What the Death of Dave Mirra Tells us about all Sports

We should study CTE, not just lay blame

It was recently released that deceased BMX biker Dave Mirra had CTE at the time of his suicide. This is a tragic event that could have been stopped had Mirra gotten the correct medical attention. He clearly had a lot of demons in his closet and he had some brain trauma from all the trick bike riding he did in his life. This was an avoidable tragedy.

The reason for my blog today is how little coverage this story is getting on major sports networks. Once again, the Fox Sports and ESPN's of the world are criminally under reporting this story, and I think it has to do with Mirra's chosen profession. Had he been a football player, this story would be reported on ad nauseam. I know that this is a touchy subject, but dammit, all the pro and non pro athletes that suffer from CTE deserve as much coverage as all football players get when they die and their brains are studied and it's found that they have CTE.

ESPN and Fox Sports have not stopped talking about Junior Seau's untimely suicide, and they strictly blame it all on football. Well, Seau chose to play football. He was very good at football and he turned it into a hall of fame career, but when he took his own life, the people that are trying to rid the world of football strictly blamed it all on the hits he took on the field. Yes, that is the main cause of the brain trauma, but there has to be some other things, non football related things, that went into his suicide. I don't think he woke up with a football headache one day and decided it was time to punch out, I'm pretty positive there were some other things going on.

The people that want football outlawed are on a mission to make this game seem so violent that it causes people to take their own lives. They want everyone else to think that the only reason former football players do the weird and violent things they do is because of all the hits they took and nothing else. I understand that football is a violent game, it's meant to be, but the people that play know what they are getting themselves into. You go into football knowing the possible repercussions. I knew when I played that I could get concussions or broken limbs or tear muscles, it was a part of the game.

I also played baseball and basketball, and let me tell you, I could have gotten just as badly injured playing those other two sports. I was a pitcher in baseball, and any time I stepped on a mound, I could have been hit in the head with a 100 mile per hour line drive. I've seen in real time, and on TV, pitchers get hit in the face and it is not pretty. There is so much blood and blurred vision and, sometimes, even loss of consciousness. Basketball, while I think it is the most athletic of any sport I have ever played, there are many times I have banged my head on the hardwood floor, or was smacked across the face and head by an opposing player, or I was hit in the face with a basketball coming at me at a decent speed, all those things and more. I knew those risks and I still chose to play. But, no one ever bad mouthed me for playing baseball or basketball the way they did when I played football. Baseball and basketball where never considered as dangerous as football was. The people that didn't like me playing football said that I would get injured and I would suffer headaches the rest of my life and I would be sore and my knees and legs would hurt forever, but, I have more soreness from basketball in my knees and legs than I do from football. Baseball was more terrifying to me because of the constant threat of a smoked liner back to my face than someone blind side blocking me in a football game.

Football was, and is, dangerous, but it is no more dangerous than baseball, basketball, soccer, hockey, or now even, BMX. Hockey and soccer are just as violent as football. The players helmets in hockey are so much smaller and have such little padding, I bet way more hockey players than football players suffer from CTE, but it never gets covered like football. I instruct young kids in soccer, and I have seen so many of them take a soccer ball to the face, and I think, at least they aren't pros, because that would have been a concussion, but no one bad mouths soccer. Soccer is the most played sport among kids in the US, and I bet a ton of retired soccer players suffer from CTE from taking too many soccer balls to the face or from doing headers, but it never gets reported. Even cheerleading is so much more risky than football. At any moment, while doing a human pyramid, or a drop from a twist or flip, you can be dropped directly on your head. I can almost guarantee that current and former cheerleaders greatly suffer from CTE.

To bring it all back to my original point, we now see that BMX can have just as dangerous results as football. No one would have ever thought that Dave Mirra would have CTE. Hell, I barely knew anything about Mirra until I heard that he had taken his own life. It is a tragedy and my heart goes out to his friends and family, but why won't ESPN talk about him and what happened more? He was a legend in his particular sport, and the only thing ESPN has done is put on their crawl that he committed suicide and that he had CTE. They have done little to nothing as far as an anchor talking about Mirra and the demons he had, and his CTE. BMX has always looked dangerous to me. Those bike riders do some of the most daring and reckless stunts that I have ever seen. I get nervous going down a big hill on my bike, so to see these pro BMXers do things like flips and twists and jumps off humongous ramps, it was equal parts exciting and terrifying to me. I always thought that it was dangerous, but it was also pretty cool. Then, as I got older, I noticed that the helmets and the padding these riders wore weren't that protective. BMXers looked like they cared a bit more about cool looking pads that actual protective pads. Whenever they took a fall, I was very worried that the riders wouldn't get up. When they did get up, they looked woosy and wobbly. They clearly had a concussion, but they kept going back out there. I know a lot of people bad mouth the NFL's concussion protocol, but if these BMXers could go out and do a stunt an hour after a brutal fall, what was their concussion protocol like?

I would hope that channels like Fox Sports and ESPN would give this more coverage and explain the dangers involved in BMX riding after what may be their biggest star ever takes their own life, but they instead want to focus on what Johnny Manziel is doing or how the Yankees are playing or who is LeBron blaming now. It's sickening that they have barely covered the Dave Mirra tragedy at all. They have all but pushed it to the side and that is sad. If the Fox Sports and the ESPN's of the world are going to continue to tell us how dangerous football is, they need to tell us how dangerous every other sport is. There is danger everywhere you go when you choose to play sports, it's not just in football. The big wigs at the big channels need to inform the general public of this. It is their job and they are doing shitty work. They may want to end football, but former pro athletes, in every pro sport, most likely has some form of CTE, and until they get the same coverage, the war against football will wage on. That is a sad state of affairs. It's tragic that Dave Mirra took his life, but it's disrespectful and tasteless the way that the major sports channels and media outlets are barely talking about it. It's truly a shame.

RIP Dave Mirra.

Ty 

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast. Follow him on twitter @tykulik.