The Real Scandals of College Football
Why Do We Tolerate Fatalities in the Game of Football?
This is a free online newsletter for Jason Stahl, Executive Director of the College Football Players Association (CFBPA). If you are a past, present or future college football player, I ask that you consider becoming a member of the CFBPA. For a short YouTube introduction on the CFBPA, click here. Members of the general public who would like to support the CFBPA can donate at this link or volunteer at this link.
I started following college football roughly ten years ago. For those who do the same, you know that every so often a “scandal” pops up in that world. For instance, there have been numerous “scandals” over the years regarding whether or not a coach was following intricate rules around player recruitment. Last year, of course, we saw a season-long “scandal” regarding whether or not a team was engaged in sign-stealing that crossed a nebulous line into illegality.
Once I came to understand the reality of the game and culture of college football, I laughed every time I saw breathless reporting on such “scandals.” It’s not that such issues don’t deserve to be discussed but rather that the discussion seemed enormously outsized given the other more significant problems within the game. So, it is with all of this in mind that I want to begin a new three-part series of newsletters entitled, “The Real Scandals of College Football.” Between now and the end of the year, as part of the CFBPA health and safety campaign, I’ll be focusing on true scandals in the world of football that go largely unignored. For this first newsletter, I’ll focus on fatalities in the game of football and ask the question of why such deaths are largely tolerated.
At this point, readers might object and argue that deaths, or even near deaths, of football players are absolutely not ignored. Just under two years ago, NFL player Damar Hamlin nearly died during a game playing while playing for the Buffalo Bills. After this, there was an outpouring of affection for Hamlin and a focus on the inherent danger of playing football. Moreover, the last NFL fatality was now almost a quarter century ago when Minnesota Viking Korey Stringer died from heat stroke during a football practice. The gruesome nature of his death led to major reforms in the NFL practice environment which continue to this day.
The same cannot be said for lower levels of football outside of the NFL. Some attention was paid to the death of Maryland player Jordan McNair in 2018. Like Stringer, McNair died of heat stroke under similarly gruesome conditions in an off-season workout. However, McNair’s death did not lead to any major reforms in college football practice cultures which are still abhorrently behind the NFL when it comes to player health, safety and welfare. Also, McNair’s death was not really unique. According to the research of Scott Anderson—the leading authority on catastrophic injuries among football players—33 NCAA football players died playing the sport between 2000 and 2016. Six of those deaths were traumatic, caused by collisions while the rest were non-traumatic and the result of intense exercise. All but one occurred during the off-season—a period I’ve written about before for its largely unchecked behavior.
Move even further down the hierarchy of football and the situation gets even worse. On his Twitter account, Anderson keeps a running tally of football catastrophic injuries every year. His most recent update on November 1 indicates that there have been 15 fatal and 31 nonfatal catastrophic injuries in football in the calendar year 2024 from middle school up to college. That means at least 15 individuals have died this year playing the game of football. The average over the last twenty years is 16.5 per year.
The sad fact is that many of these deaths and catastrophic injuries more generally are completely preventable. We see this in the work that the NFL and NFLPA have done in changing the culture around practices and conditioning. The same can be done in lower levels of football at the collegiate, high school and middle school levels. In particular, Anderson’s research shows that exertional heat stroke deaths are entirely preventable through the implementation of two major changes: abolishing punishment workouts and not forcing lineman to do sprint workouts ill-suited to their positions.
Sadly, the NCAA seems to have given up on the project of putting in place such reforms and then enforcing them. Despite the NCAA’s founding in the early twentieth century being tied directly to preventing death in college football, they have not shown much concern in a long while with such problems—preferring instead to devote their energies to lobbying Congress for an antitrust exemption.
As such, at the CFBPA we believe it is important for organizations like ours to shine a light on these real scandals of college football. Only raising awareness of such dire problems and then organizing players to implement reform will make the game safer for all. In this spirit, we are excited to welcome Scott Anderson onto our CFBPA advisory board. We hope to be able to turn his research into actionable reform. I’m honored to host a podcast interview with Scott to kick off his time as an advisor. I hope you give it a listen and, as always, if you’re a past present or future college football player who wants to help us tackle the real scandals of college football, I urge you to become a member today.