Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Pages: 364
•
Trim: 6¼ x 9½
978-1-4422-7540-9 • Hardback • June 2017 • $48.00 • (£37.00)
978-1-4422-7541-6 • eBook • June 2017 • $45.50 • (£35.00)
John Weston Parry is a lawyer, writer, and host of the website and blog sportpatholgies.com. He is the former director of the American Bar Association’s Commission on Disability Rights (1982-2012) and editor/editor-in-chief of the Mental and Physical Disability Law Reporter (1979-2011). He has published numerous books and articles on mental disability and health law, diversity, and the rights of persons with disabilities, including Mental Disability, Violence, Future Dangerousness: Myths Behind the Presumption of Guilt (Rowman & Littlefield, 2013).
Preface
Introduction
PART I: PAIN, INJURIES, DRUGS, AND TEAM DOCTORS
Chapter 1: Real Men Play Hurt
Chapter 2: Teammates, Coaches, Fans, and Other Unhealthy Influences
Chapter 3: RG3’s Painful Stay in Washington
Chapter 4: The Pitfalls of Team-Directed Medical Care
PART II: PERFORMANCE-ENHANCING SUBSTANCES: THE PERILOUS SEARCH FOR THE HOLY GRAIL
Chapter 5: Performance-Enhancing Measures: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
Chapter 6: Baseball’s Tarnished Legacy
Chapter 7: Football’s Brazen Lack of Compliance
Chapter 8: Cycling, Olympic Sports, and WADA
Chapter 9: The Laissez-Faire Approach To Doping in Tennis
Chapter 10: The IOC, WADA, IAAF, and State-Sponsored Doping in Russia
Chapter 11: Regulating PEDs to Promote Athletes’ Health
PART III: PHYSICAL AND MENTAL IMPAIRMENTS
Chapter 12: A Litany of Sports-Related Impairments
Chapter 13: Football Concussions in the NFL: Myths, Deceptions, Denials, and Lies
Chapter 14: Concussion-Related Lawsuits Filed against the NFL
Chapter 15: Football’s Unholy Trinity: Brain Traumas, Bounties, and Deliberate Injuries
Chapter 16: Children Playing Football: The NFL’s Achilles Heel
Chapter 17: Following Suit: Concussions in the NHL and NCAA Football
Chapter 18: Concussion Concerns for Female Athletes
Chapter 19: Brain and Other Severe Injuries in Baseball
PART IV: WHY ELITE ATHLETES SACRIFICE THEIR HEALTH
Chapter 20: Performance-Risk Rewards Undermine Health
Chapter 21: Arm Injuries to Elite Young Pitchers in Baseball
Chapter 22: Football Injuries in the NFL and College
Chapter 23: The NCAA Provides Shamefully Inadequate Health Care for Its Student-Athletes
Chapter 24: Stigma, Stereotypes, and Secrecy Undermine Athletes’ Mental Health
Conclusion: Protecting Athletes’ Health in Cartel-Governed Sports
Notes
Bibliography
About the Author
Parry (Mental Disability, Violence, Future Dangerousness), a lawyer with an expertise in mental health and health law, has written an excellent volume on the 'debilitating paradox' of popular spectator sports: that 'the overwhelming desire to attain the heightened fitness' required of an elite athlete leads children and adults to pain, injuries, and 'disability, addictions, and even premature deaths.' Part I is a solid overview of how the culture of 'playing hurt' causes both athletes and the professional medical providers on sports teams to reinforce a lifestyle that leads to injury. The second part of the book is an overview of the ways professional, collegiate, and Olympic sports organizations have ignored—and in many cases encouraged— the use of performance-enhancing drugs. In the final section, Parry takes a hard look at how 'bad practices and lack of candor at the professional level' regarding the consequences of sports-related impairments such as CTE (chronic traumatic encephalopathy) have filtered down 'to collegiate, scholastic, and youth sports programs in very unhealthy ways.' Parry has written a highly detailed work that should be read by athletes, managers, and sports administrators at all levels.
— Publishers Weekly
The Athlete’s Dilemma: Sacrificing Health forWealth and Fame by John Weston Parry does an excellent job of exposing less than ethical behavior of the world of elite competitive sports. He provides extensive coverage of the contradictions—and there are many—between the elite athlete’s drive to succeed in a highly competitive, pressure-filled environment with the concomitant costs and consequences to the athlete’s short-term and long-term health. Parry has written an insightful and revealing expose about a sports culture that needs to improve its high quality, ethical treatment of athletes during and after their sports career.
— Mark H. Anshel, professor emeritus, Middle Tennessee State University, and author of In Praise of Failure: The Value of Overcoming Mistakes in Sports and in Life
John Parry has written a wonderfully readable tour de force of a book on the dangers of athletic cutthroat competition. In my experience as a forensic neuropsychiatric expert there is an all too steep and slippery a slope from narcissistic to neurological injury, from basking in the glory and freedom of being a “modern gladiator” to traveling back to the brutality and slavery that were the epitaphs of the Roman gladiator. A must read for all of us, experts and fans, athletes and parents.
— Harold J. Bursztajn M.D., co-founder, Program in Psychiatry and the Law at Harvard Medical School
In The Athlete’s Dilemma, John Weston Parry builds a compelling case that numerous health-related crises are impacting our athletes—from the pro level to the youth level—due to a combination of a laissez-faire approach to sports industry regulation in this country, and win-at-all-costs and profit-at-all-costs ethos. The result is a sports world that is indeed pathological.
— Ken Reed, sports policy director for the League of Fans and author of How We Can Save Sports: A Game Plan
When most fans watch their favorite sports on television or in person they only see the drama, excitement, and spectacle of the games. In The Athlete’s Dilemma: Sacrificing Health for Wealth and Fame John Parry asks hard questions about our favorite spectator sports—questions about performance enhancing drugs, concussions, and how professional athletes and big-time college players are treated by the various sports establishments. They are important questions that fans should think about even when they are busy cheering.
— Fred Bowen, Washington Post sports columnist for kids and children’s book author