League of Denial: The NFL, Concussions and the Battle for Truth by Mark Fainaru-Wada
››› Download audio book. ‹‹‹ Original Title: League of Denial ISBN: 0770437540 ISBN13: 9780770437541 Autor: Mark Fainaru-Wada/Steve Fainaru Rating: 3.6 of 5 stars (1474) counts Original Format: Hardcover, 399 pages Download Format: PDF, FB2, DJVU, iBook. Published: October 8th 2013 / by Crown Archetype / (first published January 1st 2013) Language: English
Genre(s): Sports and Games >Sports- 159 users Nonfiction- 120 users Science- 30 users Football- 22 users Audiobook- 10 users
Description: “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. League of Denial reveals how the NFL, over a period of nearly two decades, sought to cover up and deny mounting evidence of the connection between football and brain damage. Comprehensively, and for the first time, 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 21st century pastime. Everyone knew 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 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 crisis that threatens football, from the highest levels all the way down to Pop Warner.
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- League of Denial: The NFL, Concussions and the Battle for Truth (Kindle Edition)
- League of Denial: The NFL, Concussions, and the Battle for Truth (Paperback)
- League of Denial: The NFL, Concussions, and the Battle for Truth (ebook)
- League of Denial: The NFL, Concussions and the Battle for Truth (Audio CD)
- League of Denial: The NFL, Concussions, and the Battle for Truth (Audio CD)
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Rewiews:
May 14, 2015 David Rated it: it was amazing Everybody sucks. Everybody in this book just sucks. The NFL sucks. The NFL got stuck in their little damn castle, deny-deny-deny, and even when all their own doctors told them that some of their players had severe brain damage, and they finally loosen up their tight-ass wallets to give some money to the families, even then just deny deny nope no concussion problem in our league deny deny yep we are funding a helmet designed to reduce concussions (which every notemployed-by-the-NFL scientist say Everybody sucks. Everybody in this book just sucks. The NFL sucks. The NFL got stuck in their little damn castle, deny-deny-deny, and even when all their own doctors told them that some of their players had severe brain damage, and they finally loosen up their tight-ass wallets to give some money to the families, even then just deny deny nope no concussion problem in our league deny deny yep we are funding a helmet designed to reduce concussions (which every notemployed-by-the-NFL scientist says is a flawed pipe dream, BTW) but there's no concussion problem so if your son got knocked silly in a high school game that's not our problem deny deny deny. And then the people who study the brains...these assholes. Step all over themselves to prove the NFL wrong, and who cares who's toes you step on. Show Autopsy Photos of the players who's brains showed the damage? Heck yeah. (And I'm not talking the slides of the damaged brain. I'm talking photos of the deceased players, mid-autopsy, and the doctor doesn't even get why people were creeped out) Act like the worst ambulance-chasing nightmares to the families who just had a loved one die in order to make sure they secure the brain before some other research group can? Check and check. Eventually sell out to work for the company you've spent most of your career trying to convince people is harming their employees without admission or remorse? You know they did. I know, I sound a little bitter and crazed. I get it. Look, I love football. Love it. And I've stepped over many an inconvenient fact in order to protect that love. But there has been a firestorm over the last two decades, building over the horizon, and at some point, I either have to admit that the city is burning down around me, or go down in the ashes. Every week, another report comes out that
makes one question his/her fanhood. Another player knocks out his girlfriend or wife. Another player sexually assaults somebody, or beats his kids, and doesn't understand why he can't suit up on Sunday, because he's spent most of his adult life being told that because he can play a game better than 99.9% of us, he's more important. I grew up on this sport. When I was young, Sundays were about going to Grandma's for a big lunch, followed by all of us sitting around a screen to watch whatever game was on. And now...I don't hate football. I don't know that I ever could. But I do not like how it makes me feel. I do not like some of the athletes who play this sport, and how they are sheltered until they finally cross the line where people say, "Well, we can't ignore that, can we?". I hate that the small percentage of those a-holes completely overshadow the mostly decent majority of the league. And I hate that this game has become so fast, and so hard, that it is ruining player's lives, and demolishing livelihoods, and the League will not admit that it is happening despite all evidence, and will not take some of the ungodly amount of money we so easily hand over, in order to provide basic benefits to the retired players who built the empire that they sit on so high to look down on everybody. (And I'm not just talking about concussions....think about how many players need knee replacements, or have sever back or joint issues, especially from the older players who played before their salaries went to a ridiculous stratosphere) Football, right now, is not fun to watch. It's not fun to think about. It's one bad story after another, and over the last few years, I can not watch without wondering why I do pay so much attention. And I will pay attention. Probably for the rest of my life. That's the part that makes me feel so conflicted. I think about taking the high road, let football go, but then the game's on, and.....yeah. I really do love this game. That's why I was so angry reading this book, because LoD is meticulously written, and takes a long look at everybody involved with the Concussion scandals, and it was thorough and effective. And ultimately, there is nobody that comes out well. None of the problems get solved, and nobody is really clean. And players are still getting obscene amounts of money to possibly (probably) destroy their post-football lives. And come September, I will be sitting in front of the screen, watching again. I will be trying to capture an old feeling. Don't think less of me for it. 19 likes 3 comments
