The new industrial revolution. On cspan2s booktv, unflinching courage, former senator Kay Bailey Hutchison on the women who helped shape texas. And on cspanbe 3s American History tv cspan3s American History tv, memories of the Civil Rights Era at 8 30. Ladies and gentlemen. Tried one more time. Were getting there. Almost there. Welcome. You dont have to stop eating. Gentlemen, theres still pizza and sodas back there. Welcome to the final office night of accuracy in academias 2013 conservative University Lecture series, brought to us by a generous grant from the fresco foundation. We do these to give you a chance to see and hear speakers and authors or you might not be exposed to on the campus you are from or even those of you over on the hill, the congressional committees that you work for. And a big thing that accuracy in academia and accuracy in media in covering media and academia have in common is that we continuously find this is what keeps us going from day to day, that just about everything weve heard in school and in the newspapers and on news broadcasts is wrong. So you can do this little experiment on your own by the way, just taking one story and then doing the research on it and think how well it holds up. Are one campus lecture. We do it day in day out. And a lot of our talk focus on current events, history, so this might seem an odd one but it fits because just about everything you hear about the dangers of football turn out to be wrong. I was astounded to learn that cheerleaders are at greater risk of physical danger than Football Players. But the gentleman we brought in, the author we brought in tonight to speak on this topic is my predecessor at accuracy in academia, a very accomplished author. Five books, right, dan . Why the west hates america, intellectual morons, a conservative history of the american left, blue collar intellectuals, and how am i doing . The war the war on football saving americas game. Now, how many people watch, try to watch at least one game of the weekend . Thats about what i thought. It usually fairly absorbing unless youre a redskins fan. [laughter] books on football are another story. This is the exception to the rule. It is a compelling read. I think youll find it some, and we have a compelling speaker and the man who wrote this book. Ladies and gentlemen, daniel flynn. [applause] thank you, mal. Thank you for coming out tonight. I figure since were in washington, d. C. Im talking about football we can sort of mix a little bit of americas game with the local sport, which is politics. And football for whatever reason is the big sport amongst politicians. People say the horse racing is the sport of kings, and i think if thats true football certainly is the sport of president. From everyone from Theodore Roosevelt to gerald ford playing at the university of michigan, an awful lot of president s who have had a real interest in the sport of football. And i think if you were to ask the people in this building, you know, whose your favorite football playing president , they would probably say Ronald Reagan. And while reagan a lot of people dont know played football at eureka college. He later was a playbyplay man for the university of iowa hawkeyes on w. H. O. Radio. His biggest involvement in football and, of course, from his role in the movie knute rockne, all american. In that movie of course Ronald Reagan got his nickname by playing george egypt, the gipper. And i think notre dame in College Football got a lot of more from Ronald Reagan. What i mean by that is if you watch that movie, knute rockne all american, theres a sense in which a notre dame they were not only building young bodies on the football field but they were building character. That they were basically building young men. A kind of propaganda for notre dame. What i mean by that is if you watch the movie, at a certain point knute rockne, theres a gambler, a book you stumbles in the room and he kicks them out and says we have no use for gamblers around you. He wrote to baseball, youve ruined or stressing. We will not let you ruin this clean game, and he throws him out. At a later point in the movie there was some politicians that want to do away with football because it is corrupting the at the gimmicks corrupting academia essentially. He said any player who flunks his classes is of no use to his coach, and any coach who plays a flunky as a player is just a fool. Reagan gets into the act. Reagan, really kind of hamhanded speech where he says there will never be but one knute rockne. Here at notre dame or anywhere else. He gives us something they cant teach in school. Something clean and strong inside. Not just courage under right way of living that none of us will ever forget. The right way of living that knute rockne and george get engaged in was they were both professional athletes sort of posing as amateurs when it played at notre dame. They were both being paid in other sports. Both of them were heavy gamblers. Gipp, you can call him a degenerate gambler, some who hung out in pool halls at night and just hustled people for money. They both bet on notre dame. We know george gipp as probably the greatest player that played at notre dame. The guy that reagan played in the movie. He averaged 6. 3 arts activity. His grade point average was something less than that. It was like 0. 0. His first one half years at notre dame theres no real record of him being there. He was what was called a tramp athlete. He sort of played for notre dame but didnt go to school there. And somewhat poignant bring this up is not too trashed knute rockne who could was a great coach or trigger on notre dame, which is a great institution. But its just to suggest the power of the mass media. The power of hollywood to shape perception. We have a perception of george gipp and knute rockne because of hollywood that is diametrically opposed to the reality of knute rockne and george gipp. Hollywood has the power to make bruce willis see dead people, to allow will smith to travel through time. It also has the power of making these two sinners saints on the silver screen. This is a lot like the controversy over football today. My book is about perception versus reality. We have a perception about football based on the mass media that the game is more dangerous than ever, that players die young if they play for a long time, that theres this epidemic of suicide in the nfl. And what i do in the war on football is i get the science and i tried over, the speculation with the science on the game, and the stories behind the game. And the reality is that the perception thats been created by the mass media with football over the last two years is almost in every instance wrong. And in some cases just, you know, 180 wrong. I got into this whole genesis of writing the war on football was a study that was put together by the National Institutes for Occupational Safety and health, National Institute of Occupational Safety and health of sciences. They put together last year. They looked at every nfl player who is pension vested, who played in the league between 19591980. Said guys like Lawrence Taylor and Joe Theismann and Walter Payton and dick butkus. You can go on and on for all these guys, about 3500 players who played in the late in those 30 or so years. And the reasons they looked at this point because theres this wide suspicion in the public that nfl players die young. That they died in the 50s. Again take such a toll on the body that their Health Outcomes are just absolutely horrible. This is something that has been spread in the Mainstream Press but its not like youre an anonymous blogger cinks. George wills was probably the most widely read columnist in america. Last year he wrote for all players who play five or more years, Life Expectancy is less than 60. For alignment it is much less. Abc news, the average Life Expectancy of a retired Football Player is 58 years. Espn. Com says the average Life Expectancy of american male is about 75. The average Life Expectancy of a retired in the local player is 5359 years old. The federal scientist look into this at the guest of the Nfl Players Association and what they found shocked a lot of people. Nfl players dont die young. They actually outlive their peers and society. They have a longer Life Expectancy. This mortality study was expecting to find about an 18 death rate amongst these nfl players. They found a 10 death rate, almost half of was expected based upon the prevailing rates in society. They look at 17 different disease categories, and in 14 of the 17 different disease categories the nfl players have better Health Outcomes than the average joe, the comparable got out in society. So things like heart disease, cancer, respiratory illness, diabetes, even suicide was much lower amongst the nfl players and then it was amongst men in society. Theres sort of a trend for equality but if you run up and down the practice you for two hours every day, if you have intense diet and training, if you have access to the best medical care in the world like these nfl players do, if you have general have a restraint from vice, not every nfl player is restrained from flies but generally if youre not smoking cigarettes and doing all sorts of crazy does drugs, you probably have better Health Outcomes. So its a little shocking to me that people were shocked by this survey. This is an example of the publics perception eating shaved not by the facts on the ground but by a lot of misinformation with regard to columnists and writers and been primed to believe that the nfl takes decades off your life. Winning back the sciences, the nfl players are outliving their peers. They have better Health Outcomes. Another one of these perception versus reality, the clash between the two, involves the idea that bigger, faster, stronger means deadlier. That the nfl players are much bigger than it used to be and so the game is much more dangerous. The players at the high school level, college level, ma at every level, its a fast again, a bigger game, so its going to be a deadlier game. Well, not really. The nfl sorry, not the nfl, but football in general used to be a pretty deadly game. People would die on the field, and the height of the violence was in 1960. There were 36 players at all levels of competition who were killed by football hits. And im a big fan of football but even for me, thats a little bit hard to justify for what amounts to be a kids game. You can have all these people dying on the field because of a game. Society didnt really notice much in 1968 because in 1968 there were bombings and assassinations and riots in the streets. There were deep casuals in vietnam. So the american people, that wasnt the outrage and football as there is no, but the football people noticed and they made changes to the game. Thats a big point of my book, the war on football, is that football is not just a game of violence and ruckus. Its a game of change. Always evolving, progressing. Its not like baseball or soccer that are static games the remain the same but its an evolving game. After that 58 season, within a few years, there were rules on spewing. You could no longer do headfirst his. You would get penalized for the. Equipment changed. They used to be something called a webbed suspension of a. You would wear a hard shell helmet with a piece of fabric essentially keeping it from hitting that hard shell when it was a collision. That technology was invented right before world war ii by aei named john t. Rebuild to the military liked it so much they conscripted this obama essentially for military use. I was a marine for many years and i wore that web suspension helmet into the 21st century. Football got rid of that technology in the 1970s. And as twisted as it sounds, we equip our Football Players better in this country than we do our soldiers and marines. Coaching got better. Heads up tackling. Coaches not, you know, no longer saying put you head between the numbers and that kind of thing. All of these things combined to bring football from the point where they had 36 deaths from galatians in 1968, the last season where there were two deaths from galatians. Again got dramatically safer. At the time we should been giving football a pat on the back, were giving it a kick below the belt. To put this in perspective, there were no kids that died last year from a football hit. More kids died getting struck by lightning than playing football last season, then getting struck by other players. But yet the perception that you glean from the news is that the game is more dangerous than ever. It is safer than ever. I think one of the ways you can kind of grasp that the game is safer than ever, is how the conversation has shifted. No one much talks about players getting killed on the field anymore. They talk about players getting concussions. And i dont want to downplay the risk of concussion or the dangers of concussions, but i think its safe to say that a concussion is a much less permanent outcome than a death from a football hit. That its something, the symptoms generally disappear and, obviously, with the death they dont disappear. The fact were talking a concussions and about players getting killed, i think that is a sign by the football critics that the game has gotten safer. Now when footballs critics talk about concussions, they generally do in conjunction with the idea of ccd, chronic traumatic encephalopathy. You heard a lot of this on the news, a lot, never players can people like junior sail, mike wester and john mackey really great players who had a lot of trouble cognitively in the last years when some scientists looked at the brains after they were dead they found that they had ctd, this nurtured unit bring disease. If you watched the pbs documentary that has been airing, the impression left by lead to denial is that football causes cte and that the nfl has known about this for years that its trying to cover it up. That is the animating idea behind the documentary league of denial. If you watch you get that impression. Its not until 72 minutes in that you outsider a dissenting voice. So for 72 minutes to get agreement and youre bound to think this is what scientists really. Its actually not what scientists believe the scientists believe the opposite. The best brain scientist in sports got together last year at the International Conference on concussion and sports, and they crafted a consensus state. In that consensus statement they had some words about cte. This is what they say. They said the cause and effect relationship has not yet been demonstrated between cte and concussions, our exposure to contact sport. Why would they say this . The reason theyre saying this is because there hasnt even been a randomized study done on cte and football. There had been an it goes. We have autopsies. We essentially have junk science. People say, well, its settled science that football causes cte. Its not. Its junk science that centers. What i mean by junk science is that science that doesnt have any applications beyond the immediate subject of study. That you can make any sweeping generalizations based on it. That if youre looking at an individual players or brain, youre not doing a randomized study, you can tell us about that individual players brain but you cant tell us about other players and you get those the incident rate of cd a month people in society where people in the nfl. This is the kind of study that done with cigarettes in 1956 of the bridge doctor study to show that theres a link between cigarettes and cancer. That kind of a study hasnt even been attempted with cde. What we have autopsies done with, admittedly, a selection bias. In other words, scientists doing after brains that they believe to have been brain damaged in their lives, and finding lo and behold when they do and not toxic, they have brain damage. Shocking. One of the big concerns that other scientists have, let me take that there is article after article. And income if you look in academic publications, criticizing the Boston University group and others that are doing some of the cte research, this is just the stuff in the last few months, looking at one of the criticisms that they have is that the two main groups studying cte have different definitions of what cte is. Able studying candidature have different definitions of cancer, but cte is so new that you groups that are debating what exactly it is. And the Boston University group that was featured so prominently in later denial, one of the criticism thats been levied at them is that their definition of cte is so elastic as almost guarantee they will find what youre looking for. Theres a condition that naturally occurs in human beings that 97 of all people get in the brains. That condition is being used to determine whether someone has cte or not. Doesnt have anything to do with drama, so why is it being used at the determine whether someone has cte . Thats one of the criticisms of the group. To me, one of the great things about science is that even if youre not the person doing initial studies if it signs the fines can be replicated elsewhere. No one has been able to replicate this amazing percentage of Football Players found with cte that the bu group has done to their find almost cte in every case and yet theres other groups come the find 50 of the cases, all with selection bias, all going after brains everything to been brain damaged. Other groups not find it to that level. I think that something that really should set off a red light and has set off a red flag in the scientific community. The reason why, one of the main reasons why theyre such a huge interest in concussions in cte has to do with the players lawsuit against the nfl that was recently settled for 765 million, for a lot of money. I think it would shock a lot of people to know that about 10 of the players suing the nfl never actually played a down in an nfl game. Is a guys who got cut in the preseason, guys who may have made a practice squad but they never ask that into an nfl game. If you look at the players who actually made an nfl team and got on the field, that went on to sue the nfl, you have kickers who played in five games. You have backup quarterbacks who barely played at all. You have replacement players from the 1987 strike who played in those three replace the games in 1987. I dont think yet to be a particularly cynical person to look at this and say, well, gee, these guys played in pop warner, they played in high school, played in college. They may have played in other pro leagues, but they got the brain damage from a cup of coffee they had in the nfl . I really find it hard to believe. So i think for a lot of these guys and i will say the bulk of the guys in the nfl, it was a giant moneygram. Im not doubting that theres some guys that were suing the league that had damage that walked away from the game with a lot of damage. We know theres guys thats true of, but i think for the 40th or so guys that were suing the nfl, a lot of them thought they had the litigation lottery, and they were right. Now, what bothers me about all this is that the propaganda surrounding the professional game has been projected upon high school and pop warner. There are players who have played football and, we damaged, as i said. And at the nfl level they are finding that this confines itself to alzheimers and als generally with skill position players, have really elevated rates. To project those findings upon High School Players or pop warner place, to me is beyond reckless because they have done science on this. The mayo clinic last year released a study in which the income hypothesis was they were going to find elevated rates of narrow degenerative diseases amongst high school Football Players who played High School Football at mid century. They compared these guys with members of the glee club, with the choir, with the band, and they were shocked to find out that not only were there no real differences between the glee club members, band members, choir and Football Players, but in a lot of instances those guys with the musical interests had a little bit higher levels of parkinsons, of lou gehrigs disease. In other words, whats happening to a very small subset of players at an elite level, there is no evidence thats happening at the high school level. Theres a couple dozen guys who play in the nfl, according to this night josh study, a 3500 guys be looked at, 12 of them died of neurodegenerative disease. In other words, less than one half of 1 of all because theyre looking at. 12 guys. Thats the rate was higher that was anticipated but we are still talking a very tiny, tiny fraction of players. Was there something there if youre playing a certain position like linebacker or defensive back at the end of level for years and years . There might be something there, but that doesnt mean every kid is playing pop warner is going to be condemned to a its reckless to put that four. I think thats what the lawsuit did. The irony of the nfl lawsuit was that the players heard every lead that they were not suing here but they didnt hurt the one lake they were suing one bit. In the nfl, approaching about 10 billion in revenue. You know, they are the highest rated television show, sunday night football. A league that sells Parking Spaces on game day for 50 bucks, they dont have to worry about paying out 755 million. They will survive. They are doing fine. But a league that those candy bars doortodoor to pay for shoulder pads, those are the leagues that really have to worry. Recently there was a poll conducted on hbo real sports and Marist College in which they asked people, knowing what you know about football and brain injuries, would you allow your kid to play . 33 had reservations about allowing their kid to play. We are already seeing this in action. Most recent statistics show High School Football was down, the numbers were down for the first time in about 20 years. Youth football lost 6 of its player population last year. So if you think about football as a spectator sport, football is doing fine. If you think about it as a participatory sport the kids play in, football is struggling for its life. There is an existential crisis going on with football and its not something thats coming 10 or 20 years down the road. Its happening right now. I think this is a terrible thing for american boys. Theres a bit of a culture clash going on. Our culture is very passive aggressive. Its an indoor culture. Its antiseptic. And football and young boys, you know, its mighty, its very outdoor oriented, its aggressive, rough. I think you football didnt exist, some 10 year old boy out there would invented. Football clashes with culture but a really meshes with the boys, and i think boys really need football but if you think about the crisis of boys in america today, you go into almost any classroom in america and theyre somewhat bouncing up and down off the walls. He has a lot of energy. And instead of giving him a basketball or a football, we give them ritalin, give them after all. We drug them. Or a medical condition known as boilers. Think about the b. C. 40 years ago, about one out of every 20 teenagers was obese. Now its one out of every five. So we have an obesity problem in this country. To me, traditionally the ostrich is linked in the way to get the class thats off the couch and into simply because the edges of the game is the bronze, to both. Other sports make those decisions. Football makes those an event. A lot of people think you bulk up for football. Made at the college of provo but most people play football at the youth level where there are generally weight limits. To football can be a tool against, to fight against obesity. Obesity is the biggest Public Health concern for young people in this country today. There are some people who think the biggest Health Concern has to do with the brains. It doesnt. It has to do with our bellies. We are increasingly becoming an obese, fat nation. In sports we should be encouraging sports, we shouldnt be encouraging sloths. The biggest crisis facing american boys today is the lack of male role models that they have. About 40 of boys grow up without a dad in the home. And im not suggesting that sports are football can replace a bad. It cant. A dad. If youre a kid and you need discipline, you can find that on a football field. If you need focus, male camaraderie, a male authority figure, you can find that on a football field. A lot of what ails american boys, maybe cannot be cured but can be held in a great degree by sports, and especially by the sport of football. This war on football is not just bad for boys. Its bad for america. Football is americas game. If you think about the things that unite us as americans, you can probably count them on a four fingered hand. Theres not too many things that we come together on in this country, and were divided by politics, divided by religion, divided by what Cable News Network rewatch. But on sunday about twothirds of america comes together and they watch football. They do this on super bowl sunday. Most of americans sitting in front of a tv set. You may dislik just like this oe it, but its a fact. When you look up in the stands at a Football Game you see america. When you look on the field, you see people from all geographic locations. You see people from all different class distinction that you see people from all different racial groups. It is america down on the field. Thats something we should be encouraging. We shouldnt be trying to stamp that out. Think about what happened in new orleans a few years ago after hurricane katrina. The city looked down in out, and it almost looked like their Football Team to remember the new Orleans Saints . There was such a pathetic Football Game that the fans were bags over their head. All of a sudden after hurricane katrina, theres all these politicians trying to bring back new orleans. They all failed. They cant get the city back. They can bring it back. What brought back new orleans . Whats in america on notice that new orleans was back, was the new Orleans Saints super bowl run. At and amid the city but it brought it to life. It showed us that new orleans the reports of its death were greatly exaggerated. I know theres some people who think that silly that we unite behind a Football Team. Why cant the city unite on something higher and more noble than that . I dont know. Its just the fact that thats what they decided to unite behind. Isnt that a good thing . Shouldnt we appreciate that . Should we encourage that . Its not just professional teams. Look in texas, the High School Football on friday night. What that does to a community. Some of these College Towns turn into major my troubles is on saturday. What football can do to galvanize the community. Theres very few things that have that kind of power, to have the power of football. Its americas game. We started talking about some of the president s and their obsession with football for whatever reason. I think it would be a good place to close and then we can take some questions. The president most closely associated with football is Theodore Roosevelt. And Theodore Roosevelts interest in football was highlighted in 1905 because they had such a brutal season. There were more players killed on one saturday in 1905 from football hits than were killed all last season. Thats a brutal take a. Theodore roosevelt held a white house summit not far from here on football, where he wanted to have the big schools pledge for a clear game, follow the rules. After that 1905 season, it was sort of a microcosm of football. The game evolves. Thats the message in my book. Thats the message in the war on football. However, bad situation seems are football now and people are upset about safety, football always evolves, always adapts and overcomes. After that 1905 season, we got a forward pass, the neutral zone, they banded the idea of Forward Motion to use have offered to players could get a head start before the stepford they said no more of that. You see that in the arena league star. So there were major changes in football. And i think if football cancer by the introduction of the forward pass it certainly can survive the fact that we are going to fly the running backs are going to head and defensive players not in the end of the. Thats a minor tweak compared to some of the major changes that football has endured over the years. Change is a component. Its an integral part of the game of football. The tradition of football is almost after tradition of change. Roosevelt, despite all the brutality that he witnessed and read about that season on the football field, many years earlier he made the remarks that he would rather have his kids play football than any other sport. And, in fact, that year his son Theodore Roosevelt junior played football. He got bloodied and beat up at harvard. And if anyone knows a thing about Theodore Roosevelt, jr. That was sort of foreshadowing for his life in europe at dday, the oldest man at dd. The only fatherson team to be at dday. He got a bloody nose at our. I do know tha that cabbage withn intuitive experience later in life but theres some benefits to the game of football. The president that im more interested in is Woodrow Wilson, that guy that Theodore Roosevelt ran against later and lost. And Woodrow Wilson before he was president a lot of people dont know he was actually a football coach. He helped coach the team at westerly and princeton. And this controversy over football today, the war on football come it didnt start the day before yesterday. In the 19th century Woodrow Wilson debated the subject to big audiences. Should we encourage the game of football . And he took the affirmative position. And his recent was that comment and let me get my trusty notes here cannot misquote president wilson. But he said, he thought football developed more moral qualities in any of the game of athletics. He pointed to decisiveness, and turns, presence of mind. He said a lot of sports encourage those qualities but there are two qualities that are really unique to football that you dont find so much in other sports. Those were cooperation and self subordination. And if you think about it, in baseball we just witness the Boston Red Sox won the world series based on they had a good team but really they rode one guy, or at least one position player. He was the designated hitter. He had an amazing world series, and the rest of the team was sort of okay. In hockey, if you have a hot goalie, your players can be playing mediocre, your forwards and defensemen, but you can win a stanley cup based on a hot goalie. You cant have just one great put in football and expect to win. If you think about it, these guys are called lehman. Its really strange. You dont find is another sport. Are not allowed to touch the ball really, at least on a decidedly let alone score touchdowns. Every other sport generally youre allowed to score destiny of a chance to score points. But football theres that unheralded position of alignment. A guy who fights in the trenches, who never hears the crowd chant his name to get his were integral to the success of ofthe team that a lot of guys wo hear their names chanted. Thats a lot like life. We dont always get a gold star for our efforts. But we dont always get a pat on the back. You are not always people chanting our name, and thats a great life lesson football teaches. I think the big take away for anyone who has ever played the game, and ive heard this said by Vince Lombardi educators said by some random nine year old who just stepped on the gridiron for the first time this past fall, and its the observation that on just about every play in football summit its not on their ass. So it gets knocked in the dirt, knocked down in the mud and what does football teach them . It teaches them to get up, to fight, to dont stay down in the dirt, that when you get knocked down you get back out. You can walk a few blocks from their from Heritage Foundation you see all sorts of people who have been knocked down and never got out. The common denominator of everyone in this room and avoid watching at home is that weve all been knocked on our but at some point in life. Everyone has been knocked down here in the great thing about football is that it teaches us enduring lessons. Get up after youve been knocked down. That is a good habit to have in life. Football is a great life lesson. It is a metaphor for life in a lot of ways, and i think thats thats basic lesson is a great guide to live by. When you get knocked down, get up. Theres a lot of people out there that are saying you should be ashamed to watch football on saturday, on sunday, that its a gladiator sport. Look at guys dying in the coliseum, despite the fact that 94 years in the nfl theres not been a Single Player who died from a football hit. Two guys building lead by staking out in San Francisco died building it. Construction, thats a dangerous profession. Police officers is a dangerous profession. Football is a rough profession but any nfl its not a deadly profession. We shouldnt be ashamed to watch human greatness. A lot of what we see is athletic greatness in the nfl. We shouldnt be afraid to watch it. We shouldnt be ashamed of it. For my message in my book, the message i want to leave you with today is that its okay to watch. Its better to cheer, and best of all, to play. Thank you so much. I look forward to your questions. [applause] not everyone at once. [inaudible] is this thing on . I wanted to ask the question about your thoughts on the science of dr. Robert kent and his Impact Company spent theres a company known as impact, and if you are playing football theres something nowadays called these narrow cognitive test, these baseline test you take before the season. Then if you get a concussion but theres a suspected concussion you would think that baseline test again to see if youre up to speed. If youre not up to speed this can be used as a tool to keep you out of play. In the book i talk at Great Lengths about this Company Impact because theres been a lot of scholarships done on impact, particularly by a guy named robert labelle. Sorry, mark lavelle. And a lot of the scholarships touts impact and suggests impact is really effective. And in many of these scholarly articles you dont learn that robert labelle, the guy touting impact and is also the president of the company, ceo, the guy whos making millions of dollars off of you. A lot of nfl teams use this. Formerly one uses a. Debbie w. D. Has used. So its a big business. I have a chapter called concussions into their concussions have become a big business. The internet is not that much different from the sort of 19th century buckboard snake oil salesmen. You can go in Health Food Stores now and buy a sports drink elixir that promises to help you cure your concussion. You can get bills, there are things called brain pad, mouthpieces that act as though they will help you with a concussion. Headbands, as if they had been is going to do something. So theres a lot of money to be made on concussions, and a lot of what were seeing out there in Health Food Stores and Sporting Goods stores on the internet, is Just Snake Oil salesmen really capitalizing on hysteria. And doctors, the traditional a scientist and the doctor is to throw a bucket of water on the fires of history. And thats one of the reasons im so attracted to speak the for and accuracy in academia audience because so much of the good work on this is being done by academics. Immediate has really sensationalized the concussion issue, and the academics are saying look, this is sensationalism, alarmism. Its gone too far. A lot of times in these circles academics get back. You academics that are doing a great job. One of the things theyre doing a great job of is pointing out that look, all of these concussion elixirs and these mouthpieces and these headbands are not going to do anything for you to prevent a concussion or do anything if you have a concussion. So everyone calm down, you dont have to pay 150 bucks for a mouthpiece. I have some chipped teeth. Maybe i wish i was wearing a mouthpiece. It will not do anything for your brain. [inaudible] spent oh, yeah, sure. I wasnt sure who had their hand at first. Dan, my question was, obviously football is a game played by big guys wearing heavy that you with the hockey is a fast game with the guys who wear a lot of padding, less protective helmets who played on a harder surface, maybe ice encompassed by boards that dont give at all when you get hit. Do you think the nfl and football angel should look at outfitting their players in a lighter pad and a letter held to encourage less headtohead hits . I think if you look at whats going on theres a natural progression that its not going to stop with the nfl. It moves on to hockey which has a concussion incidents thats less than football but not that much less. It will move on to the cross. It will move on to other sports until maybe we have marbles le left. And there are already people saying lets ban headfirst slides in baseball. Lets ban checking in hockey. So its not just going to stop with football. There has been talk about, well, maybe the helmet is giving too much confidence to players and thats why theyre getting these injuries. The problem with the argument that i see is that helmets are designed to protect the head, to protect against these sort of catastrophic the reason this was done before because they get scratchers fractured schools but that doesnt happen much anymore at all because the helmets are so effective. But no helmet can be effective in preventing a concussion. Its been pointed out you dont have the helmet inside of your skull to protect your brain from running around. A lot of people think helmets are going to a better helmets then we will have no concussions. Thats not going to happen. To help the ticket will be be very marginal. But there is an argument that all of this equipment is giving guy sort of a false sense of security, and thats why they are playing with their heads down. A lot of interest in Brandon Meriwether around here, a guy who plays will it all out football sort of old school football, and ive noticed him dipping the head down. Thats very dangerous. There is a sense than football that weve got to protect the offense to players from the evil defensive guys, but th the realy is if you look at theres a football, the guys who are suffering deaths and catastrophic injuries tend to be defensive players much more than offense to players. And so really what these rules are designed to do is to protect guys like Brandon Meriwether as much as protect the offense of players. I think we have a very some of the conceptions we have about the game of football are wrong. In fact, in 1905, the conception was that all these injuries were happening because it was a very bunched up again. We didnt have a forward pass, a lot of runs. The defenses were just like summit on the line, three linebackers and one city. So it was a bunched up, crept up came. Lets open it up. They were wrong because when you open up a game thats when most of interest occur. People going at each other full speed. Kickoff is a good example of that. Nowadays the misconception is that weve got to protect the baby offenses like players from the mean ogre type defensive players. What effect the guys getting hurt with a big injuries, catastrophic injuries, deaths, historically they tend more to be defensive players than offense of players. Roger. And, congratulations on the book. Thank you. This week theres a new controversy going on in the nfl which has to do with psychological damage. Is this a hidden epidemic in the sport we havent seen much about before when 300pound guys voice another 300pound cant . Hes talking about this which he incognita store to Miami Dolphins with another player, a second year player. Just looking at this, theres no way to defend this guy, incognita. Sounds like theyre shaking people down for money itself at some the dolphins players are really kind of abusive towards the younger guys. The only way i can make sense of it, as i said are of the military for a number of years. A lot of things you do in the military that if i were to say hey this is what we did utah look at me like i have a thousand heads, like what the heck are you talking about . Because theres a military culture, i stress the word cult figure sort of indoctrinated into. Anyone looking at it from the outside will say, what do you mean youre Walking Around naked with a rifle with your gear on . Thats crazy. Its just a funny thing we did. Thats the kind of culture when you have this sort of small unit mentality. And i wonder if thats, that everything is going on any of the were anyone in the nfl, ma this makes sense to them, but anyone like myself is outside the league is in this is crazy. How could this guy leaders in singh voiced a message on this guys answer machine . How could he torment him in this way . Odyssey richi Richie Incognito l have his day and he can defend himself and maybe we will find out that he was as those as we all think but right now i just dont know how you can really defend that. Theres only people i seem to think our guys in the nfl which makes me believe that theres this culture going on that seems normal to the people within the cold, at the people outside of it are saying, who drank the koolaid . This is absolutely crazy. So i dont really know what that story is going, and my sense is that some heads are going to roll in miami. And i wonder Richie Incognito is a great player but how can he be a great teammate after what we saw . How anyone bring back on when he, when hes that kind of a commit . Football is a team sport, and so i think he should maybe work about his job prospects. [inaudible] [laughter] next question. You mentioned numerous times that football is regarded as a very evolutionary sport. I mean, we see this even down to the ball of choice. Its an oblong shape versus a round ball, contrast to basically every other sport. But having an evolutionary spirit also means its subject to change. And change is not always good. So is not the evolutionary spirit of football both a gift and a curse . Well, i think its a gift because theres always these controversies about the sport of football. And football is able to react. If you were to play baseball 100 years ago, if you are tight, and suddenly magically you were to appear through time travel on a baseball field today, he would know how to play the game. The game hasnt changed. Its a static game. Soccer is the same way. If you try to change a rule in baseball, Something Like instant replay, the traditionalists will scream bloody murder. You cayou cant do that. I understand because baseball is different. Baseball is a very traditional game. Football is not a traditional game. You brought up the steroids, football they play with. And that came about because harvard was playing mcgill, a canadian university. Magill wanted to use the rugby ball. Harvard wanted to use the round ball and at a certain point harvard like that rugby ball so to basically force anyone who is playing harvard, hey, play with a rugby ball. The rules change in the way. You can tell a harvard man, but you cant tell him much, right . Everyone had to do what harvard was doing. When football started the first intercollegiate game ever between princeton and rutgers at rutgers in new brunswick, new jersey, in 1959, they kicked the ball into a coal just like soccer. They kicked a round ball in a goal. But within a few years the players decided its a lot more fun to kick the ball above the goal than beneath it. Thats we get the goalposts. You get the ball a long dated overtime. To get rule changes like the forward pass in the neutral zone. We were talking are you about the fact that touchdown come yet to touch the ball down physically. They didnt have in zones. They were all sorts of innovations in football, you know, in equipment, and rules, in the field of play, and that have change. Thats no different now. The point i think i made in the speech, again if youre able to change the size of the ball, if you able to add insult, if your able to say hey, lets kick the ball beneath the goalposts instead about that, at a forward pass which no rugby game ever done. You dont pass the ball forward in rugby but you can do that football. Give google people complained at the time this is grass basketball. If you were able to do all that, youre able to introduce a running game and pass the ball which negates kicking but you can still call the game foot ball, then i think we are okay. If ncaa officials are able to kick out defensive players who put on, you know, gets on defenseless receivers. We are okay with that because those are really minor tweaks concerning the bigger picture. Your question may be getting at, the big nightmare scenario for football fans is that one day well all wake up and the players are not wearing pants. They are wearing flags. This has already happened. This happened at a school in new jersey, lawrenceville prep, where the headmistress decided football was too dangerous. And so they got rid of the oldest tackle Football League in the country and they replaced it with a flag Football League. In massachusetts, in newton, every year they have this powder puff girls Football Game thats a flag Football Game. Sometimes it gets read and understand that it is a flag that walking. The principal of the school decided to ban it because flag football was too dangerous. So its not going to stop with football but its not going to stop with flag football. And if you like some other sport better, they may be coming after that one next. And let me just close with this. Football has not grown too rough. The message of my book, and then, is that society the war on football, is that society has grown to saw. Thank you for coming out tonight, i appreciate it. [applause] thank you, all. Just a couple closing notes. Visit the following website, our sister group, accuracy in media, www. Aim. Org. And our website, accuracy in academia. Org. Mr. Flynns website, flynn files. Com. Has a variety of cultural, political observations on there that are well worth reading. And, of course, check out mr. Flynns book. Once again this meeting was brought to you as all our authors nights are from the generous grant from the fresco Fund Foundation which sponsors the conservative University Lecture series that we run every year. Thank you, all, for joining us. Have a good night and stay in touch. [applause] [inaudible conversations] is there a Nonfiction Author a book you would like to see featured on booktv . Send us an email at otb at cspan. Org, or tweet us at twitter. Com booktv. Spent with a few weeks left in 2013, many publications are putting out their year end list of notable books. These titles were included in Publishers Weekly best books of 2013. Mary roach explains the Science Behind the human digestive system in gulp. In dirty wars, jeremy scahill, National Security correspondent for the nation magazine, reports on americas covert operations. For an extended list and links to other publications 2013 notable book selections, visit booktvs web site, booktv. Org. Now on booktv, historian William Seale examines the transformation of washington, d. C. s political and physical landscape between the spanishamerican war and world war i. This program from the society of the cincinnatis Anderson House in washington, d. C. Is 40 minutes. [applause]