>> thank you very much. [applause] >> thank you. thank you. [applause] >> ladies and gentlemen, that is "how google works," a real-life example. such an honor. >> when are you applying to work for us? [inaudible question] >> he wants to run for u.s. secretary of state. you heard it here first. good for him. we are support -- we are a supporter of u.s. a politician. [laughter] and okay. thank you very much. thank you all. [applause] thank you. thank you. [applause] >> thanks so much. >> you, to. >> thank you. thanks. >> by, everyone. thank you so much for coming. i hope to see you next tuesday. have a great evening.

>> tomorrow morning on c-span2 british prime minister david cameron answers questions from members of the house of commons. live at 7:00 a.m. eastern. >> c-span2 providing live coverage of the u.s. senate floor proceedings and keep public policy events, and every weekend book tv now for 15 years the only television network devoted to nonfiction books and authors, a c-span2 created by the cable-tv industry and brought to you as a public service by your local cable or satellite provider. watch us in hd, like us on facebook, follow us on twitter. >> next steve almond, the impact of football on american society and why they say that it must change by examining the brutality of this board and the financial privileges that it holds. from the use of taxpayer money to find nfl stadiums

to the large amounts of college budgets earmarked for football programs. >> thank you for coming out. it is a beautiful day. we can all agree together we would rather be outside. thank you for being inside a little bit. i will read a little bit from the preface of this book. this is an attempt to sort of set up with the book is about. begins with the fact i have a clipping on my wall for many years, a story about a game between that new england patriots and the miami dolphins. their is a player who gets tackled, and after the game he is asked about the tackle because he is motionless on the ground for quite some time. i was not at cold, but i was out. asked if he remembered lying on the ground, no i don't. i must have been out. i knew that something was wrong. i knew that it was not normal. i did not have that same normal feeling when i got.

i thought it was funny. that would be the simplest way to a explain why i brought this story home and cut out the story and take it to my wall. i said -- i thought it said something about athletic collision, the absurd way that a player's hide from the truth of their vocation. i assumed in other words a posture of ironic distance, which is what americans do to avoid the disruption of our spiritual arrangement allowing us to separate ourselves from the complicated moral, political, religious, familial systems around us, to sit in judgment of others rather than ourselves. the reason as resume into the twilight years that reality tv has become a designated guilty pleasure. here is the thing, you can run from your own subtext for only so long. those lunatics we happily

revile are merely turned out versions of our public and private selves. their is a deeper reason i cut out those paragraphs a dozen years ago and carried that square of newsprint with me, each time i fixing it to a spot right over my desk. i told myself it was in may, talisman, a window into the psyches of famous barbarians. a few months ago around the time my own mother suffered an acute and terrifying insult to her brain the truth landed, the passage was not about he and his brethren but me. the 40 years i have spent as an ardent football fan, my refusal to face the complicity of my own joy in seeing men like kevin contrast. i knew that something was wrong with me. this is a manifesto which has a job to be full of obnoxious opinions.

i believe our allegiance to football legitimizes and foster's within us of violence, greed, and homophobia. recognize that this will cause many fans to write off whatever else i might have to say on this subject as a load of worship civil -- shovel by someone who is probably wearing a tailored suit and whistling the soviet national anthem. before you do so, let me reiterate that i am one of you. before you set this put down or quietly reminded to the poor soul in your life who you think it might make an interesting guest, please consider one opinion, i think that football is a lovely in intricate form part. mostly this is a personal attempt to connect the two disparate synapses that fire in my brain when i hear the word football, the one that cries out who is playing, what channel, and the one that murmurs, shame on you. my hope is to try to see

football for what it truly is. what does it mean that the most popular and unifying form of entertainment in america in 2014 features giant, muscled men, mostly african-american, engaged in a sport that causes many of them to suffer brain damage. what does it mean that our society has transmuted the physical joys of childhood, jen, leap, throw, tackle, into a corporatized form of simulated combat, that a collision sport has become the leading signifier of our institutions of higher learning and the undisputed champ of our kossel athletic industrial complex. i knew that it was not normal. what was it? well, that is sort of the prospectus for the book. >> thanks, steve. i'm gregg easternbrook, and i will balance off that very high level of literary

theory edition by telling a joke. there is no other way to tell the joke. a man and woman, couple, who are passionate fans, they give to every game, good and bad. one day the new england patriots were in town, and they show up -- and he shows up without his wife. the guy who sat next to him for 30 years shows up and says, hey, where's your wife the man says to my regret to say that my wife has passed away. a long moment of silence. the guy looks at the empty seat and says, this is a big game. was there anyone in your family, neighbors who wanted that ticket to mcentee says, oh, they all went to her funeral. [laughter] >> my book is also about football reform. impressionistic and literary mine is packed with facts and involves football and a

professional college and high-school level. and i suppose my most important contention this the lower down the chain you go the more important the issues become. no one wants an nfl player to be injured but there are only 2,000 of them. you step down to the college level. there are 60,000 players there. the big shame is not that players are not paid. i do not think that is the ideal solution. the big shame is that the division one level only 55 percent of the players graduate. you could have 100 percent graduation, but it most of them got bachelor's degrees, that would be fair recompense for their labor on the field. there is far too much emphasis on victory and not enough on education. at the high-school level you have 3-3 and and a half million almost all boys, a handful of girls, but at least 3 million. and you can certainly learn

things. it can be a great experience i played in high school. one of my sons did. one of my sons went on to play in college. boys learned self discipline , teamwork, important lessons, but they take all of the neurological risks in almost all cases in return for nothing at all since, if you look at any group of high-school varsity players, one in 1,000 eventually play in the nfl. less than one in 50 will get any kind of recruiting boost the college, whether scholarship or athletic commission letter. if you look at you send high-school football whatever reward you get from the sport has to come when you are in use and high-school football. the chance for many boys and handful of girls, it is a great experience, but you balance that with the risk of head injury in a society that is evermore based on education. the idea of having millions of young people smashing each other in the hat on regular basis cannot be a good idea.

i will stop with that and say, this book ends, the final chapter is a complicated reform program, may be too complicated. a lot of things that can be done financially, education, change the structure of education, the way that the game itself is played to make it less risky. many things could be done to reduce risk. ways that football could be made just as exciting and popular but no longer notorious. i think that it is possible. given all of the public attention to football, maybe we are in the early stages of that happening. that summarizes what i had to say. >> so we are done. >> we are done. >> thank you. >> we are most interested in taking questions, but we will talk a little bit and then hopefully if you have questions, otherwise we will is just sit in silence, what i do at home. one study -- i did not know all lot about football.

i was a big fan. i had done some sports reporting but did not know all about it. when i decided to write this book i read gregg's book, lot of others, all of which i try to acknowledge and thank people so that people find their way to, for instance, a gregg's book was incredibly helpful for me in trying to have a factual basis for understanding how the game functions, but what is happening in football right now is medical science is catching up with it. a lot of things are causing notoriety, but medical science is the main thing where we now understand exactly what is happening inside the summits which we did not for many years. and players who are understandably prideful were reluctant to talk about their brain injuries, cognitive function. one of the most terrifying studies and has been done was done at purdue university. they wanted to find out the effect of football on high-school students. after all, high-school

students skeletal and neurological systems are not fully developed, and the game has gotten more and more violent over the years for simple physics reasons, mass times acceleration equals force. players are bigger and faster, and so their collisions are more violent. the average high-school player probably weighs more than a professional 20 years ago. much bigger, train year-round, faster, is essentially more effective missiles. and so the researchers put sensors inside the head of two dozen players to see the effect of concussions since we're constantly told the problem with football is a concuss of problem. so what is the effect? and they put sensors and found a control group of kids who have not gotten concussions and monitor brain activity. here is where it gets dark. what they found is that the kids to have concussions were clearly showing diminished brain function and the kids in a control

group were showing diminished brain function at alarming rates, such that by the end of the year some of these kids had no function in one of their frontal lobes. we need to take a step back right at this moment and remind ourselves that these are high-school students at the public high-school, taxpayer funded public high-school, and try to imagine what would happen in another context if there was, for instance, a gas leak in the cafeteria that was shown to be causing diminished brain function in high-school students, how quickly with the school be shut down with the media, lawyers, parents, school officials, federal officials because it is within the context of football, it is on the field, we saw popcorn , cheerleaders, heroic and in many ways a cohesive and. but the same thing is happening inside those helmets, and that is what i mean about the medical

science catching up with football. when i say that football does not have a concussion problem, i think it has of violence problem and a physics and physiology problem. the physics will remain the same. the physiology is simple. the brain is a soft organa encased in a hard shell. when is jostled around, there is damage, a small car accidents essentially. because football is inherently a collision sport -- and i am anxious to hear gregg's take on this. but i am even more radical in my outlook, i guess because i feel i like the fact of the matter is that it is not just big, catastrophic kids that cause the stock new damage which is this form of dementia they're finding in former players. it is the increase in of sub concuss of hits that you never see which is frightening for players because you have to realize, they are invisible.

you can never be diagnosed with a concussion and have received 1500 it's a year that are like small car accidents having an appreciable effect on your brain that you never know about even if we get up to speed and teams and up to speak with having medical personnel who are gonna diagnosing concussions and so forth. that is what makes the news from the nfl that just came out a few weeks ago after years of ops to cave in and out right denying and covering up the link between football and brain damage so terrifying. they are saying certainly -- essentially 30 percent of the players will wind up with brain damage, cognitive problems, which you can cause brain damage, and a significantly younger age. i know of no other workplace in america where we would find that morally acceptable more than that, that is a legal and financial question i am not sure how the league will deal with. the previous effort was to

try to deny it, make a huge payment in court to make the issue go away and allow fans to continue to consume the game without feeling ethically responsible. we consume the violence. that is why there are parabolic microphones on the sidelines, endless replays of the most violent sequences. part of the point of my book is that we are essentially the engine of the football industrial complex. hard for that -- fans to think of that, but without us there is no roger goodell re rice or adrian peterson or anything. we built it, so if it is going to change it will be because individual fans look at what the game is in toto, amazing, entertaining, and pleasurable, which is a real thing. but also the moral hazards, the business model for the n.c.a.a. and nfl has been to provide a spectacle that is so thrilling we don't look at the dark side. >> a couple of comments on what steve just said.

of course he is right about the size. but the fact -- the vast summary of the data, the "washington post" first stringers from last year, the best high-school players in the washington-baltimore area, you look at the offensive line. all of the offensive linemen were bigger than any offensive lineman for the miami dolphins in 1972 per feces and team. you say, well, that is 40 years ago. bring it a little closer. all of the offensive linemen were bigger than any who's served, started in the super bowl ten years ago. if that is how fast the race in size has been going on. ..

>> >> typical offense was running the ball 50 times during the game passing 10 tons the most rushes were between the tackles. the result is a running back

never got to full speed cackling never got to full speed they were falling into each other you can get confessions but in most cases they were not going full speed but what has developed in the last 10 years is the new style of a spread offense with the wide receivers, of deal. but it a shot gun spread offense that everybody is using most of the receivers are running at full speed four or five that maximum sprint been opposed by the defensive backs and usually they cross over the middle and they both go full speed when they hit each other. that is the increase of concussions come from. and nobody sat down and said change the sports of football that makes a more violent.

nobody planned it this way. is great for the crowd but there is more injuries and those are happening to the high school kids. >> we have our first walkout which is exciting. [laughter] o you have a question? >> what is the financial effect on colleges? i assume the big schools and ticket sales the cost of running the program and though smaller colleges still make the economics of college football is changing faster than professional. as a huge increase of money flowing into college

football and it continues to excel rate in an impressive way. does schools that are football factories, calling themselves the power five clear quite a hefty profit florida state, it cleared a $60 million on football last year after paying all the cost. with those exorbitant contracts to coaches and scholarships if football program paid every scholarship in the entire university they still would clear 50 million and football last year. noted game, stanford, duke and then there is half the money on this.

what is wrong with a money-making venture? but the money does not go back. the title winner of six years ago the athletic department organized says us business with the university of florida pays nothing back to the core academic edition of the school. it all stays inside the of let the department said big public universities are set up like this. it is possible to do college football the division three schools and hearst they all play football did not make money. they do it because of football team is part of the life of a college. if that is solid visit is tremendous and leggett the expansion of public

education postwar era public university construction and popularity went together and they built on each other they may boys want to go to college and we want that. there is some good and vaulted has just gotten out of hand there is no cross check on monday this whole thing they're rewarded for its victory but 55 percent graduation rate among division one players? nobody is penalized for that nobody's career is harmed by that. they should graduate at a higher rate because they get five years instead of four and the scholarships go five years and they don't have to pay for tuition. money is the main reason they usually don't compete -- complete their college degree. there is no institutional factor that will ever address this the past to be public pressure or congress.

>> i would add to this i think it degrades the educational mission with university of chicago in the 19th century to realize the ball was a great way to promote their school to regenerate contributions from alumni and the president of that school set out to higher the famous football coach to be his coach and put together a winning football team because he recognized that before they had doorknobs of the buildings on campus. it is a tremendous engine. please explain what that has to do with the intellectual and academic and moral mission of colleges. i have absolutely no idea

and with the liberal arts school is in a difficult to the mission and their arrangement by which kids are recruited for college i don't believe for one second they have a deep and abiding concern for those kids academic and intellectual development i think the number one priority is that they're eligible on game day that is inherent the exploited. they don't have concern about the content of the kids character or their mind i dunno why there is a future entertainment industry attached to the education system. i love watching it but i do not understand that. >> congratulations to both of you you have done due diligence that is a great accomplishment.

i believe that i the league has collegiate programs that may be why and that was wait to based that remodel that around the country. >> i could still sneaking and. >> but that second comment that was not covered in the pbs show last week is i believe teddy roosevelt was involved at that time with college football of with the violence and death you both know the story to convene a panel i am not saying that is something that should happen at 1600 pennsylvania

avenue. >> white not? >> there seems to be the anonymity but ralph nader recognized 50 years ago cars were not saved. so what do we begin to do? yet the players don't see through the players association two-seat interested to collect the helmets sooner rather than later. >> on the issue of weight limits what i did with the book "against football" was with a broad range of concerns. the first few chapters is the experience of being a fan and the amazing innovation where violence led to the legalization for what we now identified as the ball. but then i go over the

central areas of concern economics, then i try to make recommendations that is good incentives money is a purist incentive. one thing that would immediately incentivize coaches at every level with the young adults said young men are at the artificially waited. here is a guy who basically had to wait every single year and raise 175 or 180. you could make the players play at the word normal weight instead of poking them up. maybe there'd be thus. the other thing you could do what way change the nature

to rehab the helmet that projects how many chief forces? does he have to put not die on the bench? he will not do that out of the goodness of his heart because the incentive is to win in moving up the chain to become a pro coach and earn more money than god that is america on steroids the incentive system all about winning the game and a winning record in national champion. as gregg put it eloquently it is just a mirror of american culture but that hasn't cents for the for practical reasons your head is jostled around too much progress have to put you on the bench. we will have to pull you out otherwise. it is simple to say in high school i don't think it should be in high school at all may be privately like big europe but not with the publicly funded high-school.

but force them to have the 3.o. force the coaches to say just like the graduation rates being one-quarter of a national ranking of the team. create real incentives because the coaches to say it is important you develop your mind the average nfl player one out of five -- one of 500 who plays will stay in the nfl for about 3.five years and his money will be gone a few years after that. so the real issue is will they really get an education? we are risking their lives not paying them, make him as indentured servants we might as well automation not just pretending to care about their intellectual development but actually

doing it by putting in a real incentive. >> the question about fdr that was more than 100 years ago. >> a manly man. he did not like as a point of falling apart. before the forward pass broken limbs were common about one out of 10 lead to someone dying. very little football was played then but the deaths were so, compared to the small amount of games played but he brought those powers to gather for the job of session it was princeton, yale harvard and swarthmore that doesn't even play any more.

that was very forward thinking and progressive by the standards of the time. i have a few modest connections in the white house to twist some arms and wrote the piece for "the new york times" describing the reports that obamacare could advocates and of course, nothing came of it from the politician's standpoint we are polarized society we are for it or against it. you would think it would be a populist causes ended his day question mark. but if he said i want to convene coaches to reform

the radio would say he is against football. the nanny state. that is the response you would get. are still think of president could do this but i don't think it will happen during the second term. but the espn grade does exist that we have talked about to factor in graduation rates into the college football rankings i have been twisting arms over that five years and in this case with little success starting over the summer if you type in the words espn grade it will take you to a college football ranking that is adjusted for graduation rates. by now trying to get the world to notice that because of the coaches have been in their contract that the espn great pass to do with their bonus they will get better. >> thank you for writing

these books it is very timely and widely read is specially by roger goodall and the nfl brass. >> may be his lawyers. [laughter] >> we have a professional football team that has been resistant to change since they moved your. as of white supremacist biggy he refused to integrate the team not bringing in an african-american player until 50 years afterwards only because he was forced to because the stadium is on federal land with the department of interior. and outside the stadium so now there is the new controversy that is as bad

as preston marshall and it is very disturbing because i am from your. because to some of redskins fax websites. >> what is your question? >> i notice you both use the r word and what does it take to change the washington football team? >> part of the point of my book is you are a fan of the washington team? and it is worth $10 billion

were normal cuban beings have a conscience they have a cash register. with you feel guilty they don't care. if you show up sitting on your couch your part of the $5 billion you're part of that broadcast that they make every year. finance have a tendency to see themselves as victims you are a consumer. fuel like the way they run their team review like roger dealt or their gender roles in football that women are sexual ornaments and that is how they're effective and though world then stopped watching. because you pay their salaries the reason that kids get paid at age 21

their offered $60 million for five years the reason schneider make so much money he has a bunch of consumers that consume the product. >> should people stop watching football? >> here is what my book says paul hamm interested in valencia for everything that it is everything. and did 100 years we see the ball as of growing spectacle and in the last couple weeks looking as a moral undertaking one of the biggest businesses in the united states. this is either you're for it or against it my book says i think football for me it is

complete the untenable morally out of whack for my value system but that is my decision. the name of my book is not to say you do this or you do that but then you do what your own conscience recommends but just to think it is done i am not really consuming any things and not buying the pickier. per your all composite and the media has a great way to find a scapegoat to make fans feel like they are the victims. i was even with my overnight conversion. >> how many watch football on television? don't be shy. okay. i was trying to.

i think it will be enough who were consumers to say it is unacceptable i am out. that is all the staff will listen to don't think he will have dialogue. >> because us c-span i have the call western -- she is asking a question addressing violence in tackling and but to rephrase as the pair would hit a child is considered abuse but f. not that it is sports so could you say thailand -- tackling as a violent action? >> lot of things that

happened at football high-school practice if it was in a classroom would be a child abuse and the teacher would be arrested. there are relationships that adults have with children and behavior and skip to the bottom line of that. some of the accepted behavior's and football that the courts have said it is okay to construct said children choose lamp each to other violently they would not in the classroom but courts are starting to get suspicious about concussions and not finding those okay and at some point of high-school coach will go to jail that will be the catalytic event. there has been some modern progress over the last five years.

2007 i became an assistant football coach at a public high school and in order to get my position i had to prove through the background check if i was not a registered sex offender. and did not have to pass any first a class or concussion systems with that i knew they he stroke symptoms not anybody in your linder nobody in the country now almost all states require high school football head coaches and assistant coaches to have passed courses with a concussion and heat stroke awareness so there is modest progress their. second is the two reformers advocate that has actually happened in the last year and the second is a high-school sanctioning bodies are cutting back on

contact hours during practice. texas is that the center of this in as of this year to have almost unlimited contact hours they are allowed three hours of contact per week than half of that during the season. that is progressive reform. far more confessions have been during practices and games. so if we change that structure it is coming but kickoffs could be eliminated you don't need those. they used to be jump balls and basketball those were eliminated. nobody would even remember the kickoff the three-point stance could be eliminated. to football teams opposing each other at the start of the play. heads facing each other when the ball is snapped the heads collide.

three-point stance was the and the play started at the knee is the head injury would go way down. that is coming so that pitcher is not as bad as a decade ago. >> to more questions. >> what is your take on the high-school disputes about helmets should be settled? my neece has a kid who loves to hit people. it sounds like the manufacturer would not sell them the helmet. how should that be settled? >> longstanding and wrong interpretations of people who sponsor football teams the simplest to understand is that the nfl level that no helmet can eliminate the

risk but some reduce risk compared to others and virginia tech has identified the helmets that reduced confession you would think everybody would where these comments. it does not mandate those elements that are safer or less dangerous because they believe if they mandate's a helmet they become liable for the injury than the player is liable. that is not right to in legal terms but at the high-school double the one thing we can do is exactly plus steve proposed to put the accelerometers in every football helmet. the additional ones in college programs if the record as a hit of the 80 g-forces then that is the

risk factor number for neurological of harm. . . the county would not let one of its own high schools put those things on helmets because they thought, well, if we have a safety device we become liable for injuries. if we do nothing at all, we are not liable. that is the primitive state this thinking is still at.

>> and i would add that there are two ways you can look at if you are a conflicted football fan, you can make one of two decisions, you can describe, as greg has very notably, how to reform the game. and there are things to be done, lobbying, and being part of that movement, or you can decide -- and this is what i personally decided -- looking at the totality of the game, it is just inherently corrupt, and taking a step back, i think in that it is a corrupt system that we, the fans -- what is happening, the reason we are reluctant to look at this just reminds people over and over again that it is a profoundly violent game. we want to be able to -- we want to be able to consume the violence. they say, he got his bell rung, great hit. their is a system in place to keep us insulated from seeing the profound silence

on field, but it is even more insidious than that for me. and players are trained to harness. that is what we are seeing with the recent news about this or that player. the aggression on the field and the violence we reward on the field suddenly taking place off of the field, and we are all up in arms as if a 22-year-old kid has been told of his life to play lights out football is suddenly going to become a gentleman role model the second he steps over a chalk line is child, magical thinking. and the most insidious of these myths or false dreams that football cells has to do with economic opportunity, and here is where i really have a bone to pick with obama who has said something like, i don't have a sun, but if i had a sun, i would not let him play football. what he is really saying is, let some other american

mother and father have a sun who plays for my entertainment who might suffer brain trauma. i think that is extraordinarily cynical and beneath what i took to be his dignity as a human being i don't think that is a tenable position. if you would not let your kids play this sport think about whether it is right for you to be consuming it when other parents kids are playing it. obama, especially coming from his background, could say for too long football has been held out as a ticket to economic salvation for certain kids, by which we mean in the coded language we speak in the united states, a kiss from economically tolerable neighborhoods and kids of color. that is a degrading and absurd arrangement because only one out of 500 of those kids will make it and we don't care about the other 499. what we really need is good schools, good support for working families, communities that function, and that is a larger problem

than football reflects. what instead happens is that taxpayers get stuck with hundreds of millions of dollars, billions of dollars in tax revenue, public revenue that goes toward building stadiums rather toward things that i think we can all agree are higher priorities, creating equality of opportunity in economically vulnerable communities. and i know this because i worked in miami. it was a community where that community said, yes, football is the ticket out, and there was great emphasis placed on that. and it is a false dream that we are all part of. we sell that same message because we do not have a more humane and equal to get out for people who happen to be born in circumstances where they do not have a lot of economic opportunity. >> chair wrote a chapter in "the king of sports" called used up and thrown away which is about not guys who just have unrealistic dreams of playing football, guys

who are great athletes to end up getting nothing at all out of football except brain injuries and criminal charges, and to mention obama, you mentioned a new yorker, obama gave a lengthy in a letter to the editor of the new yorker about a year-and-a-half ago. he has his own conflict on this because he is an even bigger fan of prize fighting it involves so few people that the sociological significance is small. they talked about football for a minute. obama said, well, when you think about it, those guys are adults. they know the risk they are assuming and are well paid, so this is not a big issue. for the nfl players, we don't want them to get hurt. they're well paid and other risk they are assuming, but they are not the issue. high-school, college, and use players are the issue. very sophisticated man, he does not get that the nfl is not the issue, high-school

is the issue, that is a problem. >> one other thing, what obama also said because i read that story with great interest as well, maybe they will come up with reforms that will allow fans to watch the game with a little bit safer conscience or ease are conscious of little bit as if the goal of making football safer ultimately is to make the fans feel nullified as opposed to protect the players, astonishing cynicism. >> what about other sports? the problem of football -- >> are there other sports? [laughter] >> i know. there are. >> this is news to me. >> other sports, do we have dated saying one way or the other. hockey seems to me to be just as violent, if not more >> there actually is data, ice hockey, soccer, or you're not wearing had protection, and diving, roughly the same concussion rate per hour of practice

and participation as football. the differences, football and are far more people. >> and far more hits because of like those ports -- and every other sport other than boxing and the crazy mad max version a boxing collisions are incidental. you have to understand, a football player gets 1500 little car accidents in his helmet every year. it is not just the games but the practices. that is not true of any other sport, and i hear this a lot. a whole suitcase full of rationalizations that fans carry around, and i am familiar with it. one of them is, well, what about other sports. and i respond, what about them. football is fine time to -- five times more popular and profitable than the next sport, and probably more so if you factor in high school, far more significant as a social entity and also intrinsically the only collision sport that is a

major sport. hockey does have fights end collisions at high speeds, but those -- every single time a ball is snapped on the football field a whole bunch of big, strong guys get their brains knocked around. >> soccer has the same concussion rate per hour of practice. >> it doesn't. >> i have no knowledge about this. >> it is not just about getting concussions. what the medical evidence suggests is that it is the accretion of sub concuss of his that is as dangerous as catastrophic kits. it has of violence problem. by the way, that does not result -- reside in the game but in american culture. look at our -- look at our prison system, look at our gun ownership, look at our popular culture. football is a part of something bigger. it is not just our favorite came out of coincidence but the game that has made