football

Two steps nearer a football-free campus

Malcolm Potts, professor of population and family planning | March 17, 2016

Eventually, hell has frozen over. Jeff Miller, the National Football League senior vice president for health and safety policy, has told members of Congress that playing American football can lead to chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE). The NFL has switched from the criticizing the research of medical scientists who demonstrated that playing football can scramble a … Continue reading »

King Henry VIII and the Super Bowl

Malcolm Potts, professor of population and family planning | February 7, 2016

Henry VIII, famous for abandoning the Catholic Church and marrying six times, liked jousting. Jousting is martial sport where two horsemen in armor gallop towards one another at breakneck speed holding wooden lances. The aim is to strike your opponent and if possible unseat him. Henry was concussed several times, the most severe battering occurring 1536 … Continue reading »

Why not a Football-Free Campus?

Malcolm Potts, professor of population and family planning | November 9, 2014

Let’s think the unthinkable. Let’s do the impossible. We have a Tobacco-Free Campus: why not a Football-Free Campus? Just as tobacco-free Campus took 50 years to arrive, so could the football-free campus. But it will come, just as assuredly. Why not now? I was lucky enough to know Sir Richard Doll, the British epidemiologist who … Continue reading »

NFL and team leadership misses the goal

Jeffrey Edleson, professor of social welfare | September 16, 2014

This piece was coauthored by Sudha Shetty, assistant dean of international alliances and partnerships, UC Berkeley Goldman School of Public Policy, and Jeffrey Edleson, dean and professor, social welfare. The NFL leadership and team-management responses to domestic violence committed by Ray Rice of the Baltimore Ravens and Ray McDonald of the San Francisco 49ers missed the goal … Continue reading »