shape of Muhammad Ali.
The once-magnificent Muhammad suffered so many head shots in boxing and serious deterioration resulted. How many boys and girls who continue with serious soccer risk the same? Why doesn't somebody mandate reasonable headgear to lessen this threat?
It took hockey forever to accept the need for helmets. As late as the early 1940s, a Chicago Bear football end named Dick Plasman still played without a helmet -- something they jokingly accused former president Gerald Ford, ex-Michigan lineman, of doing when the kind but klutzy Ford would stumble down steps or stagger off a podium.
I'm not concerned about guys like Pele and those free-wheeling pro richies who skitter about the field taking one hard shot after another from a speeding ball (or an unrelenting goal post). I worry what could happen to my grandkids and pals as they perfect head maneuvers, get into stiffer and stiffer competition and crunch into an occasional goal post or knee.
The best helmet made for any sport protects mainly against skull fractures. It may ease a hard blow, even negate it under ideal conditions. But the old brain-and-environs inside the wearer's head still flops around in all that sauce and loose space and concussions are common.
There is no fail-safe for any sport. I'm amazed there aren't more severe soccer injuries than there are, considering how they throw their bodies at each other, cut and twist, bang head-on-head, head-on-jaw and engage in other breeds of mayhem.
Veteran pro soccer players may be fortunate if they can walk with ease in later life, let alone think and act rationally. But they are making money, often big money; they know of and accept risks.
Then come the people like the U.S. women's team that recently won the World Cup on down to the grade-schoolers you can see here so often and on fields all over the country. There's no way we can totally protect their arms, legs, hips, chests, spleens, kidneys, shoulders and the like. But we can do a better job of lessening the impacts to their heads. It's a lot more fun in later life if you're not addled.
We don't need a bucket-size soccer hat along the lines of a football helmet. Something like those ribbed toppers bicyclists wear could do a lot of good (such a cycling helmet once saved KU's Bob Frederick's life).
Purists will howl and scream at such a prospect. So what? Consider the "sissy" talk when hockey guys began to wear helmets and the ribbing Chicago's Plasman got when the league finally mandated he put something on his head.
Wouldn't be anything pantywaist about equipping soccer players, particularly those kids who risk so much, with reasonable helmets. It's bad enough if the long-termers suffer brain damage. Why endanger some eager, trusting kid who never goes beyond the intramural stage?
- Rugged sports like football and basketball have their full share of severe injuries from contact. But consider how many severe, even career-ending, problems result from just simply "being there." Kansas basketeer Raef LaFrentz came down benignly under the basket and wrecked a knee. Same for KU's Danny Manning, three times.
Atlanta footballer Jamal Anderson wasn't hit when he was knocked out for the season; Kansas City's Kimble Anders likewise with that hamstring rip. The list of people who have been hurt in a big way on artificial turf is staggering, including the infamous turf-toe that has Dallas's Deion Sanders posturing for attention.
Kansas quarterback Bobby Marshall had a promise of brilliance snuffed with a simple no-contact cutback on regular grass. People can hurt each other and themselves in incredibly unexpected ways.
Can't help wondering if a lot of this stuff results from modern-day over-training -- too much stress on body parts for too long. Manning's first knee injury came in 1988 after a KU national championship season, immediate Olympic team demands, then instant injection into the NBA. He was ripe for trouble.
But the weirdest knockout blow I know of came for a Kansas footballer at least 30 years ago. He was constipated and threw out his back straining-at-stool. Career over. Honest to gosh!
- Basketball whiz Julius Erving should be smart enough to learn from guys like Richard Nixon (Watergate) and Bill Clinton (Zippergate) about the merits of telling the truth. Both presidents could have spared themselves and the nation tremendous harm and trauma by simply owning up to their blunders. Same for Erving when he was confronted with the fatherhood of tennis player Alexandra Stevenson in conjunction with a woman sports writer.
Erving first tried to lie his way out of it when it surfaced for 1999 Wimbledon and looked like a real jerk. Had him figured a lot classier than that.
-- Bill Mayer's phone number is 832-7185. His e-mail address is bmayer@ljworld.com.
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