Is Love of Football Immoral?

Let’s begin by stating what should be obvious to regular readers:  I love football.  Maybe not quite as much as I love baseball and maybe not quite as much as I love hockey, but football is without a doubt a dear sports sister-wife of mine.  I consume it on television and in the stadium in what can only be described as massive quantities.
To wit, I had the best time in East Lansing Saturday watching Michigan State come back to beat Illinois 26-6 after the Spartans had been held to a field goal and to 4(!) total rushing yards in the first half and, as a result, finding their undefeated selves trailing the quite badly mis-underestimated Illini 6-3 at the intermission (which I mention only because I told you so!  I told you the Illinois game was going to be a tough one for State).
It was Homecoming at MSU.  Michigan State University is my school, so I was one of those coming home.  And what a perfect Homecoming it was: crisp and clear with the leaves turning to make the already-gorgeous campus even lovelier.  And the home team had won the big game.
Once I was done doing whatever it is I do in the Spartan Stadium Press Box, I walked across my beautiful campus on my way to a Homecoming get-together.  At that very moment, as I strolled toward my destination thinking about what a great day I was having, and as that fall scenery filled my senses, this—according to a live-blog written by Dave Hutchinson of the Newark Star Ledger—was what was happening in another college football stadium a few hundred miles away:
4:46 p.m. -- A hush falls over the stadium as DT Eric LeGrand lies motionless on the field after a big hit on kickoff return. The entire Rutgers team takes a knee in prayer. Nearly a dozen medical personnel attend to LeGrand, who is strapped to a backboard and carted off the field after nearly 10 minutes. He was presumably taken to the hospital.
LeGrand, a junior (which means he’s 20 or so years old), broke his neck as you by now know, fracturing his c-3 and c-4 vertebrae.    He has no sensation below his neck and cannot move any of his muscles from the shoulders down.  He faces the possibility of permanent paralysis.  He may need to be connected to a ventilator for rest of his life.
The woman pictured at the top of this article is his mom…
Less than 24 hours after LeGrand arrived by ambulance at the Hackensack University Medical Center, another football player was brought in, also by ambulance.  He presented in the very same Emergency Room in the very same way as had LeGrand the afternoon before: his helmeted head immobilized and his body—still in full football uniform and gear—strapped to a backboard. 
This time it was Zach Follett, a Detroit Lion. 
This time, the news was not grim.  Medical tests showed no fracture, no broken neck.  There was no paralysis from the neck down or anywhere else. 
If I’m Zach Follett I’m thinking, “There but for the grace of God go I.”  How could he not?  What a lucky man!
I broadcast high school football.  I cover collegiate football and the National Football League.  Therefore, in so doing, I promote football. 
But when I see stories like this, or when I hear about a great player like John Mackey, not yet 70 but with his brain so damaged because he took hit after hit after hit to the head during his Pro Bowl career that he no longer remembers ever even being a Baltimore Colt, I question what it is that I do. 
And I wonder if there will be a price for me to pay because of it sometime in my future.

Photo Credit: Noah K. Murray/ The Star-Ledger