What would a Saturday afternoon on the football field be like without the odd punch up on the field? How would we get our Hockey fix if the players did not get a little rough every so often? And what would we do if instead of running into each other, our NFL heroes politely squeezed passed the defensive line uttering, "pardon me" before making their way to the Touch Down. Violence is a part of sports, no matter how much the professional associations deny the fact. Violence in sports is a form of entertainment and with out it watching sports on the TV wouldn't be the same.

Lets look at the facts: plenty of football matches involve the odd bout of fisticuffs post-tackle, and the ref will try and break it up, but hopefully and usually to no avail. As football has grown wider, it has also increased the violence in the game. To measure its violence different scientific studies have been done. According to the reports, injuries in the game reduce the life expectancy of a football professional player by about twenty years. It has been calculated that the force of the collision between a fast-running lineman and an equally fast-running back, in a football gam

· Of 108 freshmen football recruits at the University of Iowa over a four-year period, more than one-third suffered serious injuries of the neck and spine while playing high school football.

The pressure to win at all costs is especially intense on the college and professional levels. If a team has a losing season, the coach is often fired. Athletes are encouraged to play while injured, sometimes by coaches whose jobs are at risk, sometimes for the good of the team, and sometimes because it is considered to be the "manly" thing to do. Athletes have gotten many permanent injuries as a result of playing while hurt.

Wandzilak, Thomas, et al. (1988, October). "Values Development Through Physical Activity:

http://ericps.ed.uiuc.edu/npin/respar/texts/media/violence.html

Roskosz, Francis M. (1988, Late Winter) "The Paradoxes of Play." The Physical Educator,

Some common words found in the essay are:
TV Television, Touch Violence, University Iowa, , Physician Sportsmedicine, violence sports, Physical Educator, Web Sites, Encarta Encyclopaedia, Wandzilak Thomas, Team Strategies, school college, physician sportsmedicine 16, serious injury, sportsmedicine 16, play role, college professional, injuries football, 16 4, believe sports, physician sportsmedicine, sportsmedicine 16 4,
Approximate Word count = 1286
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)