@heathen_cat
The good news is that they aren't "risking" CTE. Good in a monkey's paw sense. There is not a risk that playing college football causes CTE. Because it is a guarantee.🤷🏿♂️
99% of NFL player brains studied post mortem, showed signs of CTE. Because CTE does not come from concussions. It comes from repeated sub-concussive events.
https://www.bu.edu/bostonia/2017/cte-former-nfl-players/
If I lift weights, there's a risk that I *might* strain a muscle. But there is almost a certainty that I will grip a bar. If I grip a bar enough without gloves, I will almost certainly develop callouses. I would guess 99% of powerlifters that train without gloves, develop callouses.
CTE is callouses on your brain.
Playing college football damages your brain. There is no escaping that. The only question is to what extent.
After I die, a surgeon that slices my brain will be able to tell whether I played high school football and stopped, played some college football and stopped 🙋🏿♂️, or played professional football. Because of other poor life choices that I made (boxing, MMA, working as a bouncer in college for fun, to see if my boxing and MMA work in real life), they may think my brain is more NFL than college.
And NFL players are not stronger than, or hit harder than, college football players. NFL players are *better at football* than college football players. I'm an old man now, and I'm still about twice as strong as the average NFL player.
John Heck never played in the NFL. He played college and is now a powerlifter. I never played in the NFL. I played college and am now a powerlifter. He played OT/OG, I played DT/DE/LB. My go to move was a bull rush. If my Pomona College team had played his UNC team, we would have lost, badly. But every play that game, the individual collision between my helmet and John's helmet would have greatly exceeded what NFL players produce.
John Heck, strict pressing 245 lbs.
https://m.youtube.com/shorts/Q0E3l_k5t6g
Me, strict pressing 315 lbs.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VpVCSuT-_A0
Given the rules of football, there would be no way to avoid us giving each other microdoses of brain damage all game.
What a silly sport!