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Jeff Gemmell
Professor Caruso
UWRT 1103
7/21/15
Inquiry Update Paper
Looking through my original inquiry paper, I had done a poor job at digging deeper into
the topic about benefits and opportunities given through football. In this update paper, I will
show the positive benefits that were mentioned in the original paper while challenging them with
scholarly sources and different opinions. For the longest time, my thoughts about football in
general were very biased towards only positive great things. I have found research such as that
found on americanmigrainefoundation.org which states that sports like football are more likely to
affect a person negatively when it comes to headaches and migraines later in life. According to
the source, 1.7 million people require medical attention per year due to traumatic brain injury
leading to PTH or post traumatic headaches. Chronic migraines and headaches acquired from
football are far from a positive benefit from the game. A quote by H.S Bissinger says, There are
the medical dangers of football in general caused by head trauma over repetitive hits. People
who suffer from headaches live lives of extreme agony and pain; waiting for the time when they
can gain relief from the constant headaches and migraines gained from their ventures into
football. It is only fair to ask the simple question, is it worth playing football if you have a
chance to get chronic conditions that will negatively affect you later in life?
Lets dig a little bit deeper and look at a real life example of someone who has been
affected by his NFL career. Junior Seau was arguably one of the leagues greatest linebackers ever
to play the game of football. He played linebacker, one of the hardest and most contact filled

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positions in the game, for 20 years despite the average span of an NFL career only being 3.3
years. (http://www.statista.com) He suffered from CTE which is chronic traumatic
encephalopathy; Junior had brain injuries because of the hits he had taken over the past 20 years
in the NFL. This disease caused Seau to become demented, depressed and it eventually drove
him to commit suicide at the age of 43. According to Traumatic Brain Injury and Chronic
Traumatic Encephalopathy: A Forensic Neuropsychiatric Perspective, A recent review by the
Associated Press of 95 lawsuits filed against the NFL revealed over 3,700 plaintiffs, involving
players, spouses, and other relatives or representatives. This peer edited article correlated
directly with what the Seau family and many other families of dead NFL veterans have done.
They have decided that the NFL failed to recognize and forewarn the families of the potential
dangers of playing in their league and in return sue for big bucks. This is justified, but does
money really make up for a deceased loved one?
In my previous paper I had also written about how football has lowered depression in
children and allowed them to overcome being picked on and taken advantage of. But is this
completely true? Maybe for children, but as we can see in Junior Seaus case, he took his own
life due to depression and brain damage. It may not have been his fault, but the toll that the game
took on his body was enough to kill him. Another thing that I have written about in my previous
paper was financial gain of football players, especially in the NFL. One specific example is from
a hall of fame quarterback who played in the league from 1983 to 1998. His name is John Elway
and he is now a successful business man owning car dealerships and restaurants. Elway along
with many other former players don't just stop at football, they continue to be successful people
in the real world and contribute to the economy. But do all NFL players make good investments
with their money after they are out of the league? What happens if a player makes a bad decision

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with his money and loses it all? I found a peer edited article that studied the potential risk-taking
of a football team during the course of a game. What happens when you look at risks that
individual players take in a game that could possibly lead to brain injuries? According to
Momentum and Organizational Risk Taking: Evidence from the National Football League,
given the same level of Performance below the aspiration level, an organization was less likely
to take risks if it had experienced negative momentum compared to positive momentum. This
practically means that a team who had experienced positive momentum in a game time situation
would be more likely to go for it on fourth down instead of punting like most teams do. There
is a risk that is involved with going for it on fourth so to speak, and if you do not make it the
ball is turned over to the opposing team no matter what. What happens when the financial side of
the story comes in to play? Previously all I talked about was how football players make a whole
lot of money, well what happens when the players lose it all? The article that was just mentioned
is a very good representation of a former NFL player who may make a bad decision. An example
is Michael Vick, a pro quarterback who was an amazing player with a lot of money, who had
contracts with Nike and TV companies; but after he got caught for organized dog fighting he
became the public icon of stupid NFL players as well as lost his money and fame. This is just
like a team making a bad decision but this situation it was just Michael Vick. Since he was the
only one who made the mistake or took the risk, he was the one who received 100% of the
punishment and outcome. Often NFL players are looked at with a sense of invincibility, but
sometimes they are exposed for who they really are as a person.
Educational opportunities are what the football player makes of it. They can go into
school and get the most out of their free education, or they could waste it away like so many do.
This text from TrueSport.com shows all about how moving on a field and being athletic can help

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you become a better student in the classroom: Research has shown that physical movement can
affect the brains physiology by increasing cerebral capillary growth, blood flow, oxygenation,
production of neurotrophins, growth of nerve cells in the hippocampus, neurotransmitter levels,
development of nerve connections, density of neural network, and brain tissue volume."
Although there may be some exceptions, for the most part playing football or sports in general
allow a student athlete to become an overall better student. What about those students who did
not do well in school? I learned in high school that 1.3 million students drop out of school every
year and some of those are football players. The education is there for everyone, but sometimes
circumstances outside of the game drive players to drop out and discontinue their careers.
After seeing how playing football can both dramatically increase your financial,
educational and social life and drastically take those things from you, my final critical question is
as follows: is playing football worth the risk of either becoming successful in the three areas of
financial, educational and social? Or is it not worth the risk to endeavor into playing football?
Seeing the scholarly sources tied in to some of the previous information may help you make the
decision, but in the end it either lies in a personal belief, or documented data. This updated and
more questioned based paper delved deeper into the questions and made sure that benefits and
opportunities through football were not made to seem like they were the only things given out to
football players. Hopefully the information helps people make choices that will keep them living
a safe and long life while enjoying the game of football along the way.

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Work Cited
"Average Career Length in the NFL | Statistic." Statista. Statista.com, n.d. Web. 21 July 2015.
Bissinger, H.G. "H. G. Bissinger Quote." BrainyQuote. Xplore, n.d. Web. 21 July 2015.
Fainaru-Wada, Mark, Jim Avila, and Steve Fainaru. "Doctors: Junior Seau's Brain Had CTE."
ESPN. ESPN Internet Ventures, 11 Jan. 2013. Web. 21 July 2015.
Lehman, David W., and Jungpil Hahn. "Momentum and Organizational Risk Taking: Evidence
from the National Football League." Management Science 59.4 (2013): 852-68. Web. 21 July
2015
College Football. "Power 5 Endorse Benefits Changes." Www.espn.com. ESPN Internet
Ventures, 1 Oct. 2014. Web. 14 July 2015.
Fell, Jason. "Nine NFL Stars Turned Entrepreneurs." Entrepreneur. Entrepreneur.com, 06 Sept.
2011. Web. 14 July 2015.
"Football Origins, Growth and History of the Game." History of The Game Of Football
Including The NFL and College Football. The People Histor.com, n.d. Web. 14 July 2015.
"Psychological and Social Benefits of Playing True Sport." TrueSport. TrueSport, n.d. Web. 13
July 2015.
Sports, Steve Berkowitz. "NCAA Increases Value of Scholarships in Historic Vote." USA Today.
Gannett, 17 Jan. 2015. Web. 14 July 2015.
Sturm, Frank. "Top 20 NFL Players Who Lost Everything." TheSportster. Thesportster.com, 4
Jan. 2015. Web. 14 July 2015.
Trotter, Jim. "Depression Prevalent in Ex- Players." ESPN. ESPN Internet Ventures, 7 Mar. 2015.
Web. 14 July 2015..

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Work Cited Scholarly Sources

Monteith, Teshamae. "AMERICAN MIGRANE FOUNDATION." Post-Traumatic Headache.

Headache Group, n.d. Web. 21 July 2015.
Theeler, Brett, MD, Sylvia Lucas, MD, Ronald G. Reichers, MD, and Robert L. Ruff, MD.
"Traumatic Brain Injury and Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy: A Forensic Neuropsychiatric
Perspective." - Wortzel. American Headache Society, 30 May 2013. Web. 21 July 2015.
Theeler, Brett, Sylvia Lucas, Ronald G. Riechers, and Robert L. Ruff. "Post-Traumatic
Headaches in Civilians and Military Personnel: A Comparative, Clinical Review." Headache:
The Journal of Head and Face Pain 53.6 (2013): 881-900. Web. 21 July 2015.
<http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/head.12123/full>.