Happy eclipse day! I know what you were thinking: There is eclipse content all over the internet today, but at least sports is safe from the flood. Sorry, friend, we lucked into some eclipse content thanks to Steve Addazio, head football coach of the Boston College Eagles.
Turns out, for Addazio, the dangers of retinal burn are fake news.
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Because animals don’t go blind, or something.
Now, look, I am not a scientist, but a lot of the people at NASA are. Apart from “space” literally being part of the name, I trust NASA mostly because I don’t know fuck all about space other than it is pretty big, and devoid of anything (except for all life as we know it), and the NASA folks spend years studying this stuff. So if they tell me that I will permanently screw up my eyes by looking at the solar eclipse without special protection, I am not going to look at the solar eclipse without special protection. While I may not be a scientist, I am reasonable person.
Steve Addazio, as far as I know, is not a scientist. It’s also debatable whether he, as a head football coach and a man who disputes warnings about loss of eyesight by going with the “why don’t the dogs go blind, smart guy?” response, is, well, reasonable.
And, again, a lot of the people at NASA are scientists—scientist who specifically study and monitor celestial bodies such as A.) the sun and B.) the moon. Three things that factor into today’s action? The sun, the moon, and space.
One thing that doesn’t factor into today’s action? Steve Addazio.
An important life lesson: just like you wouldn’t take any coaching or sports advice from a bunch of space nerds, don’t take science advice from a football coach.
