The Football Effect

The Football Effect
Author: Duncan Murray
Publisher: CreateSpace
Total Pages: 144
Release: 2014-01-30
Genre: Sports & Recreation
ISBN: 9781494731007

Football is different from other sports. It is the most played, most watched and most talked about game in the world and appeals to all sections of society. Over the last 25 years, globalisation, pay-TV and the internet have dramatically broadened its reach. Football's growth shows no sign of slowing down. In the United States, football (soccer) has overtaken baseball and basketball as the most popular sport with youngsters. Over 200 countries, more than the membership of the United Nations, set out to qualify for this summer's World Cup in Brazil. When the tournament kicks off on June 12th, it will be the start of the most watched event in the history of our planet. Football stirs emotions and connects people across the globe. It binds communities and countries together and creates authentic moments in history. What is it about football that uniquely captures the imagination? And given its ever-growing popularity, is football still just a game or, given its sphere of influence, is it much more than that? "The football effect" celebrates football's power, its magnetic ability to bring people together and its role in society as a force for good.

Unintended Impact: One Athlete's Journey from Concussions in Amateur Football to CTE Dementia

Unintended Impact: One Athlete's Journey from Concussions in Amateur Football to CTE Dementia
Author: Jim Proebstle
Publisher:
Total Pages: 266
Release: 2015-05-01
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9781592988839

After suffering concussions in high school and college, Dick struggled unknowingly with the onset of Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) dementia. For decades, he fought the demons trapping him in an ever-shrinking world: diminished short-term memory, limited executive functioning, interpersonal shortcomings, paranoia, and failed physical capabilities. As an athlete, he was revered, yet success turned traitor as getting his ''bell rung'' in football led to a world of confusion and confinement. Nobody will remember a backup college quarterback, but Dick's story bridges the glamour of NFL football--its high-profile athletes and the preliminary $765 million settlement for CTE dementia--with the harsh reality that millions of former amateur players may be suffering anonymously with the same concussion-induced devastation of CTE dementia.

The King of Sports

The King of Sports
Author: Gregg Easterbrook
Publisher: Macmillan
Total Pages: 368
Release: 2013-09-24
Genre: Sports & Recreation
ISBN: 125001171X

"Gregg Easterbrook is one of the country's best-known football commentators, having analyzed football on-air for ESPN and the NFL Network. MSNBC calls his ESPN blog "the best and most compelling football column anywhere." The King of Sports takes an expansive look at our biggest sport. Easterbrook explores these and many other topics: The real harm done by concussions (It's not to NFL players) The real way in which college football players are exploited (It's not by not being paid) The reason football helps American colleges to be great institutions (It's not bowl revenue.) The way football has aided the revival of American cities (It's not Super Bowl trophies) The hidden scandal of the NFL (You'll have to read the book) Using his year-long exclusive insider access to the Virginia Tech football program, where Frank Beamer has compiled the most victories of any active NFL or college head coach, Easterbrook shows how VT does things right. Then he reports on all the things wrong with football and moves to examples of how the sport can be reformed to keep it just as popular and exciting, but not as notorious. Rich with reporting details from interviews with current and former college and pro football players and coaches. The King of Sports promises to be the most provocative and best-read sports book of the year"--

League of Denial

League of Denial
Author: Mark Fainaru-Wada
Publisher: Crown
Total Pages: 457
Release: 2014-08-26
Genre: Sports & Recreation
ISBN: 0770437567

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The story of how the NFL, over a period of nearly two decades, denied and sought to cover up mounting evidence of the connection between football and brain damage “League of Denial may turn out to be the most influential sports-related book of our time.”—The Boston Globe “Professional football players do not sustain frequent repetitive blows to the brain on a regular basis.” So concluded the National Football League in a December 2005 scientific paper on concussions in America’s most popular sport. That judgment, implausible even to a casual fan, also contradicted the opinion of a growing cadre of neuroscientists who worked in vain to convince the NFL that it was facing a deadly new scourge: a chronic brain disease that was driving an alarming number of players—including some of the all-time greats—to madness. In League of Denial, award-winning ESPN investigative reporters Mark Fainaru-Wada and Steve Fainaru tell the story of a public health crisis that emerged from the playing fields of our twenty-first-century pastime. Everyone knows that football is violent and dangerous. But what the players who built the NFL into a $10 billion industry didn’t know—and what the league sought to shield from them—is that no amount of padding could protect the human brain from the force generated by modern football, that the very essence of the game could be exposing these players to brain damage. In a fast-paced narrative that moves between the NFL trenches, America’s research labs, and the boardrooms where the NFL went to war against science, League of Denial examines how the league used its power and resources to attack independent scientists and elevate its own flawed research—a campaign with echoes of Big Tobacco’s fight to deny the connection between smoking and lung cancer. It chronicles the tragic fates of players like Hall of Fame Pittsburgh Steelers center Mike Webster, who was so disturbed at the time of his death he fantasized about shooting NFL executives, and former San Diego Chargers great Junior Seau, whose diseased brain became the target of an unseemly scientific battle between researchers and the NFL. Based on exclusive interviews, previously undisclosed documents, and private emails, this is the story of what the NFL knew and when it knew it—questions at the heart of a crisis that threatens football, from the highest levels all the way down to Pop Warner.

The Football Effect

The Football Effect
Author: James C. Abdallah
Publisher:
Total Pages: 78
Release: 2017
Genre: Sports spectators
ISBN:

This online longitudinal multi-wave study investigated impacts of sports spectatorship on students of two college football powerhouses — The Ohio State University and the University of Alabama. Specifically, the study looked at changes of self-esteem, mood, university affiliation and university football team affiliation with data collection occurring before and after watching football games. The study found some significant effects on self-esteem, mood, university affiliation and university football team affiliation at the university levels for individual waves but not overall. During this study, there was an on-campus incident at one university that may have affected these results.

Sports-Related Concussions in Youth

Sports-Related Concussions in Youth
Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
Total Pages: 215
Release: 2014-02-04
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 0309288037

In the past decade, few subjects at the intersection of medicine and sports have generated as much public interest as sports-related concussions - especially among youth. Despite growing awareness of sports-related concussions and campaigns to educate athletes, coaches, physicians, and parents of young athletes about concussion recognition and management, confusion and controversy persist in many areas. Currently, diagnosis is based primarily on the symptoms reported by the individual rather than on objective diagnostic markers, and there is little empirical evidence for the optimal degree and duration of physical rest needed to promote recovery or the best timing and approach for returning to full physical activity. Sports-Related Concussions in Youth: Improving the Science, Changing the Culture reviews the science of sports-related concussions in youth from elementary school through young adulthood, as well as in military personnel and their dependents. This report recommends actions that can be taken by a range of audiences - including research funding agencies, legislatures, state and school superintendents and athletic directors, military organizations, and equipment manufacturers, as well as youth who participate in sports and their parents - to improve what is known about concussions and to reduce their occurrence. Sports-Related Concussions in Youth finds that while some studies provide useful information, much remains unknown about the extent of concussions in youth; how to diagnose, manage, and prevent concussions; and the short- and long-term consequences of concussions as well as repetitive head impacts that do not result in concussion symptoms. The culture of sports negatively influences athletes' self-reporting of concussion symptoms and their adherence to return-to-play guidance. Athletes, their teammates, and, in some cases, coaches and parents may not fully appreciate the health threats posed by concussions. Similarly, military recruits are immersed in a culture that includes devotion to duty and service before self, and the critical nature of concussions may often go unheeded. According to Sports-Related Concussions in Youth, if the youth sports community can adopt the belief that concussions are serious injuries and emphasize care for players with concussions until they are fully recovered, then the culture in which these athletes perform and compete will become much safer. Improving understanding of the extent, causes, effects, and prevention of sports-related concussions is vitally important for the health and well-being of youth athletes. The findings and recommendations in this report set a direction for research to reach this goal.

The Kaepernick Effect

The Kaepernick Effect
Author: Dave Zirin
Publisher: The New Press
Total Pages: 241
Release: 2021-09-14
Genre: Sports & Recreation
ISBN: 1620976862

Riveting and inspiring first-person stories of how “taking a knee” triggered a political awakening among athletes of all ages and levels, from the celebrated sportswriter “With profiles of courage that leap of the page, Zirin uncovers a whole national movement of citizen-athletes fighting for racial justice.” —Ibram X. Kendi, National Book Award–winning author of Stamped from the Beginning Hailed by Publishers Weekly in a starred review as “an enthralling look at the impact of peaceful protest by sports figures at the high school, college, and professional levels,” The Kaepernick Effect explores the story of how quarterback Colin Kaepernick’s simple act of “taking a knee” spread like wildfire throughout American society, becoming the preeminent public symbol of resistance to America’s persistent racial inequality. In this powerful book, critically acclaimed sports journalist and author Dave Zirin chronicles “the Kaepernick effect” for the first time, through “a riveting collection of first-person stories” (The Nation) from high school athletes and coaches, college stars and high-powered athletic directors, and professional athletes across many different sports—from Megan Rapinoe to Michael Bennett. In each case, he uncovers the fascinating explanations and motivations behind what became a mass political movement in sports. “Necessary reading for all, especially those who want to make a difference in promoting social justice, equity, and inclusion, and end police brutality” (Library Journal, starred review), The Kaepernick Effect is for anyone seeking to get involved in the new movement for racial justice in America: “Take a knee, everyone, and start a revolution” (Kirkus Reviews).

Home Advantage in Sport

Home Advantage in Sport
Author: Miguel A. Gómez-Ruano
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 385
Release: 2021-10-27
Genre: Sports & Recreation
ISBN: 1000462064

This is the first book exploring the concept of home advantage (HA), the well-known beneficial effect that players and teams derive from performing at home in all sports throughout the world. Despite the fact that the existence of HA dates back to the origins of organized sport in the late 19th century, its root causes and how they operate and interact with each other are still unclear and remain the topic of intense research involving many disciplines, all with the potential objective of improving team and individual performance. This book covers a broad review of HA divided into three different sections: (i) Section 1 focuses on the theory of HA in sport (the concept of this phenomenon, its quantification, and factors supposedly associated with the HA are explored; (ii) Section 2 analyses the effects of HA in sports related to both male and female athletes, in relation to tactics and strategies, fans, referees, travel, situational variables and the home disadvantage; and (iii) Section 3 studies the HA as it applies to specific sports worldwide such as outdoor sports (football, rugby, cricket, and Australian Football), indoor sports (basketball, futsal, handball, water polo and volleyball), US professional sports, individual sports, racket sports, combat sports, minor sports, disabled sports and the Olympic Games. This book has been written in cooperation with top leading experts in this field worldwide. The book offers a better understanding of the HA effect for MSc and PhD students, athletes, coaches, performance analysts, sport psychologists, sociologists, sport scientists and sport journalists.

Lasting Impact

Lasting Impact
Author: Kennedy, Kostya
Publisher: Time Inc. Books
Total Pages: 221
Release: 2016-09-06
Genre: Sports & Recreation
ISBN: 1683303083

New York Times bestselling author Kostya Kennedy sets this captivating, character-rich story against the back-drop of one of the most pressing questions in sports: Should we let our sons play football? At the high end of America’s most popular game is the glittering NFL, a fan-stoked money machine and also an opaque enterprise under scrutiny for the physical dangers imposed on its players. Then there’s high school football, unrivaled for the crucial life lessons it imparts-discipline, leadership, cooperation, humility, perseverance-yet also a brain-rattling, bone-breaking game whose consequences are at best misunderstood, and, at the very worst, deadly. What is the parent of a young athlete to make of that? The New Rochelle High School team in suburban New York is like many across the country: a source of civic pride, a manhood workshop for a revered coach and an emotional proving ground for boys of widely different backgrounds. In the fall of 2014, New Rochelle’s season unfolded alongside watershed NFL head injury revelations and domestic abuse cases (remember Ray Rice?), as well as fatalities on nearby fields. The dramatic story of that season, for players, parents and coaches, underscores fundamental questions. Are football’s inherent risks so great that the sport may not survive as we know it? Or are those risks worth the rewards that the game continues to bestow, and that can stay with a young man for a lifetime?