Podcast #16: All Dings Considered.

Dave Duerson.

A few weeks ago, Nicole, G.D., Joel and I sat down to chat about football, how much I hate it, and whether it’s rendering too many young men disabled, depressed and handicapped at young ages. (The convo was sparked by the news that Dave Duerson, a former NFL player and players’ union official, committed suicide, and suspicions that his deterioration was caused by football-related brain injury.)  Joel talks about his high school football days, and a vicious hit that left him with a concussion, and we try to figure out whether there’s any way to make the sport safe. 

We also talked about the furor over at NPR, which almost took money from imaginary Muslims! Nicole wonders if NPR would be better off not taking any public money so that its decisions wouldn’t be so politicized.

Forgive us for the delay, we had some technical problems with this one, though it updated to iTunes last week. If you missed it, though, you can find it below:

Listen to the podcast here on the blog (and subscribe on iTunes). Click once to play, click again to download. (Some salty language.)

PostBourgie: The Podcast – #16: All Dings Considered.

Related Links:

Chris Nowinski, a former Harvard football player and WWE wrestler, discusses his  history of concussions and his organization which tries to raise awareness about the danger of concussions.
Duerson’s autopsy report is released.
“Does Football Have a Future?” New Yorker feature on whether the new understanding of brain injuries will destroy the N.F.L.
James O’Keefe sits down with Bob Garfield of NPR’s On The Media, and things get testy.

Shout-outs and downs:

A  really cool slideshow of Egypt in the 1920s.
Latoya Peterson on being the token black woman on feminist panels.
Back of the Bus, an excellent public radio special on the way transit policy reinforces racial inequality in cities.
Joel’s surprising favorite movie, Magnolia.
David Clary‘s shockingly good history about George Washington’s early military campaigns.

  • I demand an invitation to any podcast involving sports or videogames. And by sports, I mean the nba, nfl, and men’s european/national team soccer.

    • blackink

      Hey, I’m still waiting on approval for a podcast focused solely on the NBA playoffs. And if it happens, you must genuflect at the Altar of LeBron to secure admission.

      Also, because I’m vain, I should mention that I also sustained a concussion during football practice in my redshirt freshman year in college.

      So, I’ve had at least two that were diagnosed. All told, between the two, I missed only a single practice; I guess you could consider 1996 the Dark Ages in that regard.

      • Yikes, two diagnosed? As far as I am concerned, anything before May 4, 2005 (when Gilbert Arenas hit the game-winner against the Bulls in game 5) is the dark ages…

        • That was close to the apex of Gilbert’s career. Remember him jawing at LBJ in the playoffs as if the two were even remotely in the same weight class?

          (is this the incident from which your LeBron hate stems?)

      • I’ve been meaning to ask: what happened after you were diagnosed? did you need to take any medication? how long did the initial effects — the nausea, etc. — linger?

        • blackink12

          Nope, no medication. Unless you’re counting Advil.

          I didn’t miss a single play following the concussion in high school; I got hit while on the punt team, so I “recovered” in enough time for the next offensive series. Can’t say that I remember much about that game except the opponent, that we lost badly and I had a headache for the rest of the night.

          And in college, I missed the first practice of a two-a-day session and then went back out there for the second one that afternoon. Other than a headache and some sensitivity to light, I really didn’t have any other symptoms.

          The fog usually cleared within a few hours, to be honest. At least, that’s my recollection 15 years later.

          • Damn dude. Did you ever personally feel a concussion was a big deal before the recent firestorm? Like ‘I can’t believe I did that as a kid, it’s way too dangerous’. Or did you think it was something akin to a sprain, something you can recover from with no problems?

            • blackink12

              In retrospect, I now realize that my attitude toward concussions was really primitive. But that was the prevailing attitude when I came up playing football.

              Hell, even asking for water during practice was a sign of weakness during those days.

              So yeah, it wasn’t until recently that I realized that concussions were serious injuries … brain injuries! I was never one to doubt an injured athlete who said they couldn’t play, but I hardly thought of concussions as something that would keep you out of action for a number of weeks.

              • Yeah, I remember the water thing coming up when Korey Stringer died during training camp. An ex of my went to FAMU, and during her orientation as a freshman one of the members of the marching band died of dehydration out on the field during practice. If you can die in marching band, then shaming kids from getting water in the Texas summer as they run sprints and out-routes or whatever else seems more dangerous by orders of magnitude.

                • blackink12

                  Oh man. I’ve probably said/written this before but during my first month of college football, the high temperature went over 100 degrees for 42 straight days.

                  I lost 20 pounds that first month (from 208 lbs to 188), partially out of ignorance because it was the first time in my life that I was solely responsible for feeding myself and also because I’d never experienced that kind of grueling exercise under those kind of conditions.

                  Two-a-days are something terrible, man.