Sunday, January 13, 2013

Sunday Globe Special: Field of Dreams

Set-hut! Hike! 

"Schools in Mass. report nearly 3,000 concussions; A partial but worrisome look at head injury crisis" by Lisa Kocian  |  Globe Staff, October 28, 2012

Nearly 3,000 Massachusetts students suffered a concussion or other head injury while playing sports during the last school year, according to the results of a first-of-its-kind survey completed by 164 schools.

The reports from middle and high schools across Massachusetts, collected under a state law passed in 2010, highlight the extent of the problem at a time when medical experts and sports leagues, from Pop Warner to the NFL, are increasingly worried about the long-term effects of head injuries....

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Related: Rival rips coach of injured Pop Warner players

Student athletes return too soon after concussions

Concussions bring more scrutiny in youth football

New Boston law targets head injuries

DPH head shares insights after concussion findings

Evidence of brain damage from head injuries mounts

Two kids died? Time to ban football. Nothing more than a loaded gun aimed at a kid's head.

Maybe a different game would do?

Ringing the bell about NFL concussions

Saying Goodbye to Seau

Researchers: Junior Seau had brain disease

Seau and RGIII: Warning bells for NFL coaches

Football concussions: The problem lies at the heart of the sport

You are treading on dangerous ground there. Complain about the lying, the looting, the wars, and the encroaching veil of American tyranny and you get a glazed-over look from the AmeriKan people. Then mention a ban on football or beer and watch the outrage flow.

"Fantasy football gaining in popularity with kids; Bragging rights are main draw" by Beth Teitell  |  Globe Staff, October 23, 2012

Young brothers Nick and Theo Kennedy love watching football on Sundays, but the afternoons are anything but relaxing. When the Patriots are on, the TV in their Westwood living room is tuned to that game, but they regularly flip to the NFL’s RedZone, a live highlights channel, and each boy constantly checks his tablet, monitoring ESPN for updates on more than 50 players leaguewide.

“They look like bookies,” said their mother, Kimberly Kennedy.

No money is at stake. But like a growing number of children, Nick, 13, and Theo, 11, are playing for something more important: fantasy football bragging rights. “We like to razz each other at school,” Theo said.

About 25 million people, ages 12 and over, play in fantasy football leagues around the United States, according to Paul Charchian, president of the Fantasy Sports Trade Association....

Fantasy football has gone so mainstream, Charchian said, that playing has become a way of keeping up with friends. “Dropping a league is like ending a dozen friendships.”

For those who aren’t on a fantasy football team, here’s how it works: Players join or create a league, and then get to act like owners of actual teams, “drafting” real NFL players and making game-day decisions. Points are earned on the basis of how the players perform in their real-life games that day.

The demand from the youth market is so strong that in 2007 the NFL added a kid-focused fantasy game on its popular NFLRush site, and this year launched mobile apps, the better to check on how your players are doing from the sidelines of travel soccer, or, like Christian Abbate, a Hanover 15-year-old, while you’re out to dinner with your grandfather.

“I said ‘Put the phone down,’ ” recalled his mother, Lisa Zajonc, the manager of a Disney store in Braintree. “He’s always checking something.”

But with fantasy football a constant source of youth conversation, a kid needs to do what a kid needs to do....

Here’s another sign that fantasy football has taken hold of the kiddie set: It has become a source of friction between kids and parents....  

Nice.

Yahoo! Sports fantasy expert Brad Evans calls fantasy football the “sports cards of the 21st century.” Considering that cards were just cards, and that fantasy football has invaded so many aspects of modern life, from smartphones to sitcoms, it’s like cards on steroids.

Although parents rightfully worry about all sorts of online distractions, many take solace in fantasy’s potential to teach math and strategic skills.

In the mid-1990s, Dan Flockhart, a middle-school math teacher in Northern California, increased his students’ motivation by combining math and fantasy football.....

And there’s another plus, he added.

“I have had fathers tell me that fantasy sports has given them quality time with their adolescent sons and daughters, who previously wanted nothing to do with them.”

Isn't that a sad statement on the state of AmeriKa?

The National Football League also plays up the educational component of fantasy football....

(Blog editor shakes head and rolls eyes toward the ceiling; I suppose any educational motivator is a good thing these days)

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Also see: A team that has faced a near-Biblical series of trials

I'll be back with some more Sunday Globe Specials later, dear readers.  

Enjoy the game

UPDATE: Saints’ coaches and administrators to blame for ‘bounty’ scandal