TOW #17 Non-fiction "Editorials say football is on right path with player safety changes"

With the Super Bowl tonight, the only thing in my mind was football, football, and football. But I still have to write a TOW, so what better topic to write about than football on Super Bowl Sunday? Football is America's sport, but it hit its roadblock a couple years ago when head injuries became a major issue. However Bill Bradley, an editor of nfl.com, using a comparison between past football and present football and a quote from president Theodore Roosevelt, argues that football has changed for the better and is still a valuable part of America.

Bradley compares how rules in football, both in game and in practice, have changed from the past to show how football now is much safer for players. Recently, "the NFL and college programs have been introducing rule changes to prohibit players from returning to a game or practice if they have sustained a concussion." The players union in the NFL came together to limit "physical contact in practice, once a major source of injury." Teams now "only practice once a day and generally save tackling for the actual games" and the restriction of "water at training camps to "toughen up" players" is a thing of the past as dehydration became a major reason of injury. Football has become a much safer sport and can not be criticized for unsafe practices.

Bradley also quotes president Theodore Roosevelt which establishes Bradley's own appeal to ethos by quoting such an influential figure. Bradley argues to "not overreact to a handful of tragic injuries and legislate or litigate away a game that means so much to so many Americans.Teddy Roosevelt, the president who "saved" football in an earlier era, warned that abolishing the game would result in turning out "mollycoddles instead of vigorous men." "It is to my mind simple nonsense, a mere confession of weakness," he thundered in 1907, "to desire to abolish a game because tendencies show themselves, or practices grow up, which prove the game ought to be reformed." Even Roosevelt supports football, making football an even more American game and valuable part of American culture that can't be erased because of a small number of head injuries.

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