Is Football Morally Bankrupt?

      Have you ever heard of Six Man Football?  I don't know if it exists anymore but that is what we played when I was in high school.  There is Eight Man Football in Minnesota, which, like Six Man, is designed for smaller schools.  In Six Man every player was an eligible receiver on offense and it had almost as much running as basketball.
       There was a time that I was a rabid Vikings fan.  It was in the days when Fran Tarkenton was quarterback.  It seemed that I lived and died with the Vikings fortunes.  Eventually I left football behind.
     Many charges have been brought against football.  On many university campuses the football coach is the highest paid employee earning much more than the president.  The distortion that football causes in higher education could be one avenue to pursue in answering "Is Football Morally Bankrupt?"
    Another possible indictment that could be used would be to cite the statistics of increased domestic violence during NFL games.  Similar to this argument is the trail of disorderly conduct caused by college and professional football players.
     A case could be made against football based on the tremendous expenditures on stadiums and other venues related to football. One could argue that schools, health care, road and bridges, etc., would be better uses for such money.
    Let's set that all aside, and, at least for the sake of argument agree that, while there is some weight to those arguments, they alone are not enough to convict football.  There is one more case to be made that, I believe, makes football morally bankrupt:  physical injuries.
   Organized football begins at the elementary school level and continues through junior and senior high.  An orthopedic surgeon once told me that much of his medical practice was sustained by football injuries.  He was speaking of pre-college football.  Young people are very resilient and usually heal from their football injuries.  However, we now know that concussions can have lasting and serious effects on the brain.  We also know that injuries from which young people have apparently healed often are the location of arthritic problems later in life.
     The sports pages are filled with articles about injuries to players at various levels; high school, college and professional.  Public reaction is muted, perhaps like the proverbial frog in the pot being heated on a burner, the reality has gradually crept up on us.  If any other public activity caused the injury and suffering that footballs does we'd be shocked.
     Football players make a choice, it is true.  But they begin before they have an adult conception of reality and the thrill of competition and adulation of the spectators is hard to resist.  If they experience success at one level they are pushed to continue and by the time they reach the college level they have a high likelihood of having sustained permanent physical harm.
    Football is inherently violent.  It is good that measures are taken to reduce the likelihood and severity of injury.  However, if these measures were adequate the sports pages would not be filled with columns of injury reports.  Physical injuries;  this is the reason that I believe football to be morally bankrupt and I cannot in good conscience be a spectator.