I have a crush on college football. There are way too many bowl games, but at the end of the old year and beginning of the new, I will be savoring four of them: Orange (Clemson-Oklahoma), Cotton (Alabama-Michigan State), Fiesta (Notre Dame-Ohio State), and Rose (Iowa-Stanford). The former two will produce the finalists for the national championship, but there is no finer setting for the sport, championship or not, than the Rose Bowl beneath the purple majesty of the San Gabriel Mountains on New Year’s Day.
The season that preceded these matchups was full of thrills and heartbreaks, from Michigan State’s miracle finish against Michigan, to Stanford’s 30-second comeback against Notre Dame. Week to week, with championship hopes riding on every outcome, it was an emotional roller coaster. The National Football League cannot match it, but with the play-offs approaching, December does bring urgency to the NFL, as well.
Into this holiday pigskin feast drops a movie that could give football fans a kick in the head. Concussion, scheduled for release on Christmas Day, is the story of Dr. Bennet Omalu, the forensic pathologist who studied the brains of some deceased pro football players and discovered chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE). It is a devastating disease, suspected in dementia and depression-related suicide, that has been attributed to the years of repeated head blows the players endured. The NFL, a moneymaking machine, did not welcome the news, and Omalu had to overcome a decade of denial and disapprobation before the league owned up to its brain-injury problem.