In a letter to the editor in the Sunday, 10 February Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, a writer registers disgust over what he feels was an X-rated Super Bowl half-time show by Beyonce, expressing the fear that an eight-year-old child might try to emulate the gyrations of the performer. I am not a fan of the violent sport of football and did not watch the game or the half-time performance, but I have little doubt that his depiction and characterization of it are correct.

Notably missing from the letter is any concern about what viewers saw before and after half-time: the injury-producing, life-shortening contact sport which is adored by almost all of America, including impressionable children. 

Those who believe that the suicide of young former football great Junior Seau is an anomaly are mistaken.

Football is a contact sport in which the individual holding or carrying the ball is attacked by opposing players, who have somehow gotten larger and more destructive as time passes and even football players and sports writers have acknowledged that the game's focus is violence.  We somehow rationalize that this is wholesome entertainment for young people.