Police in California say former NFL running back Doug Martin died after struggling with officers who were taking him into custody.

Martin felt overwhelmed and disoriented, fled his home and entered a neighbor’s home two doors down where police took him into custody, Murphy said. “Ultimately, mental illness proved to be the one opponent from which Doug could not run,” Murphy said.

  • Doubleohdonut@lemmy.ca
    162·
    15 hours ago

    “Ultimately, mental illness proved to be the one opponent from which Doug could not run,” Murphy said.

    When it comes to football players, it seems most likely this is TBI (concussion) related? It breaks my heart that we encourage sports whose participation will also be the most likely cause of death. Football, wrestling; cultures where the players are deified if they make it, but there’s a long road of kids with dreams who’ve paid the ultimate price to get there.

    • thepompe@ttrpg.network
      234·
      15 hours ago

      You’re right, but they knew what they signed up for.

      Most of them do it for fame and fortune because they think they’re better than you or I.

      • Mirshe@lemmy.world
        11·
        8 hours ago

        This is HIGHLY untrue. A lot of these kids get pushed into football by culture, by economics. They get thrown in by HS coaches who tell them it’s the only way they’ll afford college. NFL has also done a FANTASTIC job of walling up research on CTE and TBI as a result of regular play - it’s literally only been in the last decade or so that shit’s started to come out, and even then, nobody focuses on it because it doesn’t print papers.

        A lot of these players see it as the only way to escape the poverty trap, and comments like this are disgusting. Sure “they think they’re better”, why not, when LITERALLY THE ENTIRE BUBBLE AROUND THEM TELLS THEM TO. They do it for “fame and fortune”, yeah, because if you were young and usually poor to middle class at best and saw a way into the upper echelons of society by playing a game you’re good at, YOU WOULD DO IT TOO.

        Fuck off with this victim blaming nonsense.

        • corsicanguppy@lemmy.caEnglish
          6·
          8 hours ago

          John Oliver did a piece on that, years ago.

          As I recall, you’re really close to the conclusions he was pushing

          • college football is horrible on players, some of whom get to play NFL; the rest get no pay, no fame, just knee and brain injuries and no education.
          • NFL football is increased hell on the melon; and many retire out, broken, after only a few years, and often with huge debt, more joint and brain damage
          • colleges and NFL get lots of money, players usually get forgotten. Finkle is Einhorn.
          • yeah, you know black people are massively victimized by this gamble and the damage
          • a black dude stumbling a bit and with cognitive and speech problems the encephalitis provokes? That’s a taserin’… If they’re ‘lucky’.

          It’s a short life, and not happy, but the lottery effect is so strong that more and more kids willingly jump into the meat grinder for that one chance to move their family up economically.

          • Doubleohdonut@lemmy.ca
            1·
            1 hour ago

            Adam Conover and many others have also talked about it. It truly breaks my heart to think of these young men who want to prove themselves physically being destroyed because of that dream. Thanks for the summary; this is exactly what I was getting at.

            It’s actually the story of Chris Benoit specifically that gets me. And he probably knew better than some what he was getting into, from what I’ve read. His poor wife and child, and him too. It must have been awful to go through that first hand, and who can say what his state of mind was exactly at the end. He was one of the biggest stars they had, but they treated him like garbage: driving himself to venues, no health insurance, and still feeling he had to prove himself.

            I hope that with people talking about the deadly impacts of these sports more openly, there will be real drive to change these standards for the betterment of the next generations.