Football is…..

I feel like I’m a hypocrite for watching football.

It’s a weird intersection I can’t get away from: a chance for community, passion, and live experience, but also a constant reminder of a greedy organization whose active denial of the effects of repeated concussions has had a trickle down effect into my own life. 

Each head impact on the tv is like a ghost impact I can feel in my being. I worry for the future of the players who had already embarked on this career prior to understanding the effects of head injuries. I wonder if they made an educated decision to continue, and what that means for their futures. I wonder what would be different, if Dr Omalu’s findings hadn’t been blackballed. Would I have understood in 2010 with my first concussion that this would change the course of my life? Would I have continued onwards anyway? The bulk of my head injuries occurred between 2012-2014. Could I have, would I have chosen a different path?

It seems likely a weekly occurrence of news stories of former NFL players who have been posthumously diagnosed with CTE. For a while, each of those stories felt like a sucker punch to the gut. But over time I’ve gotten numb, only to be shocked back into reality when a member of a brain injury facebook group loses their battle, either by seizure or by their own hand.  At one point last year, within one week, the first female athlete was diagnosed with CTE and a member of our suspected CTE facebook community lost their battles.

I have lived at a time between discovery of CTE and the discovery of its cure. In a place where I’m fortunate enough to know that in my lived experience I am not alone. Aware enough to know that whatever progress is made at this point will be more likely to benefit those who come after me. 

Football games remind me of all of this.

But.

They also remind me of community. Sitting in a Philly bar, watching Philly play green bay, surrounded by a sea of green and a chorus of the eagles fight song at every touch down. Greetings with the Philadelphia Aloha (“Go birds”). I moved to Philly less than a year ago and the city of brotherly love has far exceeded my expectations, but especially in the community department. As someone who is a life long student of social connection and interaction, this has felt like more than a homecoming. It’s felt like the continuation of a calling that I can’t quite see the outlines of yet. 

And so, in spite of the ghosts of past injury that come with each Sunday game, it doesn’t outweigh the hope and joy experienced amongst community, inspired by The Birds.