Football’s dangerous — and for what?

In his story about the renewal of the Northwestern-Notre Dame football rivalry, Lindsey Willhite quotes Pat Fitzgerald, the current Northwestern University coach (“NU-Notre Dame football series to resume in 2014,” April 15). When asked about the 1995 season opener when he played as a Northwestern junior against Notre Dame, he said: “What do I remember? That we won, it was a fun day. Outside of that, I don’t remember much. I got hit in the head a lot.”

It is ironic that Fitzgerald’s statement that “I got hit in the head a lot” appeared in a story published just three days after PBS aired the informative Frontline documentary “Football High” that exposed the extent of serious brain and other injuries incurred by football players?

High school and college football injuries are more widespread and more long-term than youth baseball injuries that are now being mitigated by banning composite bats that hit harder, made games livelier, but added to injury worries. It seems that little can be done to ban the football “bat” — the players who themselves can be lethal instruments. These players are now heavier, stronger, better trained and better equipped to do serious physical and mental damage to their opponents.

Barring a seismic shift in the sports-entertainment culture of the American public, it appears that little if anything can be done to change this unhealthy situation since high school players are the raw material at the front end of the supply chain for the lucrative sports entertainment industry. A few of the best of these players are destined to become college athletes — playing football on behalf of their school’s sports entertainment business — with still fewer of these athletes going on to play in the National Football League.

Frank G. Splitt

Mount Prospect