New York Jets offensive guard Kelechi Osemele’s ongoing and now public dispute with the New York Jets, highlights a problem anchored deeply within NFL culture. In case you somehow missed it, the Jets threatened to discipline Osemele for “conduct detrimental”—and then on Saturday afternoon followed through with the threat by imposing a fine.
What conduct did the Jets organization deem to be detrimental? Mr. Osemele wants to have surgery to repair a torn labrum in his shoulder
Permanent link to this article: https://advocacyforfairnessinsports.org/2019/10/20/jets-refusal-to-allow-kelechi-osemele-to-have-surgery-for-torn-labrum-is-a-harsh-reminder-of-nfls-dna/
The short window of opportunity that many men and women who are skilled enough athletes to have a chance to earn a living doing so can often be overestimated. The story of former NFL player Ryan Claridge is a reminder of how fragile those situations are.
Permanent link to this article: https://advocacyforfairnessinsports.org/2019/10/19/ryan-claridges-story-highlights-fragility-of-careers-in-professional-sports/
November 29,1992, is a day I will never forget. I was a member of the NY Jets and we were playing the Kansas City Chiefs, the team from which I had been traded the year before. I was excited to be playing against my old team and it was a home game for the Jets to boot. It didn’t take long for my excitement to turn to sadness and despair, not because we lost the game but
because we lost a teammate that day.
Permanent link to this article: https://advocacyforfairnessinsports.org/2019/10/14/no-place-in-the-nfl-for-headhunters/
Media coverage, and therefore general awareness, of professional athletes dealing with head injuries in sports like American football and ice hockey has grown over time. The majority of high-level athletes in those sports have one thing in common: they are men.
Certainly, there are high-level professional leagues for women in the sport of ice hockey around the world. They suffer from lack of coverage, however, in comparison to their counterparts for men. The same, unfortunately, is true for the attention given to head injuries suffered by women who are athletes.
Permanent link to this article: https://advocacyforfairnessinsports.org/2019/10/12/melissa-martins-lawsuit-highlights-neglect-larger-than-cal/
Updated 10/15: Last week I sent out a newsletter and made the SOS post after my computer became besieged with malware thanks to a Pennsylvania state court app.
I appreciate the donations that came in and also appreciate a suggestion from one of our readers that was instrumental in removing the malware from the computer and saving my laptop. Unfortunately, as soon as that crisis was averted our website went down and after spending the better part of 19 hours with support had it moved to a different server, restoring functionality. I managed to get Derek’s article out on Saturday in between crashes and Irv’s article on Monday after the server migration was completed.
Then on Monday, my internet went down. When it came back up, I saw that my notification system for tracking court dockets, breaking news, etc. has stopped working, so I’ve been on with support most of today (Tuesday) with still no resolution, so I ask for your continued patience. I may have to find a workaround for this, but right now I’m too braindead to devise one. But in the famous words of General Douglas MacArthur, “I shall return.”
Permanent link to this article: https://advocacyforfairnessinsports.org/2019/10/10/yikes/
For every year of absorbing the pounding and repeated head collisions that comes with playing American tackle football, a person’s risk of developing chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a devastating neurodegenerative disease, increases by 30 percent. And for every 2.6 years of play, the risk of developing CTE doubles. These new findings from an analysis of 266 deceased former amateur and professional football players—reported in Annals of Neurology by a team of researchers from the Boston University CTE Center—are the first to quantify the strength of the link between playing tackle football and developing CTE.
Permanent link to this article: https://advocacyforfairnessinsports.org/2019/10/07/cte-risk-more-than-doubles-after-just-three-years-of-playing-football/
In the wake of several scandals like the Larry Nassar travesty and resulting coverup, changes were made at the top of the United States Olympic Committee. A line of demarcation in what was supposed to be a “new era” for the USOC was the hiring of current chief executive officer Sarah Hirshland.
When Hirshland took over in Nov. 2018, she made a tearful promise to listen to athletes and declared the future is bright. Despite her assurances, the USOC has continued the same practices of excluding athletes from governance, paying lavish severances to disgraced executives, denying healthcare for athletes and actually waging legal battles against the very athletes it profits from.
Permanent link to this article: https://advocacyforfairnessinsports.org/2019/10/05/little-has-changed-at-usoc-following-hirshlands-appointment/
It would seem that New Orleans Saints fans aren’t the only ones concerned about bad officiating in the NFL, nor are they alone in taking the matter to court. New York Jets free safety Rontez Miles has filed a lawsuit against game officials for violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act, and in so doing, left him vulnerable to injury.
Permanent link to this article: https://advocacyforfairnessinsports.org/2019/10/01/jets-safety-throws-penalty-flag-on-nfl-officials/
On Friday, Judge Anita B. Brody of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania entered a brief that could be described as a “tap dance” as she seeks to avoid Third Circuit scrutiny following a petition for writ of mandamus directed at her handling of settlement advances.
Permanent link to this article: https://advocacyforfairnessinsports.org/2019/09/28/the-tap-dancing-nfl-concussion-settlement-judge/
When CTE Steals Your Dad: Garrett Remembers Mike WebsterCovering the NFL concussion settlement litigation as it plays out, it’s easy to get caught up in the dockets and the numbers. It’s essential to remind ourselves that behind those figures and words are families and personal stories.
One of the individuals who was instrumental in beginning the story was former Pittsburgh Steelers offensive lineman Mike Webster through his family. Webster, who anchored the Pittsburgh offensive line through a dominant stretch of the middle and late 1970s, passed in 2002. Webster was also one of the first former NFL players to be diagnosed post-mortem with chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE). Witnessing most of Webster’s story was his son, Garrett.
Permanent link to this article: https://advocacyforfairnessinsports.org/2019/09/27/it-was-a-feeling-of-you-were-being-cast-aside-being-thrown-out/
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