One of the enjoyable things about the week leading up to the Super Bowl, aside from witnessing mainstream discussion of the ideal gas law and Wyatt Earp Effect, is that all sorts of wonderful writers and thinkers turn their focus on football. The two brains behind the NPR show Radiolab are Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich. For years, I’ve been listening to their highly entertaining and educational shows about how the world works and why it’s interesting from colors to fetal development to epidemics to ants to certainty. Their love of learning and boundless curiosity make almost every show they do worth listening to.
The latest Radiolab episode, released just this week, is a sociological look at the history and future of football. The episode explores football’s internal contradictions between innovation and tradition, liberalism and conservatism, and violence and artistry. The episode is split into two parts. In the first half hour, they are led down an intriguing path to the very beginning of football in this country by author Sally Jenkins. She shares stories from her latest book, The Real All Americans
The second half of the show covers a topic close to my heart: football’s future. Featuring a lengthy interview with one of my favorite authors, Chuck Klosterman, this half of the show takes a look at how the future of football is currently threatened by its inability to be played without a high risk of serious brain injury. I’ve been writing about this all week in a series of posts that describe the impact of brain injuries in football, explore how and when brain injuries occur in football, explain why football needs to evolve to prevent brain injuries, and why it’s so difficult to fix with rule changes. Tomorrow I’ll be explaining the one simple change I think football could make to reduce brain injuries without changing its essential nature.
Until then, spend some time listening to Radiolab!