Obama on Football, Concussions and the NCAA

Most of The New Republic's interview with President Obama, published Sunday, is about political issues and his plans for the second term. But the magazine also asked the president, a sports fan, about whether he takes "less pleasure" in watching football, given the dangers faced by the players. Obama said he was concerned about the athletes, and urged the National Collegiate Athletic Association to consider these issues. "[I]f I had a son, I'd have to think long and hard before I let him play football," the president said. He added: "I tend to be more worried about college players than [National Football League] players in the sense that the NFL players have a union, they're grown men, they can make some of these decisions on their own, and most of them are well-compensated for the violence they do to their bodies. You read some of these stories about college players who undergo some of these same problems with concussions and so forth and then have nothing to fall back on. That's something that I'd like to see the NCAA think about."