On Sunday morning before the Super Bowl, CBS play-by-play man Jim Nantz went on the network’s Face the Nation program to talk about a number of subjects, but it’s what he said about concussions that’s raising hackles.
On the show Nantz said that women’s soccer players are 2 1/2 times more likely to suffer a concussion than college football players. The problem with this claim? As The Big Lead points out, it doesn’t appear to have any basis in fact.
“Research shows that at the college level, a women’s soccer player is two and half times more likely to suffer a concussion than a college football player,” said Nantz with NFL commissioner Roger Goodell on set. “I don’t hear anyone saying right now, ‘should we put our daughter in these soccer programs?'”
However, the “research” that Nantz cites can’t be found by those looking. In fact, some of the studies that have been unearthed while looking for one to corroborate Nantz’s claim seem to only refute him.
One study, for instance, that was recently released, looked at the rates of concussions among high school students. Now, that study did find girl’s soccer to be fairly dangerous, ranking as the No. 2 source of concussions within the study. But the No. 1 sport was football, which saw three times more concussions than girl’s soccer.
Matt Chaney, author of Spiral of Denial and contributor to the well-respected The Concussion Blog, went even further. Chaney called Nantz a “clown” who is skewing numbers in a manner comparable to a questionable NCAA report last year which showed only 2 1/2 concussions per 1,000 “contact exposures.”
Check out a video of Nantz’s statements below.
Photo of the Night
West Philadelphia born and raised, indeed.
Quote of the Night
“They got away with one. We showed we were the better team. It was just a couple plays here, a couple plays there.”
–Frank Gore exhibiting a psychological phenomenon known as “sour grapes”
Tweet of the Night
Would anybody really be that surprised if somehow the Super Bowl ultimately played a part in the destruction of human civilization?
[tweet https://twitter.com/Randazzoj/status/298246003755216896 align=’center’]
Video of the Night
You know what nobody said, ever? “Boy, I sure wish Rick Reilly would give his Super Bowl postgame commentary in the form of a poem.”
