This page was last updated on November 6, 2015.
I am so over football; Tina Shannon; Facebook; August 26, 2015.
Mrs. Shannon is chairperson/president of Beaver County Reds; her life partner is treasurer. You can learn more about BCR’s leftster management here. “Leftster” is the combination of leftist and gangster, inspired by the left-originated “bankster.”
Tina Shannon (TS): “I am so over football...........because concussions & the resultant ruined lives, & rape & the inherent sexism of a male-only sport with cheerleaders, & the way it so much resembles war and prepares parents to again send their children off to commit senseless violence and die, & how I can’t bear to watch working-class men destroy their bodies for my entertainment knowing the ruling class private school I struggled to send my daughter to didn’t have football at all & because I can see how the passion and feeling of belonging and sense of community siphoned off by this sport would have real value for us if directed toward winning what we need. I extend respect for those who are also over it and recognize how hard it is to swim against a cultural current, a great source of sadness”
I ran across this item when I was verifying an unrelated comment Carl Davidson attributed to TS. You’ll find TS doesn’t let facts get in the way of a good ideological rant.
TS referred to “the inherent sexism of a male-only sport.” I’m sure TS knows NFL tryouts are open to women. The first time a woman tried out was in 2013 as a kicker. Unfortunately, she injured herself training for the tryout and her only two kicks were 13 yards and 19 yards before she could no longer proceed. When a woman eventually gets on an NFL team and gets tackled or injured, you can bet TS will be among the first to scream about violence to women and a “war on women.”
TS must know the Pittsburgh Passion, a professional women’s full-contact football team, has been playing since 2003. The Passion has been the world champion for the 2014 and 2015 seasons. Both Allegheny County and the City of Pittsburgh declared August 24, 2015, to be “Pittsburgh Passion Day.”
During the 2014 and 2015 seasons, the Central Valley School District (CVSD, covers Center and Potter townships and Monaca) has had at least one girl on its football team; she plays cornerback and wide receiver. Way back in 2011, Chartiers Valley had a female kicker. According to ESPN, “In a sign of how prevalent female football players are becoming, Coyne [the female kicker] and Chartiers Valley were scrimmaging another Pittsburgh-area school when Aliquippa (Pa.) freshman Queenisa Gilbert caught a pass on a slant route. Aliquippa players started celebrating wildly on the sidelines, and Chartiers Valley had no idea why.”
Though she must know it’s untrue, TS appears to imply rape is a byproduct of football. According to the ESPN-owned FiveThirtyEight website, the arrest rate for NFL players is lower than for all men aged 25-29 for all crimes. Overall, the arrest rate for NFL players is only 13% of that for all men aged 25-29. For domestic violence and sex offense, the figures are 55.4% and 38.2%, respectively.
It’s SOP for lefty activists like TS to drag “class” into just about any discussion. In this case, TS wrote of “working-class men” and told us she sent her daughter to a “ruling class private school.” The minimum annual salary for NFL rookie “working-class men” is $435,000. No one forces anyone to play football.
The “ruling class private school” to which TS referred was Sewickley Academy (SA). It appears her daughter attended New Brighton public schools at least through the fifth or sixth grade and won individual and team awards for Propaganda. The daughter attended SA for at least her junior and senior years and played soccer both years. For 2015-2016, annual tuition ranges from $15,250 for pre-school to $25,705 for grades 9-12. In comparison, the 2015-2016 non-Catholic tuition for Quigley Catholic High School, about nine miles up the Ohio River Boulevard from SA, is $9,700 ($8,700 for Catholics). Like SA, Quigley doesn’t have a football team, but I don’t know if Quigley is a “ruling class private school.” I don’t know the rules for lefty activists, but shouldn’t they show solidarity with the proletariat and send their kids to the schools of the people? Did TS send her daughter to SA because New Brighton has a football team?
Given TS’ concern about concussions, should the Shannons have permitted their daughter to play soccer? As noted above, the Shannon’s daughter was on the SA girls soccer team for at least two years. According to a report on the NIH website, the concussion rate for high school football players is 0.47 concussions per 1,000 athlete-exposures. The rate for high school girl soccer players is not far behind at 0.36. In high school sports with teams for both boys and girls, the concussion rate for girls is higher than for boys. For example, the rate (0.21) for girl basketball players is three times the rate for boys (0.07), “and concussions represented a greater portion of total injuries among girls (11.7%) than boys (3.8%). Boys had a quicker symptom resolution and return to play than girls.” Translation: Girls are more susceptible to concussions than boys, their concussions are more severe, and girls take longer than boys to recover.
In Peace, Friendship, Community, Cooperation, and Solidarity. <g>
© 2004-2015 Robert W. Cox, all rights reserved.