"Why former 49er Chris Borland is the most dangerous man in football"

"Borland has consistently described his retirement as a pre-emptive strike to (hopefully) preserve his mental health. "If there were no possibility of brain damage, I'd still be playing," he says. But buried deeper in his message are ideas perhaps even more threatening to the NFL and our embattled national sport. It's not just that Borland won't play football anymore. He's reluctant to even watch it, he now says, so disturbed is he by its inherent violence, the extreme measures that are required to stay on the field at the highest levels and the physical destruction 
he has witnessed to people he loves and admires -- especially to their brains...

How one person can reconcile such opposing views of football -- as both cherished American tradition and trivial activity so violent that it strips away our humanity -- is hard to see. Borland, 24, 
is still working it out. He wants to be respectful to friends who are still playing and former teammates and coaches, but he knows that, in many ways, he is the embodiment of the growing conflict over football, a role that he is improvising, sometimes painfully, as he goes along...

Two weeks after he visited Amen, Borland drove the two hours from the Bay Area to Sacramento to participate in a fundraiser for a paralyzed semipro player. He found himself in the middle 
of a sad pep rally that, oddly, showcased potential concussion remedies while celebrating the sport that causes the injury. Tables manned by people touting treatments like "CranioSacral Therapy" and "Bowenwork" touch stimulation lined the half-filled ballroom of the 
Red Lion hotel...

The man told Borland that he appreciated the "bravery" of his decision to retire -- then asked for the ball to be made out to his nephew, who was just starting to play high school football.
Borland wondered whether he was the only one attending the event who saw its irony. "You don't have to promote the game to help people who have been hurt by it," he said...

Borland began at Wisconsin as a wedge buster on kickoffs, a task he compared to "bowling, but it's people doing it." After blowing up a wedge against Wofford, he couldn't remember the rest of the game, including his own blocked punt, which led to a touchdown. That night, unable to eat, his head pounding, Borland had a teammate wake him up every few hours, fearing he'd lapse into a coma. He never told the coaches or trainers. That Monday, he was named co-Big Ten special-teams player of the week. "That's one of those things where, when you step away from the game and you look at it, it's like, 'Oh my god,' you know?" Borland says. "But it makes sense to you when you're 18 and you've dedicated your life to it and the most important thing to you is to get a good grade on special teams."...

Taylor says no one tried to stop him. "I think it was mostly my fault," he says. "I was waiting for them to say, 'Hey, you're out of here. This is kind of sad. And not smart.' But I was kind of in a position to dictate. I guess the coaches had trust in me." He thinks he took another shot of Toradol at halftime.
"After the game, I finally took everything off, and there was just blood dripping down," he says. "The hair was matted down because of all the compression on it, the tape, the glue, and there was still blood coming down. I remember the coaches coming by, going, 'Great game! Can't believe what you just did!'  "... He says he knows some people probably blame him for contributing to the "pussification" of football. "I think in the eyes of a lot of circles, especially within football, I'm the soft guy," he says. "But I'm fine with being the soft, healthy guy."

http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/id/13463272/how-former-san-francisco-49ers-chris-borland-retirement-change-nfl-forever 

First of all, it is inspiring to see someone stand against capitalism and some of the most aggressive aspects of American culture and, instead, prioritize their own health. There are so many pieces of American culture that say 'we don't care about your health. Science will probably fix that problem eventually, just make enough money so that you can pay for the cure when it arrives.'

This is such a millenial move, in the best way :)

Also, I'm really fascinated with the position of football players in our society, as kind of masculinity-superheros in the most old-fashioned, narrow, misogynistic way. They sort of uphold the tradition and practice of American Manhood. And think that's why people freak out when they are vulnerable, or make choices that buck the status quo.