![\"colin-sargent-final-xs\"](\"http:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/Colin-Sargent-final-xs-300x261.jpg\")
Yikes. I\u2019m probably going to get a lot of hate mail for this. But, hey.<\/span><\/p>\nI\u2019m a Deering High grad. I\u2019ve lived my whole life either attending, or at least checking on the results of, the \u2018November classic\u2019\u2013the Deering-Portland Thanksgiving Day Football Game. It\u2019s a blast every year\u2013an awesome outing for the students and alumni for both schools. The 106th Turkey Day game is scheduled for November 23 at Fitzpatrick Stadium in Portland. The contest is thuddingly real, with chance streakers, icy fingers, the roar of the crowd, the crack of helmets. <\/span><\/p>\n Deering won the 1972 Turkey Day Game, 12-0. We made it to the state championship that year. But considering the stealthily growing and lingering legacy of CTE (Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy), the degenerative brain disease created by brain trauma, we all lost.<\/span><\/p>\n I\u2019m loyal to the Purple (Go Rams!). I\u2019m a Patriots fan. But I\u2019m no longer a big fan of football. When I read about the Boston University study where \u201cCTE was found in 110 of 111 brains of dead NFL players studied, according to the Journal of the American Medical Association<\/em>,\u201d that was it for me. That means 99 percent of those players suffered from a disease featuring symptoms including \u201cmemory loss, confusion, impaired judgment, aggression, depression, anxiety, impulse control issues, and sometimes suicidal behavior.\u201d Could some of the tweet-touted \u201cratings decline\u201d of the NFL be due to the fact that some of the fan base is losing its taste for the violence that creates human time bombs? <\/span><\/p>\n Because this hits close to home, I call Dr. Peter Morrison, the Scarborough pediatric neurologist who\u2019s affiliated with Maine Medical Center, to get his perspective.<\/span><\/p>\n Would you let your child play contact football?<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n \u201cShort answer, no. I think we\u2019re learning there\u2019s a growing body of evidence, including the B.U. study, that football can really lead to brain injury.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n I ask Dr. Morrison, \u201cAnother issue is the use of prior football as a defense for later criminal acts. Is it all over when we realize that any criminal can disavow responsibility for murder because he or she played football once?\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThere was an op-ed in The New York Times <\/em>about that last week.\u201d [\u201cIs C.T.E. a Defense for Murder?\u201d NYtimes.com]<\/span><\/p>\n This is no Twinkie Defense, because this isn\u2019t a temporary insanity call due to a sugar high. CTE is a disease without a cure and, at this time, without a treatment. On the liability sideline, the lawyer for Avielle Janelle Hernandez, daughter of New England Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez (who killed himself in prison in April while serving a life sentence for murder) has filed a wrongful-death lawsuit against the NFL. Hernandez, only 27, had Stage III CTE.<\/span><\/p>\n Maybe it\u2019s time for football to no longer be sponsored by schools. Either schools are in<\/em> the business of encouraging brain development\u2026or they\u2019re not.<\/span><\/p>\n But what about The Turkey Day Game? Aren\u2019t crosstown rivalries still a cool way to blow off steam? Here\u2019s an idea. Attend school plays instead, with Oscars presented for interscholastic competition. (I\u2019ll never forget the 1972 team of Bernstein and Sulka in the Deering High production of West Side Story<\/em>.) Or maybe we could fill Fitzpatrick Stadium with crowds watching state academic decathlons or an interscholastic version of So You Think You Know Maine<\/em>.<\/span><\/p>\n There are better, less deadly, ways to compete. In the art film Footloose, <\/em>the illustrious Kevin Bacon showed us the way. <\/em>Maybe what Portland really needs big-time\u2013Rams vs. Bulldogs\u2013is a rockin\u2019 dance-off!<\/span><\/p>\n \n \n \n![\"Colin](\"http:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/Colin-Signature-300x142.jpg\")
<\/p>\n\n