Linda Shoemaker, one of the regents, described her pilgrimage from casual fandom to casting a vote against football.

“I really thought at first that we could play football safely with better rules and better equipment; I drank the Kool-Aid,” she told me. “I can’t go there anymore. I don’t believe it can be played safely anymore. I want these young men to leave C.U. with minds that have been strengthened, not damaged.”

[Read Michael Powell’s account of a Colorado player struggling with head trauma.]

The N.F.L. long ago settled on a tobacco-industry stance toward the damage done by concussions and subconcussive hits; its officials have covered up and obfuscated and, only reluctantly, conceded liability for the many hundreds of former players left with minds that fade in and out like old television sets. It is a $14 billion industry, and acting in its pecuniary interests is deplorable but perhaps not surprising.

The nation’s universities face a more ticklish problem known as morality. These institutions were founded with the purpose of developing and educating young minds. It is difficult to square that mission with the fate of those like running back Rashaan Salaam, who ran so beautifully for the University of Colorado and then as a pro, and like Drew Wahlroos, a fearless, rampaging Colorado linebacker. Both men suffered emotional and cognitive problems that friends and family and even university officials related to thousands of hits taken over the course of their careers. Each killed himself.

There are, too, those like Ryan Miller. I wrote about him Wednesday, an intelligent and introspective giant of a young man and a former stalwart offensive lineman for the University of Colorado who at age 29 suffers migraines and the shakes and once in a while gets into his car and has to think many minutes before recalling where he intended to go.