Choices and consequences should stay in the hands of individuals

If you are not reading The Fitz Files by Peter FitzSimons every Saturday morning over brekkie, you are living half a life.

I’ve been doing it for about 20 years now, and I cannot go past it.

Recently he has been taking a moment away from his usual complaining about religious expression on the field and stirring the ants’ nest by refusing to refer to the roundball game as football. He is now thumping that pulpit about the dangers of head trauma, or more particularly, concussion in full body contact sports around the world.

The latest target in his crusade in rectifying the sport-based injustice that is inaction against concussion on the sporting field, is the NRL. More specifically, the South Sydney Rabbitohs and Sam Burgess. That’s on the basis that the player in question did not leave the field after only 10 seconds of play in the biggest game of the year, having crushed his cheek bone and eye socket in a sickening head clash with James Graham. As we know now, Burgess played the entire 80 minutes with the injury, leading Souths to a win and claiming the Clive Churchill Medal.

If you are an avid reader of the writing of FitzSimons’ work, you don’t need the point explained to you any further that the following. The head should be better protected and more needs to be done to treat concussion and head injuries during and after games. Organisations are breaching their duties of care by continually ignoring the very real dangers associated with frequent and regular blows to the head.

All of which I agree with in spirit. It makes sense.

Or does it?

NRL, AFL, NFL, union and soccer (just in case Peter is reading) are the heaviest of the heavy physical contact ball sports and players in these codes have been doing this now for decades. Depending on how you measure these things, the AFL has possibly been doing it for more than 150 years.

What is clear though, is that it surely is not newfound information that 100-kilogram bodies running at each other at full speed might damage the head. And not just the head, the arms, legs, hips, pelvis, backs, necks – everywhere.

We have always known it. This is not new information.

Are the consequences suddenly new information? Medical history will tell you that concussions are bad for you. I once walked into a doorframe in the middle of the night and knocked myself out. I was seven years old and my parents freaked. They knew I probably had concussion and would not let me go back to sleep for fear I wouldn’t wake up again.

The point is this – you don’t have to have a medical degree to know that hitting the head is bad. It is common sense.

The problem (as I see it) is that it is not so much players playing in full knowledge of the dangers, but that they are in fact playing without knowing the full extent of the dangers.

If organisations anywhere in the world are in a position as is currently being alleged against the NFL, that they willingly and knowingly send players out to harm themselves, without actually making those players aware of the dangers, then that is serious.

That is extremely serious.

It gets even worse if organisations know about the effects, know how to fix it, and yet do nothing about it. That thought is quite scary.

The bigger problem is that as the matters stand, it is all speculation. Not so much the consequence of continually beating yourself around the head endlessly – ain’t nothing speculative about that.

No, the issue is really what do the NRL, AFL, ARU and FFA actually know about the effects of concussion and what are they not telling us. Because the key here is one of informed choice.

Can you stop people partaking in activities that they know have the potential to harm them? How heavily do you regulate that behaviour?

Taken to the nth degree, when will we stop driving around in cars, knowing the potential damage? When will we stop sitting at our desks at work knowing that it is unhealthier than smoking?

It is easy to have sympathy with the likes of Phil Gould, blowing up about an apparent politically correct society that wants to regulate the game of rugby league into extinction. Of course, his over-reaction to the likes of any safety over-reaction is not the answer.

There needs to be balance.

Rugby league I am led to believe (having never played it myself) seems to be fun. So too rugby union, whose innate essence of fun I can vouch for having had one successful season on the wing in division four of the Newcastle Hunter rugby union back in 2009.

I quite liked it.

But that was my choice to play. I weighed up the risks and I chose to do it. I then chose to go back to football (sorry, soccer) when a South African teammate dislocated his nose and missed a month of work.

At the end of the day, whenever you take the field in any sport, you are running a risk – both physically and mentally. It is actually part of the thrill.

When the likes of Peter FitzSimons, however, are eulogising the end of sport as we know it, preaching about the inherent dangers and how it all must stop, well, he is not telling us anything we did not already know. He is simply now reacting differently than anyone previously has.

Of course, he doesn’t seem too concerned about MMA or Ultimate Fighting Champions. Are they not mainstream enough? Are those participants fully informed and trained enough to deal with the inherent risks, therefore void from criticism?

I’m not entirely sure.

When it comes to contact ball sports though, is Fitz right? Short of passing state legislation outlawing such sports, then no, he isn’t. He likely cannot be. Because it all comes back to choice.

Sam Burgess chose to receive $400,000 annually (possibly more, possibly less, the exact amount doesn’t matter) to run around a footy field and risk the damage his body will eventually suffer. Lawyers take the physical and psychological risk of sitting at a desk for 70 hours a week for 30 years, so that they can be (hopefully) remunerated up to $1.5 million annually.

We do it all the time. Every person in society. You factor in the risk, you way up the reward, you make a choice.

So I go back to the problem at hand. The issue is not that people get hurt playing sport, the issue is what have they been told before they make that choice.

Does Sam Burgess know that by the time he is 50 years old, he may not remember his own name because of multiple hits to the head and body? He certainly didn’t know that he risked going blind by playing on in the grand final, but he did it anyway.

In fact, would knowing such stuff make any difference? When faced with the knowledge that you risk your very life for something you love, is that knowledge enough to stop you doing it?

That question can apply to sport, work, life and love. You get your information, you weigh up the risks, but ultimately, you choose.

So it appears to me that Peter FitzSimons seems to believe that choice should be taken out of individuals’ hands. I cannot agree with that.

What if Sam Burgess had failed a concussion test after 10 seconds of his last game in rugby league? Hands up if you would want to be the person that made the call to take him from the field of play. I imagine the seven people reading this article all have their hands firmly by their sides (not just me and mum reading these things anymore).

Would Sam have chosen to leave the field for fear of the potential of later life harm in exchange for a man of the match performance in a winning grand final in his last game for a team he loves? Would you give up a moment of pure sporting perfection for fear of a later life imperfection?

Such questions will not be answered any time soon, though I imagine a fair proportion of people would side with Sam. They would stay on the field.

So what is a seemingly simple matter is highly complex. It is not as simple as Peter FitzSimons saying changes need to be made, nor is it as simple as Phil Gould saying there is no problem that needs to be changed. It is extremely complicated because it goes beyond consequence and comes back to choice. It is more about the issue of considering what we actually know about what we are actually doing.

Peter FitzSimons wants to make a criminal out of anyone who lets someone keep playing a game at the risk of long-term injury. Phil Gould wants to criminalise people like Peter FitzSimons. But their extreme reactions simply blur the argument.

Players just want to play. They know the risk. The hope is that they genuinely know the risk and have considered those risks against the rewards.

It becomes incumbent upon sporting organisations – clubs, franchises, commissions, commissioners, chairmen, CEOs, agents, managers and coaches – to ensure that highly paid, professional athletes know those risks.

Beyond that, there does not seem to be much you can otherwise do. Because, ask yourself, what would you choose?

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