Hood’s Loss Could Be Part of Trend

Getting ready for work on Thursday morning and had one of the little-known treasures of television—the Buzzr (correct spelling, not Buzzer)—on in the background.

This is the network known for broadcasting some classic early TV game shows, like What’s My Line and To Tell The Truth, complete with the early commercials of the day.

As I was about to hit the off button on the way out the door, a commercial came on about the “brand new 1953 Sylvania” television.

Color television wasn’t even on the table in 1953 and did not make a widespread appearance until the NBC Television Network introduced it with a Peacock logo 10 years later.

Driving to work, that got me to thinking.

People in 1953, even with the newest televisions, had no idea of what the future held in the industry—certainly color wasn’t in the cards.

People living 100 years ago at the end of WWI probably never realized that television would exist, let alone something called the internet.

People living now probably think football as we know it is going to exist in 2118, but I have serious doubts after what happened with two of Temple’s promising players—linebacker Jeremy Atoki and running back David Hood—over the last few months.

Atoki became the first scholarship disc jockey in Temple history, playing the tunes at the practices, while Hood—the team’s leading rusher a year ago—is giving up football at the advice of his doctors because of too many concussions. Hood is also going to pursue a career in music. A few years ago, quarterback Kevin Newsome—a one-time top Penn State recruit—had the same idea. I completely understand and support the decisions of all three guys and it might be an indication of a changing culture.

We’re not talking about football to music as much as parents steering their kids away from contact sports like football. An Indy car driver appeared on the 1210 AM (WPHT) morning show and said when asked about crashes: “I’m giving each of my kids a set of golf clubs.”

We don’t know what will happen in 100 years and we won’t be around to find out, but I would not be surprised that football on the NFL level or college does not exist anymore.

Maybe someone will dig into the archives of this blog and discover this prediction. Hopefully, they will laugh at it but I have my doubts.

Now if I could only find the guy who predicted color TV in 1953.

Monday: How Temple Stacks Up

 

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6 thoughts on “Hood’s Loss Could Be Part of Trend

  1. Three starters from last year’s O Line are gone, including both tackles. That might be an issue for the ground game.

    Hopefully either Nitro, Gardner or Wright will be able to replace Hood’s production.

  2. Football is doomed because of the “arms” race as well as the “legs,” “chest,” and “speed” race. The players are just too big and fast thereby altering the physics of the game to the detriment of the players. Bigger, faster players mean more dangerous collisions. Jim Brown would just be an average sized player today, not a freak of a running back. He played against 180-pound safeties and 200-pound linebackers. Few linemen were over 250 pounds. Today, as you all know, high school teams have players much bigger than that. The rules makers can make all of the rules changes they want but in the end, it won’t matter because injuries won’t decrease and/or the changes will turn off fans.

    • I don’t know if I am way off base here, but I sorta feel like some of the issues with football as a sport are more cultural than anything. No matter how much coaches, et all preach about the proper techniques or safe practices for tackling, we still reward the “vicious” hits and glorify the defender who attempts to maim an opponent. We, I think, more than ever, live in a culture that celebrates hurting an opponent rather than playing the game in a conventional way.

      I still believe that the NFL playoff game when the Vikings pull off the miracle finish over New Orleans was due to the safety going for a “kill shot” rather than just wrapping the WR up and taking him down to end the game.

      I cannot blame any player from walking away from football. How much more evidence do we need of some of the potential consequences do we need? But to some extent, I am sure that we are all guilty of contributing to what football has become over time.

  3. A few years ago I was thinking about society relative to sports and figured that if our country calms down and becomes less aggressive, competitive and controlling, that football might follow and go out of favor by people. Right now we’re much more like those things than ever so, ironically, it’s head trama injuries that have people questioning the worth of their kids playing football. Long before white Europeans came to America Europe was very aggressive, settling and controlling places (brutal colonization) all over the globe. Since then they have “calmed down” and operate in a more cooperarive way with more of a balance between profiteering business and caring for people/ /environment. So, if we get more like that mindset will it effect the desire for smashmouth sports like football? Who knows. BTW, it’s that out-of-control competitiveness that has led to this P5-G5 bs we all hate. Just a thought.

  4. I believe this also extends to ice hockey. The whole sport is based on hard hits and fighting. I really believe you’ll see more CTE cases in hockey as well, Look at the number of times Eric Lindross was knocked out cold , and all the concussions he received, due to hockey.,

  5. Bring back the Afro, which probably saved David Thompson’s career. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0pTe_AkrVSc. Afro’s look cool, prevent concussions, and offer insulations in bad weather. I think we’re seeing fewer knee injuries in the high-head hit era compared to the astroturf era.

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