By Daniel J. Flynn
Product Description
From concussion doctors pushing "science" that benefits their hidden business interests to lawyers clamoring for billion-dollar settlements in scam litigation, America's game has become so big that everybody wants a cut. And those chasing the dollars show themselves more than willing to trash a great sport in hot pursuit of a buck.
Everything they say about football is wrong. Football players don't commit suicide at elevated levels, die younger than their peers or suffer disproportionately from heart disease. In fact, professional players live longer, healthier lives than American men in general.
More than that, football is America's most popular sport. It brings us together. It is, and has been, a rite of passage for millions of American boys.
But fear over concussions and other injuries could put football on ice. School districts are already considering doing away with football as too dangerous. Parents who used to see football as character-building now worry that it may be mind-destroying. Even the president has jumped on the pile by fretting that he might prevent a son, if he had one, from playing.
But as author Daniel J. Flynn reports, football is actually safer than skateboarding, bicycling or skiing. And in a nation facing an obesity crisis, a little extra running, jumping and tackling could do us all good. Detailing incontrovertible fact after incontrovertible fact, "The War on Football: Saving America's Game" rescues reality from the hype — and in doing so may just ensure that football remains America's game.
Editorial Reviews
"As Daniel Flynn puts it in 'The War on Football,' the media narrative is that 'football is the new smoking.'
"Mr. Flynn delves into the science of concussions, from Pop Warner leagues to the NFL, and makes a compelling case that the dangers are exaggerated. He backs up his thesis with statistics and the kind of careful analysis that makes you wonder why the NFL's lawyers, during the class-action trial over the supposed effects of on-field concussions, didn't just call him as an expert witness and rest their case." — Mark Yost, the Wall Street Journal
- "Bicycling kills about seven hundred Americans every year
- Skateboarders suffered forty-two deaths in 2011; and
- Skiing/Snowboarding on American mountains results in about forty-two deaths per season."
"Flynn, the author of four other books, is the former executive director of Accuracy in Academia. In his exhaustively researched, but fast moving, book, he has devoured just about every history of the game and study on injuries in it. Most of his findings may surprise. For example, the government found that, contrary to an oft-repeated stat, football players actually live to a riper old age than most Americans. Additionally, certain cheerleaders, namely 'flyers,' actually experience greater rates of injuries than gridiron athletes. For those not accustomed to this nomenclature, the flyers are the cheerleaders who go on top when the squad creates a human triangle on the field.
"The season I played on the team in high school 'sophomore year' I had one pulled muscle. That's when one of the coaches taught me a trick I've used ever since. Don't respond to pain by doubling over but by straightening up. It works. Could that be a metaphor for life itself? Arguably, at a time when women are posting photos of actors like John Wayne alongside those of performers like Leonardo DiCaprio under the caption "Men: What the hell happened?," football is becoming more of a necessity than a luxury. Flynn also notes that, at a time of an obesity epidemic, the conditioning that football requires is more of a blessing than a curse. This book really takes me back." — Malcolm A. Kline, Accuracy in Academia
About the Author
Daniel J. Flynn is the author of numerous books, including "Blue Collar Intellectuals: When the Enlightened and the Everyman Elevated America (2011)." He writes regularly for the American Spectator. He lives with his wife and children in Massachusetts.
Product Details
- Hardcover: 256 pages
- Publisher: Regnery Publishing (August 19, 2013)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 1621571556
- ISBN-13: 978-1621571551
- Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.1 inches
- Shipping Weight: 1 pound
