September 12, 2007
When Buffalo Bills tight end Kevin Everett suffered paralysis on Sunday following a big hit, it was a personal and professional tragedy.But football injuries are common - that's why the NFL maintains an Injured Reserve List - and even crippling ones such as Everett's are not unheard of (see: Darryl Stingley, Dennis Byrd and others). In fact, in the early part of the 20th Century, President Theodore Roosevelt threatened to outlaw the sport due to the number of deaths among college players. Ultimately, helmets, other equipment and rule changes helped make football less deadly.
So GP was surprised to see Virginia Pilot columnist Bob Molinaro drag video games into a discussion of Everett's injury under the headline Video-game generation may be desensitized to NFL injuries:
I imagine there's a large segment of NFL fans that envisions pro football to be the embodiment of the video games they love to play.
...I've got a feeling that a certain percentage of males, those whose senses have been bombarded by video violence all their lives, are attracted to pro football by the slickly edited TV images that are a variation of their virtual-reality experiences.
This makes me wonder if the catastrophic injury to Buffalo Bills tight end Kevin Everett will make any real impression on the desensitized adolescents and adults raised with the cartoon violence of "Madden '08" or "NFL Blitz," or the absurd blood-and-guts scenarios associated with other Xbox games.
...I wonder if any of this hits home with the very large and growing demographic that comes to football through the make-believe violence of video games. In that world, jacked-up players always bounce back, returning as good as new when the game is switched on.
GP: The invention of American football preceded that of video games by roughly 100 years, and it's always been a dangerous sport. Participants opt in knowing that they risk injury. Relating what happened to Kevin Everett to folks playing Madden is simply ludicrous. Molinaro comes off looking like just another guy who doesn't get gamers.
Meanwhile, the latest reports we've seen indicate that Kevin Everett is doing much better and we wish him all the best.
Comments
This country (planet?) is way too vested in sports. I find it hilarious that all these hardcore skinhead republican types love their football so much... since nine roided-out guys piling up on each other is just about the gayest thing ever.
On the subject of the columnist: He's either a placating opportunist, which I think is the more likely scenario... or he's fucking nuts. I hate football as much as he (apparently) does but seriously, isn't it safer to have a bunch of pixels collide than a bunch of HGH-infused 350 pound psychos? The latter is just asking for trouble, while the former might just get you a red ring of death.
"Which only means…someone needs to get Oprah a Wii."
For some reason, I would bet that she has one already. I don't know why.
...might have something to do with the large castle made out of money that she probably has somewhere.
But yeah. I hope that if/when she speaks out on the subject, it's after doing some proper research.
Regarding the article, it really is insulting. I don't care for football one whit, but when I learned about Everett's injury on the news a couple days ago, I felt awful. As plenty of other GAMERS here have said, NO ONE wishes that sort of thing on anyone else, and we're ALL horrified by the implications.
Does some asshat quarterback who treats people like dirt deserve to slip in the MUD, or get his Porsche towed? Sure, I'd laugh at that. Career-ending, life-altering injuries? Never, no matter how much I didn't care for the guy.
Drawing the parallel was recklessly and slanderously gratuitous. It was completely uncalled for, and I would hope for (but don't really expect) some sort of retraction or apology, citing the baselessness for the comparison.
Oh, looks like I just pulled a Bob Molinaro.
I think you give them too little credit. Especially Larouche. Do yourself a favor and never read anything he wrote.
His argument is much stronger without ever mentioning video games and the fact that he felt he had to shoehorn then in as some sort of cultural boogeyman causing the problems is lamentable and just shows how out of touch he is. But hes a sports columnist, so i guess its easier to blame the problems he sees in his sport on an outside cultural influence even as he is writing an article exposing it in his own sport, because then he can go to sleep at night without having to feel that he is part of the problem for covering (and thus to a certain extent promoting) football.
Just to mention, i am a long-time football fan and i dont think its a terrible sport or something but i do think some of the recent media trends have been playing to the base impulses of humanity and i watch a lot less of it now then i used to (back int he heyday i used to watch ESPN a whole lot to follow the sunday's events).
No offense, natch, I'm just taking out my anger about this heartless hack on you.
@Zigs:
Jesus H. Christ man, they're football players, not drug lords.
Then I read the story. WTF.
GP: yeah, I wavered on WTF... still am, in fact. don't be surprised if it disappears...
I may try to write Mr. Molinaro tonight.
it's an insult to gamers, football fans, Kevin Everett and the people who are close to him.
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We don't care about Kevin Everett? Who is writing the article exploiting his accident?
So I read the article more as a plea to remember the people in football rather than their fame and statistics. I actually don't disagree with him. The other truth he glosses over is that spectators hope to see grotesque injuries replayed over and over, because it plays to the violent nature of humans. For example, many NASCAR fans love to see a good wreck, especially if the driver walks away from it. When they don't, they become martyrs, practically.
In a way, the article seems to address the guilt the columnist feels about being a sports commentator, and that's admirable.
i disagree with your position, but see how you could come to such a conclusion.
as stands, i've left the article a comment to show my displeasure with how tactlessly it was written.
Ha ha, how can an adult write such tripe without going red in the face? These video-game haters seem to have a set of stock phrases that they use increasingly liberally. I am from the UK but I would think these football players are athletes of a high standard, not some child who played Madden and thought he would take a pop at superbowl fame.
I think any fan would be aware of the physical risks involved in the sport, perhaps they play Madden to avoid those risks for themselves. I feel for my fellow gamers in the US, if this is the stage at which the video-game witchhunt has got to.
I remember hearing about it on the news, and I felt bad for the guy, and I play some disturbed games. Just not sports games. So how would a fan of both football and football games feel when some guy classifies them as a group so desensitized to violence, that this event is just a roadbump?
He's concerned that not enough people were concerned about Everett's injury? What's he looking for, a national moment of silence? Some money? What? This is wracking my brain here.
But I have a question - a genuine one.
- Does anyone here know what the local reaction has been like? I was a teen working at Schaeffer Stadium at the time of Stingley's injury (though it was an away game), and remember how that story gripped the area for quite a while.
I am not saying that equivalence should be a metric of whether or not to blame video games - if anything I would attribute it to the ultra-fast media cycle.
1. I seriously doubt very many people come to football through videogames. If anything, it's the other way around.
2. I haven't played Madden seriously, or Blitz at all, but I have played more than ten franchise seasons of NFL 2K5. In fact, it's probably closer to twenty. In that game at least, "jacked-up players" don't always bounce back. Season-ending injuries are common, and from time to time, the duration of an injury is listed as "career". I remember wincing the first time I encountered that one (and it wasn't even a player on my own team, so I didn't have the emotional investment you can get to a good player, even in a videogame).
In closing: if you think playing football is too dangerous, by all means work towards making it safer, or outlawing it, or whatever you prefer (personally, I'd start with boxing, but that's just me). But at least recognize that it's the sport that's the problem, not electronic representations of it.
Adding to your comment, over time, the players and the game itself has evolved, players have gotten faster and stronger, and the game has become a full-time job between off-season conditioning and mini-camps in between the Super Bowl and the opening of training camps.
Granted, that's a silly proposition in and of itself. Regardless of what Jack Thompson may have said, gamers are not instantly perverted into twisted, evil creatures who delight in the pain of others, (and to borrow a line from Yahtzee), who's very piss is pure malevolence. It's not like we're all huddling around Tivos watching the poor guy get hurt over and over again.
It seems to me like a more appropriate question for him to ask would've been regarding densensitization (sp?) to violence as a whole, or if these kinds of player injuries have the same effect now that they did 20 years ago, or even 10.
Also, if you're parachuting and your chute fails? Videogames did it.
What better way to get your name out there than to create controversy where there was none?
That's really the only reason to stomp all over human logic in order to bash video games for something that has absolutely nothing to do with them.
Sports inspired the creation of sports video games not the other way around.
Seriously, besides Jack Thompson, who's buying this?
I had a long post but figured that sumed up my view of the above writer and his bandwagon opinion.
ESPN has been treating this story very well.
Dennis -- add Mike Utley to your list. That was a horrific, freak injury that happened during a Thanksgiving game. David Pollack also broke his neck last year while playing for the Bengals -- no paralysis but a promising career is over.
And I'll repeat this for the dumbass who wrote this column: NO REAL FOOTBALL FAN WANTS TO SEE A SERIOUS INJURY.
He's been quiet for a couple days. Count your blessings.
Ambulacne? Nooo, he's waiting for the hearse.
There has never been a single death or major injury in a sanctioned MMA bout, while boxing and Football are given a free ride by the media.
Let's face it, the world is a violent, brutal place. If I had a child, I'd rather have him understand and get used to that fact, rather than constantly protecting him, only for him to find out the truth in shock.
There's a difference between being "desensitized" and supporting violence. The former is good to certain extents, because, as said, the world is brutal, it's violent, and it's war-ridden, so better to be desensitized so you can handle this fact, while the latter is different. The latter means you support violence, or that you'd willingly participate, yourself, or you get off on it in some way (I mean, in real life). And that's bad.
Bob Molinaro, you are an asshat extraordinaire.
To even think for a second that gamers are somehow made 'immune' to such a freak, horrific accident is asshattery defined. Look, football is about big hits, but also about learning to take them and dish them out in such a way to keep playing. When Everett went down, the stadium was silent (from what I've read - I wasn't there). How many gamers were in the audience? No laughs, no jeers, no catcalls - just DEAD, STUNNED SILENCE. So, Molinaro, I humbly submit that you STFU.
Local Coverage:
http://www.wivb.com/Global/story.asp?S=7048384&nav=menu41_1
(video wouldn't run in Firefox, only IE)
I hope that the initial reports of Everett's likely recovery are not just wishful thinking. Here's to his recovery! /cheer
A guy gets injured in a terrible accident while playing football. Let's blame video games. Did you know that video games caused the fall of Rome? Video games caused the Holocaust. Oh, and Katrina, too!
I really, really hope no one is buying this garbage. I love to play video games, some of them violent, but I have NO INTEREST in football one way or the other. Despite my total lack of interest in the sport, I do feel bad for Kevin Everett. No one should have to suffer and potentially being paralyzed is terrible.
@ Nekowolf
I don't think many people think that being desensitized to violence is a good thing. But if we aren't a little desensitized we'd all gag at the sight of blood or vomit (personally I can't stand the smell of the latter).
You're right, though. I never really thought of it, but a little desensitization is a good thing, and its completely different from enjoying hurting your fellow man. I may enjoy beating my buddies in a video game, but I'd never intentionally injure them (A lot of them owe me money).
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Papa Midnight
So explain to me why my QB who was hit in All Pro Football 2K8 was put out for 8 weeks from a crushig hit?
Also, I don't see the connection between enjoying video games and watching football. I played video games my whole life, even some fotball games, but never have I ever felt the desire to watch a football game.
Sure I have a friend paralyzed from the waist down after he was hit by some drunk asshole, I don't feel sorry for this guy at all because we all know sports stars are somehow immune and all just jump right back. I mean I know my first thought when I saw the story wasn't "Man I hope this guy can walk again." I mean come on, video games are real right?
Asshole.