Ta-Nehisi Coates

The cycle starts when we are young boys and girls. Let me illustrate it for you: Li'l Johnny is outside playing and falls. His dad tells him to get up and be strong, to stop crying because men don't cry. So even from the age of 2, our belief system begins to form this picture. We are teaching our boys not to show weakness or share any feelings or emotions, other than to be strong and tough. Is that ''validating''? 

What do we do when Li'l Susie falls? We say: ''It's OK. I'm here. Let me pick you up.'' That's very validating, and it's teaching our girls that expressing emotions is OK. We wonder why it's so hard to bridge the communication gap between men and women. 

This presented itself clearly when I was going through group therapy and was the only man in my groups. Better yet, I was there for three months, and there was only one other guy in the program. In therapy, I learned how to express my emotions and talk about my problems, then apply it to my real life. I had to work through my entire belief system, train myself how to think, not what to think, and let go of the things that had me in bondage. I had to bridge the gap. It wasn't going to do it on its own. It's a cycle. 

Can you imagine how this presents itself even more so in football players? Junior Seau, Kenny McKinley, Dave Duerson, Brandon Marshall, etc. I am the only one in that group who is living because I got help before it was too late. In sports, those who show they are hurt or have mental weakness or pain are told: ''You're not tough. You're not a man. That's not how the players before you did it.''

His gambling continued unabated; he blew his entire signing bonus by midseason. He also bet on NFL games (though never on Colts games) and charted scores from out-of-town games on which he'd bet when he should have been charting plays. His gambling spiraled out of control during the 1982 NFL strike, when he lost $20,000 on a college football game.

By the end of the strike, he had at least $700,000 in gambling debts. In the winter of 1982 and the spring of 1983, Schlichter lost $389,000 betting on basketball games, and his bookies threatened to expose him if he did not pay up (the NFL forbids its players from engaging in any kind of gambling activity, legal or otherwise). Schlichter went to the FBI, and his testimony helped get the bookies arrested on federal charges. He also sought the help of the NFL because he feared the bookies would force him to throw games in return for not telling the Colts about his activities.

The league suspended him indefinitely. Schlichter was the first NFL player to be suspended for gambling since Alex Karras and Paul Hornung were suspended in 1963 for betting on NFL games. He was reinstated for the 1984 season, but later admitted that he'd gambled during his suspension (though not on football).

A court-ordered mental examination of Schlichter, 52, found damage to the frontal lobes of his brain, a likely result of some 15 concussions he suffered during a stellar career at Ohio State University and in high school, said his attorney, Steven Nolder. 

"The brain deficits he suffered are commonly linked to depression, impulsivity, flawed judgment and repetitive behavior," Nolder said in a telephone interview. 

U.S. District Judge Michael Watson in Columbus, Ohio, agreed to Schlichter's request that, should he die in prison, the Bureau of Prisons would send his brain and spinal cord to Boston University's high-profile center that conducts research on the long-term effects of repetitive brain trauma.

"They both have the dream, like dad, to play in the NFL," Warner said. "That's their goal. And when you hear things like the bounties, when you know certain things having played the game, and then obviously when you understand the size, the speed, the violence of the game, and then you couple that with situations like Junior Seau -- was that a ramification of all the years playing? And things that go with that. It scares me as a dad. I just wonder -- I wonder what the league's going to be like. I love that the commissioner is doing a lot of things to try to clean up the game from that standpoint and improve player safety, which helps, in my mind, a lot. But it's a scary thing for me." 

Asked if he would prefer that his sons not play football, Warner answered, "Yes, I would. Can't make that choice for them if they want to, but there's no question in my mind."

I'm speaking of a guy who's representing the national football league and representing the game and who is actually representing head trauma. And from a spokesman's perspective I think it's very unacceptable and uneducated. When you think about what the problem is it is not head trauma it is how head trauma is cared for that's the issue. You're going to have concussions in every sport known to man.

I'd definitely have my son to play football. That's what the Toomer family does. We all play football. But what this reminds me of is the guy at the basketball court, who once he gets done playing takes the ball and ruins the game for everybody else. I think Kurt Warner needs to keep his opinions to himself when it comes to this. Everything that he's gotten in his life has come from playing football. He works at the NFL Network right now. For him to try and trash the game, it seems to me that it's just a little disingenuous to me.

Although Junior Seau was never listed on an NFL injury report as having had a concussion, those close to him say he admitted to having experienced multiple head injuries....

Gina Seau said her ex-husband did suffer concussions during his nearly 20-year NFL career. "Of course he had. He always bounced back and kept on playing," she said in a phone interview. "He's a warrior. That didn't stop him. I don't know what football player hasn't. It's not ballet. It's part of the game..."

Taylor Twellman, a soccer analyst for ESPN and former Major League Soccer star, was a neighbor of Seau's in Oceanside, Calif. He said Thursday in an interview with ESPN's "SportsCenter" that he told Seau one time that he had suffered a concussion playing soccer and was experiencing bad headaches.

Twellman said Seau admitted he also suffered from headaches from multiple concussions playing football. Twellman, who has become an advocate for athletes with brain trauma, said he later tried to reach out to Seau to tell him he should seek help, but Seau never responded.

I think Gina Seau's statement is a fairly accurate depiction of the mentality, among pro football players, coaches, management, media and people like me who are fans. You can argue that that might be changing now. I don't think her words are either shocking or damning.

We need to be honest here: If you're going to play pro football, being hurt isn't merely a problem because you want to play. It's a problem because your absence could decrease your team's chance of winning, hurt your own image of self, and (perhaps most importantly) put you on the waiver-wire. Football is a job. I have no idea how, specifically, the NFL can change that. It's strikes me as built into the structure of the game.

I'll have more (in longer form) on my decision to turn away, a feeling that's only deepened as I've thought more on this. But I want to double down on something. I can't really over-emphasize how much this is a personal decision, and not—as one commenter put it—a "personal boycott."

But I think morality in the Emersonian paradigm—that "nothing is at last sacred, but the integrity of your own mind," that religion is what you do when no one's looking—is just as important. The Montgomery Boycott is not "only" important because of its results. You don't just protest segregation as a demonstration to other people, you also do so as a demonstration to self.

In football, as in so many other things, each of has to decide where that demonstration to self must be made. Personal morality is rarely improved in a crowd.

More later.

Junior Seau, regarded as one of the N.F.L.'s best linebackers over a 20-year career with the San Diego Chargers, the Miami Dolphins and the New England Patriots, died of a gunshot wound to the chest Wednesday at his home in Oceanside, Calif. He was 43. The Oceanside police said Seau's death was being investigated as a suicide. 

He was found by his girlfriend in a bedroom of his beachfront house Wednesday morning, and a handgun was found near the body, the police said.

Slate: Should the NFL be banned too? 

Gladwell: As long as the risks are explicit, the players warned, and those injured properly compensated, then I'm not sure we can stop people from playing. A better question is whether it is ethical to WATCH football. That's a harder question.

No one will ever know what happened on the football field that may have caused what happened today. We have no idea....

Before anything could ignite between the actors, however, the air began to fill with the sounds of fire trucks arriving. Crew members lingering out in the yard rushed inside to inform us that a home several houses down the block had caught fire. I was loathe to stop rehearsal because we were already running late and had plenty of work to do. It's New York--Brooklyn, no less. One hears sirens all the time. But I went outside to look. 

Flames leapt into the sky just a few houses away. Red and white engines clogged the corner near us. Firemen with axes and tools jumped out and raced past where a dozen of us filmmakers stood gawking. A woman creeped out onto her front stoop in slippers and a bathrobe to ask us what was going on. My sound man and his assistant began eyeing their equipment nervously. Even the big, scary dog next door stopped barking long enough to look worried. Back inside, our set was filled with smoke. Another crew member panicked.

I picked up a bit of movie-making slang. Apparently, to "Hollywood" something means to pick it up with your own hands, as in, "Hey, Sal. Can you Hollywood that bounce board for me?" I suspect the term's use is limited. A phrase like "I'm going to Hollywood one of these chicken wings from the craft service table" probably isn't quite right.

It is difficult to describe the rapacity with which the American rushes forward to secure the immense booty which fortune proffers to him. In the pursuit he fearlessly braves the arrow of the Indian and the distempers of the forest; he is unimpressed by the silence of the woods; the approach of beasts of prey does not disturb him; for he is goaded onwards by a passion more intense than the love of life. Before him lies a boundless continent, and he urges onwards as if time pressed, and he was afraid of finding no room for his exertions. I have spoken of the emigration from the older States, but how shall I describe that which takes place from the more recent ones? 

Fifty years have scarcely elapsed since that of Ohio was founded; the greater part of its inhabitants were not born within its confines; its capital has only been built thirty years, and its territory is still covered by an immense extent of uncultivated fields; nevertheless the population of Ohio is already proceeding westward, and most of the settlers who descend to the fertile savannahs of Illinois are citizens of Ohio. 

These men left their first country to improve their condition; they quit their resting-place to ameliorate it still more; fortune awaits them everywhere, but happiness they cannot attain. The desire of prosperity is become an ardent and restless passion in their minds which grows by what it gains. They early broke the ties which bound them to their natal earth, and they have contracted no fresh ones on their way. Emigration was at first necessary to them as a means of subsistence; and it soon becomes a sort of game of chance, which they pursue for the emotions it excites as much as for the gain it procures. 

Sometimes the progress of man is so rapid that the desert reappears behind him. The woods stoop to give him a passage, and spring up again when he has passed. It is not uncommon in crossing the new States of the West to meet with deserted dwellings in the midst of the wilds; the traveller frequently discovers the vestiges of a log house in the most solitary retreats, which bear witness to the power, and no less to the inconstancy of man. In these abandoned fields, and over these ruins of a day, the primeval forest soon scatters a fresh vegetation, the beasts resume the haunts which were once their own, and Nature covers the traces of man's path with branches and with flowers, which obliterate his evanescent track. 

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I can see no problem with the ad run by Obama on his extraordinarily ballsy decision to choose the riskiest path to get bin Laden and all the intelligence his compound contained. It is the kind of ad that would be a no-brainer for any Republican president, seeking re-election. If Bush had done it, he would have jumped out of a helicopter in a jump-suit with fireworks.

Across town, Sarkozy is holding a campaign rally of his own Tuesday where he is expected to reach out to the far right. In a radio interview Tuesday morning, he was asked whether France has too many immigrants, and answered, "yes." 

"Our system of integration doesn't work. Why? Because before we were able to integrate those who were received on our territory, others arrived. Having taken in too many people, we paralyzed our system of integration," he said on RMC radio. 

"I will never argue for zero immigration, but the reality is that when you invite more people than you can handle, you no longer integrate them," he said.

Above is a video of Le Pen speaking on election night. I can make out all of about 30 or 40 words, but you can still feel the power in her oratory.

Leon Jr. hadn't played a down of high school football until his senior year at Evans High in Orlando because his mother, Erea, said that he had to have a 3.0 grade-point average first. Erea was a schoolteacher, and Leon Sr. worked at Orlando International Airport handling minority contracts. They were educated, and their son was going to be, too. 

Leon Jr. got that GPA and quickly showed himself to be a dominant player. The University of Miami came calling, and he said yes to the growing powerhouse. He took a 3.5 high school GPA with him to Coral Gables, where he spent five years and helped the Hurricanes to three national titles. Now it was time to reap the benefits of his talent and the determination of his parents.

Through the injury-plagued seasons -- the first signs that his career may be coming to a close -- and two years after his retirement, Searcy still lived as if he were untouchable. His denial that the end was near became clear in several real estate transactions. 

In 1998, Searcy bought a condo in Miami for $865,000. In 2000, he bought a house in Clermont, Fla., for $399,900. In 2001, he bought another house in Baltimore for $870,000. "I was punch drunk," Searcy says. "It was a facade, what I was living. I still wanted to give people the impression that I was big-time. I'd see the guys who were still in the league in the night clubs, and I had to look the look. I was in character." 

 In 2002, the bank foreclosed on Searcy's Baltimore property for $550,632. In 2003, another bank foreclosed on his Miami condo for $568,263. 

 Records show that Searcy owed hundreds of thousands of dollars in federal and state tax liens.