League of Fans

By Ken Reed

NFL’s Tax-Exempt Status Threatened

Here’s a good deal if you can find one: The NFL takes in $9.5 billion a year and all of it is exempt from federal taxes. The NFL is the greatest sports-entertainment enterprise ever created but somehow qualifies for non-profit tax-exempt status.

The NFL is legally designated […]

By Ken Reed

Michael Sam, the SEC’s defensive player of the year, has publicly come out as a gay athlete. The SEC is college football’s premier football conference. Sam is a big-time player. Which means based on talent alone, he should be drafted by an NFL team in the upcoming NFL draft.

By Ken Reed

I wrote a blog entry a couple days ago about mental health issues in sports.

Today Huffington Post has a column on mental health issues in sports by Alicia Romeo, M.D., a faculty member of the psychiatry department at the University of North Carolina’s Medical Center.

She raises a compelling […]

By Ken Reed

From the time athletes are five years old and participating in their first sports activities, the emphasis is constantly on the physical: run faster, jump higher, move quicker, throw harder, etc. Very little attention is given to the mental aspects of being an athlete: performing with confidence, dealing with expectations and comparisons, […]

By Ken Reed

The NFL is known as a copycat league. If one team is successful doing something, all the other teams in the league get in line to follow suit.

After watching the Seattle Seahawks demolish the Denver Broncos 43-8 in the Super Bowl, I hope that trend continues when it comes to Pete […]

By Ken Reed

Namath Suffering From Football Concussions

Famous New York Jets quarterback Joe Namath says he’s long had to deal with the aftereffects of concussions from his playing career.

“I’ve been some through some things medically,” says Namath. “I’ve seen some things on my brian. But I’ve had some treatment — and […]

By Ken Reed

This is a big step.

In a couple decades, Kain Colter might be perceived as a civil rights and social justice hero. And rightfully so.

“Right now the NCAA is like a dictatorship,” said Colter while announcing the effort to seek labor union representation. “No one represents us in negotiations. The only […]

By Ken Reed

A new NFL Nation anonymous survey found that 85% of 320 NFL players polled would play in the Super Bowl knowing they had a concussion.

That is an extremely scary statistic given the risk of serious brain damage, and even death, from Second Impact Syndrome, a condition created by incurring a […]