NFL Looks To Training To Prevent Domestic Violence By Players05:10

On Friday, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell broke a week of silence following the release of a video that showed former Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice assaulting his then-fiancee.

Goodell apologized for his role in the NFL's handling of the matter.

He also vowed that the NFL will mandate trainings on preventing abuse for all players and staff. What the trainings will entail remains to be seen. But researchers say that to truly cut back on violence among players, the NFL should address at least one major risk factor: a culture of acceptance in professional sports.

Of course, the type of people who engage in domestic violence is disturbingly diverse — some accountants, judges, even clergymen hit their partners.

But lately the question has been: Why the NFL? Especially when the vast majority of NFL players will never abuse their wives or beat their children.

The most startling finding was that the highest rate of domestic violence in the Unites States Army was not in the combat infantry or special forces. It was those people who worked in supply.

Richard Gelles, sociologist, University of Pennsylvania

"Football is not even the most violent sport," says Richard Gelles, a professor of social policy at the University of Pennsylvania. "Why aren't we hearing about wrestlers or boxers? You know the old joke: 'I went to a fight and a hockey game broke out.' "

Gelles has been studying domestic violence since the 1970s. He has done a lot of research on sports, but he also has looked into family violence among members of the military: combat infantry soldiers, trained to kill an enemy.

The U.S. Army brought in Gelles to conduct an internal study in the 1990s. It wanted to find out if men trained to kill were more likely to beat their wives or hit their kids. Gelles found that rates of domestic violence in the Army were slightly higher than in the general population. "But the most startling finding was that the highest rate of domestic violence in the Unites States Army was not [in] combat infantry or Special Forces," he says. "It was those people who worked in supply."

"Supply" — as in ordering things and receiving them. Restocking for missions.

"So the training of people to be violent, and violence as part of your work culture, is not a sufficient explanation for what's going on in the NFL," Gelles says.

It's challenging to measure rates of domestic violence, because most incidents are not reported to the police, or anyone else; but Gelles is not convinced that rates in the NFL are significantly higher than in the general population.

He also notes that, even when aggression is the goal, it's quite difficult to train people to be violent: "In World War II, only about 30 percent of combat infantry actually fired their weapons."

So where do people who abuse their partners and children learn the behavior? How far-reaching should these NFL trainings be?

Rowell Huesmann, a psychologist at the University of Michigan, has spent his career trying to figure out what makes some people violent. Much of his research points to childhood experiences.

"Children are great imitators," Huesmann says. Children who grow up with physical abuse and domestic violence are learning that "this is a way you deal with other people when you want to make them bend to your will," he says. "You hit them."

Adrian Peterson, the Minnesota Vikings running back recently indicted by a grand jury on a child abuse charge for his method of disciplining his son, says his own father whipped him as a child. Peterson even chose the same instrument his father used to discipline him: a switch cut from a tree.