athletes

Hello everyone, I hope all is well with you. I’m back today after a week of working and writing.

But enough about that. Today I want to talk about a documentary I watched over the weekend and since the Super bowl was last night, it seems appropriate. The documentary I watched was “Killer Inside: The Mind of Aaron Hernandez.”

click here to see trailer Aaron Hernandez

Aaron Hernandez was a talented football player who went pro and played for the New England Patriots. He also went to prison for murdering a friend of his. Can you imagine going from making forty million dollars and living in a mansion to living in a jail cell?

Photo credit: Jeffrey Beall on VisualHunt.com / CC BY-SA

I can’t imagine that. It makes me wonder how Aaron went from a pro-athlete to a murderer. After a second trial in which he was acquitted of a second murder, Aaron committed suicide. During the autopsy, they determined that Aaron had CTE or Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy. CTE is a degenerative brain disease that appears in people with repetitive trauma to the head. It’s found in military veterans, football players, and boxers. The symptoms of this disease are mood swings, violent outbursts, impulsive behavior, and poor judgement among other things. Now the reason I bring this up is because I believe CTE played a major part in why Aaron Hernandez killed his friend and finally committed suicide after two lengthy trials. He was only twenty-seven years old when he died.

The question I ask, is it worth it? The money and the fame, is it worth ending your life at the age of twenty-seven? My youngest wanted to play football and I discouraged it because I was afraid he’d get hurt. This was before I had even heard about CTE. I’m glad I did. I’d rather have him around for the long-haul than for him to go through what Aaron Hernandez did.

The damage to Aaron’s brain was severe. There are four stages to the disease and Aaron was at stage three. Stage four is the worst where there are Parkinson’s-like symptoms and dementia. According to medical professionals, Aaron had the worst case of CTE they’ve every seen in a twenty-seven-year-old.

The NFL needs to address this issue either by how we play football or by finding ways to protect the players so they can live long and prosperous lives. I don’t believe the NFL caused this disease, it’s the way the game is played, but now that they’re aware that it exists, they need to protect the players, don’t you agree?

Thanks for stopping by and reading my post, I’d love to hear your thoughts. Leave a comment! I’d love to hear from you!

Hello! I hope everyone has been enjoying his or her summer. It has been a busy one with vacations and family outings. I took the boys to the zoo last week and they had a blast! It’s fun to watch them learn, they are so curious about everything.

When we have some down time we’ve been turning on the Olympic Games. I’m truly amazed by the talent and drive of the athletes. Many of them are much younger than myself. (I’m not going to say how much younger! Just younger! LOL! )

As I watched the Olympics with my boys I wondered what message they were receiving from watching these athletes. Was the message, “the only things that matter are the results?” I certainly hope not. I want my boys to enjoy the journey to their goals as well as the “destination”. In my humble opinion this is the definition of happiness.

I feel very strongly that we, as parents, need to stress to our kids the qualities that these athletes possess, such as perseverance and determination, not the fact that they win or lose.

My five-year-old asked when we were watching gymnastics. “How does he do that?”
“He practices a lot,” I said as I gave him a hug. “Remember we get better with practice.”

I was so glad he asked that question so that I could explain that perseverance and determination were good qualities to have and that everyone needs to practice, even Olympic athletes.

Later when we were watching the men’s 400m race. We witnessed Oscar Pistorius running with able-bodied men even though he was handicapped. What an incredible lesson for my kids to learn!

They learned that obstacles can be overcome. Not only did Oscar have to deal with his handicap; he had to fight a legal battle to run in the Olympics. He didn’t let his handicap stop him or the Olympic officials themselves.

It would have been incredible if Oscar would have won. Unfortunately, he didn’t. Kirani James from Grenada won the gold medal. But in a great act of sportsmanship he traded his nametag for Oscar’s. What an incredible show of admiration to the handicapped athlete!

My boys watched this and they asked so many questions, mostly about Oscar’s running blades. But…I was able to sneak into the conversation a few points about overcoming adversity and the great show of sportsmanship that Kirani illustrated.

It was a great night and watching Oscar made me realize that everyone runs into obstacles, just different ones. So, don’t let obstacles get you down most of them aren’t permanent. And if they are permanent there are ways around them.

I hope everyone has a great day! Thanks for stopping by and reading my post. Leave a comment and let me know what you think!