“Controversy” Surrounding UNC-CH Football Coach Larry Fedora is the Epitome of Fake News

This may be the most difficult piece I’ve ever felt compelled to write.

As an avid, diehard, and possibly even fanatical NC State fan, the idea of defending anyone closely associated with UNC-Chapel Hill for any reason is uncharted territory.

And admittedly, makes me a bit nauseous.

Nevertheless, in the wake of Tar Heel football coach Larry Fedora’s rendezvous with the mainstream media at the ACC Football Kickoff in Charlotte yesterday, and the subsequent media firestorm that has been unleashed on Fedora, I feel I’ve been left with no choice but to be one of the lone voices willing to stand up to the Fake News and speak the truth.

In case you haven’t been paying attention to the mainstream media lately – specifically the propaganda of North Carolina’s primary liberal media outlets like WRAL and the News & Observer – allow me to get you up to speed.

While attending the annual ACC Football Kickoff, an event that is nothing more than an opportunity for the media to place coaches and players alike in front of their collective firing squad, the UNC-Chapel Hill coach defended the sport he’s committed his life to, rightfully declaring that there is no proof that “football causes CTE” and that America is better off so long as football exists.

And therein lies the mainstream media’s real gripe with Fedora today.

He committed a cardinal sin.

He defended football.

For the USA Today’s Dan Wolken, Fedora’s comments were a fireable offense.

In the eyes of the News & Observer sports sections’ resident Ivy League elitist, snowflake, Luck DeCock, Fedora’s factually accurate statements were “dangerous.”

What it was, was a matter of national security. (Apparently.) Larry Fedora’s football demagoguery isn’t just a distraction; it’s dangerous. https://t.co/cYX3IL4ueI

— Luke DeCock (@LukeDeCock) July 18, 2018

That’s right, in the eyes of the mainstream media, a football coach defending the game he’s literally committed his life to is as ridiculous of a notion as a Christian having a personal relationship with Jesus.

You see, for years now, the mainstream media has led the War on Football.

They’ve deemed the sport “too violent” and the very definition of “toxic masculinity.”

And because of this narrative, they have a vested interest in destroying anyone and everyone who dares challenge their attacks.

Never mind that Fedora admitted how great it is that we now know much more about head injuries and safety than at any point in the sports’ history, and that this fact has completely changed the way his staff – and every other staff in America – coaches their players.

But where Fedora really messed up, despite readily admitting that the changes being made for the health and safety of the players is a positive development, is when he pointed out that the mainstream media’s biggest attack line on football –”football causes CTE (Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy),” a neurodegenerative disease found in people who have had multiple head injuries – simply isn’t rooted in the facts of the information currently available.

“I’m not sure that anything is proven that football itself causes it,” Fedora said in response to a question from the media at Wednesday’s session of the ACC Football Kickoff. “Now, we do know, from my understanding, that repeated blows to the head causes it. So I’m assuming, every sport that you have, football included, could be a problem with that.”

And Larry Fedora is 100% correct in that assertion.

There have been no studies – none, zilch, nada, – definitively linking football to CTE.

All of the “research” and “science” the mainstream media likes to claim exists that proves “football causes CTE” simply does not exist.

Period.

“But, but, but” many unsuspecting Americans who have fallen victim to the Fake News media will whine, “Will Smith starred in a movie about how football causes CTE!”

And that’s a symptom of a much larger issue playing out in America today.

As is all often the case, we have once again allowed leftist propaganda to become part of our collective consciousness through Hollywood.

Sure, there have been studies into CTE and traumatic brain injuries, but none have proven – or even claimed to prove – a link between football, as it is today, and CTE.

The first issue with literally every study that has been conducted on the connection between football and CTE is that they’ve relied solely upon “convenience samples” of deceased football players provided by family members who claimed the deceased individuals displayed cognitive, mood, or dementia related issues.

Anyone with even the slightest understanding of scientific research could instantly tell you this represents a biased or “non-objective” group, and any determinations made from such a study are inconclusive, at the very best.

Secondly, these studies completely lack “controls,” or brain samples from those individuals who have never played football or shown signs of behavioral problems.

Without these controls, it is impossible to conclude that CTE is directly correlated to playing football.

Furthermore, a World Neurosurgery study published in June 2017 concluded, “it remains unclear whether [CTE] is a syndrome unique to repetitive head trauma, especially in contact sports, because the epidemiology has been difficult to establish.”

The study went on to say, “In particular, research to date has had a denominator problem in not establishing the total number of potential cases at risk for developing CTE.”

In a separate Journal of Vascular and Interventional Neurology study published in October 2017, scientists – actual real scientists, not those who pretend to be one on TV like Bill Nye the Science Guy – concluded: “Further longitudinal studies should be conducted to correlate the number of suffered concussive/subconcussive forces to the likelihood of developing chronic traumatic brain injury symptoms.”

In translation, the study concludes a relationship between concussions and CTE is not well defined, and therefore, cannot be determined.

And finally, let’s not forget the most glaringly obvious mainstream media omission when it comes to the debate over CTE and football – the fact that girls’ sports, specifically girls’ soccer, have a much, much higher rate of concussions than football.

The fact that the mainstream media has undertaken a collective effort to bury this fact, literally playing a role in harming the health and well being of more and more girls who play sports like soccer, forces one to ask hard questions, like is this all actually about the mainstream media’s sexism?

Regardless, all of this proves, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that Larry Fedora’s assertion that there is no proof football causes CTE is absolutely factual.

In fact, it’s that very reason that the media decided destroying Fedora’s reputation for his factually accurate statements on CTE and football simply wasn’t enough.

So after feverishly Tweeting links to their first think pieces on Fedora’s CTE comments, the mainstream media went to work zeroing in their attacks on Fedora’s other statement – that football has helped make America great.

Once again, the mainstream media frantically attempted to paint Fedora as an out-of-touch football nut who lives inside a vacuum and doesn’t understand the real world.

But all their babble has done is prove it is the mainstream media who is out-of-touch, lives in a vacuum, and doesn’t understand the real world.

For generations now, football has molded millions of young, impressionable American males.

It’s given structure and discipline to many who would’ve been forced to go through life without it.

It’s given countless numbers of young men the opportunity to be the first in their families to attend college, literally changing the trajectory of their families for generations.

And it’s created more millionaires out of those who grew up below the poverty line than almost any other industry.

As NC State head football coach, Dave Doeren, put it earlier today, “You can’t devalue what this sport of football means to our country. You can’t devalue what the sport of football means to our players, to the people that played the game. I mean, I wouldn’t be who I am without football. Not even close.”

But none of that matters to the mainstream media, though they continuously claim to care so deeply about what they perceive as “inequality” and “exploitation” in big-time college sports today.

And the reason why is glaringly obvious.

The mainstream media simply cannot allow their War on Football, one of the most powerful tools they’ve had at their disposal in modern history, to simply be thrown away by a southern football coach known for drinking copious amounts of Red Bull, even if he’s speaking the truth.

In the end, all this entire fiasco has ever been about is bullying Larry Fedora into changing his tune, while putting the fear of God into others so that they will never dare speak in contrast to a mainstream media narrative ever again.

Silencing opposition is what the mainstream media has been able to do best over the past few decades.

Fortunately, though, the truth will always be more power than their Fake News.