The case of Aaron Hernandez should send a lightning bolt through every owner, coach, manager and fan of football.
For those not familiar with the case, Hernandez was a star football player with the New England Patriots, who hanged himself in prison at age 27 while serving a life sentence for murder. He was also acquitted of two other murders and exhibited aggressive and violent behavior in other instances as well. An autopsy showed that Hernandez suffered from an advanced stage of CTE, a deterioration of the brain related to the violent collisions that form the modern game.
Several things come to mind.
First, many fans say that football players know the risk and make a personal choice to harm only themselves by continuing to play. This is patently ridiculous. Obviously, this disease destroys not only the player himself, but families and friends and puts the entire community at risk.
Second, does anyone not find it ironic, if not hypocritical, that the highest paid employee in the state of Utah is the football coach at the University of Utah, who is coaching a brain-destroying game at an institution dedicated to improving youthful minds?
Finally, I would argue this presents an opportunity for leadership at BYU. They have a lousy football team and are not a member of any conference. If they abandoned their football program entirely, in homage to the human mind, they would set an example that might ripple through higher education nationally. After all, it is obvious that playing football is far more dangerous than having a couple of beers a day.
Darrell Mensel, Torrey