Speaking of hold my beer moments, North Carolina’s Larry Fedora saw the tempest in a tea pot about Jeremy Pruitt’s character and decided to up the ante for attention at yesterday’s ACC media days with quite the hot take.
North Carolina head coach Larry Fedora questioned the validity of studies detailing football’s role in the onset of Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy, also known as CTE, a degenerative brain disease found in cases of repetitive head trauma.
It hasn’t been definitively proven that football causes CTE, Fedora said during his appearance at Atlantic Coast Conference media days, but the fact that the connection has been made has impacted how people view the sport.
Fedora also spoke specifically about how rule changes in college football are changing the game, and not for the better. As football goes, Fedora said, so goes our country.
“Our game is under attack,” Fedora said. “I fear that the game will be pushed so far from what we know that we won’t recognize it 10 years from now. And if it does, our country will go down, too.”
Thanks, Obama!
Fedora was just getting warmed up.
Fedora also relayed the following anecdote: He spoke with a general – military branch unknown – and asked what made America’s forces the strongest in the world. It’s because the U.S. is the only country that plays football, the general replied, per Fedora.
“I think because of the lessons you learn in the game of football relate to everything you’re going to do for the rest of your life,” Fedora said. “When we stop learning those lessons, we’re going to struggle.
Has anyone pointed out to the man that the majority of Americans have never played the game, or even watch it? I know, I know… forget it, he’s rolling. The sad thing is that there’s a legitimate argument to be made that the mad scramble to change football rules may be driven more by a desire to avoid litigation than to find things that are legitimately effective in preventing head injuries, but downplaying the CTE risk isn’t a sensible way to make such a case.
Then again, maybe this was just an attempt at shouting “squirrel!” to distract from something else.
Get The Picture 
His comments were silly insofar as the nation is great BECAUSE of football. But he also isn’t wrong that the fundamental game is under attack.
How much can they change until it really isn’t football anymore?
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1) tackle football is the greatest team sport known to man. It would be a shame to lose its essence by necessity. I hope it can be saved, but people’s brains have to be the primary concern.
2) football’s existence in America has nothing to do with our military successes many (most?) of which were achieved before its existence or prominence.
3) at some point bullshit and lies have conflated into a morass of shameful stupidity and it’s going to give me an aneurism one day if it doesn’t stop. 2018 America: located at the intersection of mendacity and ignorance.
This is what happens when high school football coaches get paid double what high school teachers get paid. This is what happens when you expect far more from your college football coach than what you expect from your elected officials.
Next time I think Alabama should try to run their football team like a business. What could go wrong? Who needs any of that so called experience or expertise? Screw a SME when we could find someone who insults Auburn real good.
It sounds stupid because it is.
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Greatest team spectator sport, maybe. These days, how many people even play football? Except at maybe very small high schools, how many average kids are capable of even making the team? It’s hardly a great participant team sport.
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I disagree completely.
Its a game where sheer will can consistently triumph over talent and strategy.
It may help (a lot) to be physically gifted but guys like David Pollock, Isaiah Wynn, Hines Ward, Tom Brady, Terry Hoage, Drew Brees, Jerry Rice, Rennie Curran, Sam Mills and on and on can will themselves to being champions via sheer determination.
Its a great game because over 60 minutes the team that wants it more almost always wins.
You can’t say that about soccer, baseball and basketball. There is a lot of variation there game to game. Lots of randomness.
Chaminade is not beating a Power five team in football. It could never happen. Kids who play football would simply not allow that to happen. Basketball players are soft. Soccer players are worse.
There’s no “flopping” in football and very little whining by the players on every call or non-call..
In football, more than any other sport, something valuable is being vindicated with every victory. Rarely is it about luck or fluke.
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Just wait, some donkey will drop a “Tell that to App St or ga southern” on you and claim victory
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I agree, it’s a great sport. I love to watch it. My point was, fewer people are playing it than ever, and the number continues to drop. We are spectators, watching some uniquely talented young men perform at a very high level. I love it, too, but I do feel sometimes that we’re sitting in the Roman Coliseum watching gladiators in HD.
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I you want to avoid an aneurysm, I highly recommend the following: Firstly, stay the hell away from social media and Facebook in particular. It is an intellectual ghetto where morons spread fake news so that they can feel like they are a good person. Secondly, cut out all sources of news, analysis, or opinion other than The AP or Reuters (I am partial to Reuters). It is especially important to cut out the cable “news” channels. Deal with nothing but hard news / facts for 2 or 3 full months. The world isn’t nearly as scary when you are only dealing with hard facts. After that, be highly selective about what analysis sources you select to add back in. Any source that is repeatedly contradictory to what is reported by the AP / Reuters should be discarded. I’m happy to make recommendations for anyone that would like to talk about it.
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Larry has a history of gnawing on his toes in front of the press. He hired Illinois’s Beckman (a friend) as an unpaid analyst last offseason and then had to let him go when admins stepped in. Beckman was found to have pressured trainers to play hurt players, among other player abuses. And then Larry went in front of press and claimed Beckman’s real crime was losing too many games. There have been other issues.
His team suffered a ridiculous run of season ending injuries last year, something like 17 across the two deep. Win 3 games, 2 of them FCS. Drawing fire for stuff like this is probably a poor career move.
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Larry would be a lot cooler if he wore a hat like Tom Landry.
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Imagine how great America would be if Bill Gates or Jeff Bezos had played football. Man – we’d all be multi-millionaires with no crime….and same day prime shipping everywhere!
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Sometimes I wonder if crap like this does anything to player morale. I mean, all other things being equal, if you’ve got one coach who accepts that CTE is real and goes through the proper protocols for players who show the signs, and another whose attitude is “You ain’t hurt, stop being a pussy and quit complainin’,” whose players would you think are more inclined to take a bullet for him?
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Football is under attack for more reasons than CTE. Too bad that we have to insert PC into everything a person says. Apparently Fedora doesn’t care or is not wise enough to keep his mouth shut because his bosses love PC more than anyone. He’s going into McElwain death threat territory.
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Someone should ask Larry “the Brain” Fedora if he would like to put on a helmet and get whacked with a hammer for a few hours.
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Just Fedora opening his mouth is the final, definitive proof of CTE in a human brain.
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I was thinking the same. Sounds like he’s exhibiting symptoms himself.
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If you go to the, National Art Gallery, you can see that famous portrait of Washington coaching Delaware.
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LOL!
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Sounds like Fedora took a few whacks to the head while playing. Stupid is as stupid does (says).
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“there’s a legitimate argument to be made that the mad scramble to change football rules may be driven more by a desire to avoid litigation than to find things that are legitimately effective in preventing head injuries”
^^^ This is exactly the problem. It’s why players are nonsensically thrown out of games even for inadvertent helmet to helmet contact that is often unavoidable. That doesn’t make our game better, it makes it worse. But if the NCAA can say in court that they threw out players for hitting too hard and eliminated kickoffs then maybe they’ll get some leniency on those punitive damages after blatantly ignoring safety issues for decades.
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Ask a 19 yo Marine that deployed downrange and put lead on-target if making football safer is making her soft, I dare you.
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How about Coach Hat worrying about not damn cheating and we on this blog will worry bout “Merica?
http://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/24134143/north-carolina-tar-heels-report-secondary-ncaa-violations-football
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