Many of my friends and colleagues know that I chose personal injury law as a profession because of the traumatic brain injury my best friend in high school suffered while playing football.

Due in part to the impact of that incident and my growing knowledge of how dangerous a sport football is, I refused to let my son, now in college, play high school football. The last thing I wanted was for him to be so talented that he would become a professional football player.

A story in the December issue of Sports Illustrated backs up that assumption. The magazine checked on the members of the 1986 Cincinnati Bengals and found that many of the players suffered crippling aches, pains and disabilities that ranged from nagging to crippling.  The magazine reported that the average player has three body parts that hurt them daily.

All but two of the players said they had suffered at least one concussion (translate: brain injury) during their careers. One player said that if his barber asked him to turn his head, he had to move his entire body, too. Another said that his left pinkie goes both “east and west.” Yet another stated that even surgery on his elbow wouldn’t correct the way it bends.

Here’s the catch. Most of them said it was worth it. Yes, you read this right.

That’s football for you, with its play-through-the-pain macho mentality. To their credit, however, many former players are now discussing their experiences in the hopes of making the game safer for kids and professionals alike.

While that’s good news for parents, it’s hard to imagine the game will ever be truly safe. Better equipment and new safety rules aren’t enough. All you need to do is watch an NFL football game, and you’ll understand. All those hits that make us cringe will probably, sadly, catch up with those players in middle age.