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Sports discourse in the aftermath of Junior Seau’s suicide

13 Jan

Screen shot 2013-01-13 at 6.32.33 PMI remember the anguish that punctured my thoughts when Junior Seau, a star in his own right on the gridiron, placed a handgun to his chest and took his own life eight months ago at his California home. Sitting in my room, I sunk into my chair and spoke no words for more than an hour while giving all I could to refrain from shedding any tears. His death struck me in an unforgettable way that positioned myself, once again, at a crossroads with football and its place in our culture infatuated with the image of the modern-day gladiator.

On May 3, 2012, the day after Seau’s suicide, I scrambled for answers with the shadows of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) looking over my back. I ran a number of searches in Google’s archives for newspaper articles from the 1990s to find some sort of explanation for his actions, but rarely was Seau’s name mentioned directly in relation to a head injury. Although my efforts were rather premature and assuming, there had to be some sort of correlation between Seau’s noted altercations behind closed doors with the thousands of hits his brain endured over the course of a 19-year professional career.

There are, of course, many different storylines that people turn to to explain something so tragic immediately after its occurrence, but confirmation of my original hypothesis (shared by many, I’m sure) by the National Institute of Health several days ago left me in an inexplicable state of unsettled anxiety. Though I inferred Seau would be diagnosed postmortem with CTE, my response to the official announcement was still along the lines of, “Unbelievable.” Continue reading →

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Alzheimer’s study may help answer questions about CTE

9 Feb

In response to an article published by the New York Times, the Sports Legacy Institute shared these words (on Twitter): “Mystery solved? Key Alzheimer’s study may have unlocked mystery of how CTE progresses.”  What’s being referenced is the release of information discovered by researchers at Harvard and Columbia, who found that Alzheimer’s disease spreads like an infection—not the spreading of virus or bacteria, but the spread of tau protein.

The involvement of tau protein has long been known to be a part of the process in this disease, but in understanding the ways in which such proteins expand over a period of time within the brain offers a variety of potentialities for neuroscience’s future.  The study was done with genetically engineered mice that could create abnormal tau protein, and over a two-year period, the neuronal makeup of the mice displayed a path of destruction headed by tau protein through networks of the brain.  What was most important to take from this study was the fat that the tau protein functioned through cell-to-cell transmission.

The new studies provide an answer. And they indicate it may be possible to bring Alzheimer’s disease to an abrupt halt early on by preventing cell-to-cell transmission, perhaps with an antibody that blocks tau.

This process has been heavily debated in the scientific community in recent decades, where there was no clear definition to the ways in which Alzheimer’s disease progressed.  Scientists did not agree on whether this process was because of cell-to-cell transmission involving tau protein, or it was because the protein found avenues of invasion through the inadvertent assistance of vulnerable neurons.  The unanswerable mystery of Alzheimer’s disease now seems to have found its answer, with regards to this particular question and finding.  It is now plausible to conceive a method in which the process of this neurodegenerative process could be sidetracked and treated with positive result. Continue reading →

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Head Games: Dustin Fink’s influence on contact sports

8 Feb

(Hi everyone! Again, I have fallen into a blogging hiatus, which I apologize for and wish I had more time to contribute to “The Concussion Blog.”  I’m currently working as an intern for the University of Pittsburgh’s Department of Athletics in the Office of Media Relations covering Pitt’s baseball program throughout the season.  This has taken away a lot of my time with regards to writing, but I still vocalize my opinions on the concussion topic on Twitter often.

This post actually stems from an assignment I was given in my Intro to Journalism & Nonfiction course at Pitt, where I was to interview an individual and write a profile piece on them.  I immediately thought of Dustin Fink, the site’s founder, when briefed on this project, and focused heavily on the conception of “The Concussion Blog.”  I hope you enjoy it.)

Head Games: Dustin Fink’s influence on contact sports

“What people fail to understand is that a concussion is a brain injury, and we are now finding out that it has lasting effects.  This could easily be resolved or even avoided if proper knowledge and management is applied.  Heck, when someone tears an ACL, it’s devastating, yet there is a common understanding of the injury and the recovery process.  I believe that if we were to just get on the same page with information and management, we would be one step closer to resolving the concussion crisis.”

As a certified athletic trainer, Dustin Fink regularly witnesses the concussion injury in high school athletics.  When he returns home from work, Fink spends the rest of the day running The Concussion Blog—an online resource for information on sports-related concussions and an outlet for athletes to have a voice in the matter at hand.  The site’s goal is to raise awareness of the injury’s entailments and to encourage all educational efforts regarding concussions in contact sports.

“The blog was developed because of my personal experience with concussions—my injuries and the concussions I see in my job,” Fink explains.  “I felt that there was a lack of understanding.  The message was clear but inconsistent from one person to the next, especially within the media and medical community.” Continue reading →

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Pronger out for season with concussion, but Crosby still considered the ‘pussy’

16 Dec

Former Pennsylvania governor Ed Rendell was once quoted in describing what he termed to be the “wussification of America.”  If we look at this “wussification” in the spectrum of hockey’s concussion debate within the keystone state (the commonwealth of Pennsylvania), may we draw conclusions on differences between the Philadelphia Flyers and Pittsburgh Penguins?  This is, of course, a heated in-state rivalry, and both teams understand the effects that concussions can have on even the brightest of players.  In the past, the Flyers have seen the woes of the likes of Eric Lindros and Keith Primeau.  The Penguins have seen their young star in Sidney Crosby miss much of last season on top of additional games missed this season.

Yesterday, ESPN published a report stating that one of the Flyers’ best players, Chris Pronger, would be out for the remainder of the season due to post-concussion syndrome.  Pronger has not seen the ice since November 19th.

And for quite some time now we have all heard the news of Sidney Crosby’s recurring symptoms.  His career now may be in question.

But with regards to this “wussification,” as we may bend its direction toward the hockey organizations in Pennsylvania, there are some clear polarities between both fan bases between the Flyers and Penguins.  This is coming from the observations of an outside-observing indifferent viewer of the sport who is from Philadelphia and attends college in Pittsburgh—me. Continue reading →

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Who signed up for this?

3 Dec

The widespread understanding of the concussion injury can be defined as scattered, for many may adhere to the simplest definitions of the neurological phenomenon while others may delve more thoroughly into all that the event entails.  There are those who would rather set aside definition and reject any potential complications as something that may interfere with their daily objectives, and there are those who care to recognize the injury as a neurometabolic cascade of chemical imbalance—an attempt by the brain to self-repair after the moment of cell damage in order to restore a more stable sense of homeostasis.  I’m not sure how we can exactly describe the state of the sports environment as it relates to the understanding or attempt to understand the concussion injury, but I do believe that there is a message that needs to be sent and it needs to be sent loud and clear.  Yes, there are questions to be raised regarding the specificity and legitimacy of claims being placed upon terms such as post-concussion syndrome, second-impact syndrome, and chronic traumatic encephalopathy, but that does not mean there is an absence of truth in these trauma-related conditions.  Many of us can understand athletes’ points of view regarding this matter, for you can’t go out on the field and perform with fear haunting your thoughts and be quite as effective, but we all need to be better educated on what a concussion really is.  By this, I am not talking about a neuroscientific breakdown of the processes that develop during the brain’s recovery.  I am talking about listening to the people who have felt the debilitating and, often times, life-altering effects of the concussion injury.  I am talking about allowing those who have been impaired or have had even the slightest of alterations in cognitive ability to have a platform on which they can project their voices—their stories.

Efforts toward a more agreed upon and stable set of terms regarding concussion management protocol are by no means an attempt to overanalyze the injury itself.  These efforts are not, in my opinion, indicative of overanalyzed nature because the risks are essentially laid out for us in the examples of real people struggling with real lives who have been in the shoes of the athletes who are complaining about what’s going on in professional, collegiate, and high school and youth sports.  I cannot find any reason to reject such protocol because of the reality of the injury—meaning its capacity to act as a temporarily parasitic collection of damaged cells, where all it would take is one hit to end one’s season, one’s career, or one’s life.  Even with that in mind, there is enough accessible information out there that can interest us in understanding the cumulative effects of the concussion injury, where the compilation of multiple traumatic events could come to haunt one’s life beyond the game in which they play.  Everyone is entitled to an opinion, and in fact, I have many of my own that aren’t necessarily considered as approving of certain decisions made regarding this subject, but it is hard to sound reasonable in any manner when one is openly criticizing the concussion injury as an insignificant event that athletes might as well have ‘signed up for anyway.’ Continue reading →

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Griffin Takes a Scary Hit: What Happened to Tackling?

29 Nov

In this week’s college football match-up between Baylor and Texas Tech, Heisman hopeful Robert Griffin III (Baylor’s quarterback), took a scary blow to the head from a Red Raider defensive player after making an attempt to give himself up on a slide.  Following the immediate impact from the hit, Griffin’s body froze and continue to slide while remaining flat and motionless for several seconds, before coming ‘to’ and removing his helmet after sustaining a concussion.

This incident tells us a lot about the state of the game of football, even so at the college level.  For one, there is a display of pure athleticism on Griffin’s part to move elusively throughout the pocket and toward the first-down marker in an attempt to maintain momentum on his team’s offensive drive.  In addition to that, on a more so darker note, we see the crumbling technique of the tackle—something that I have and will continue to be quite critical of. Continue reading →

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2011 NCAA Football Reported-Concussion Study: Week 11

15 Nov

The Concussion Blog Original, 2011 NCAA Football Reported-Concussion Study, is a weekly compilation of reported head injuries in Division-I college football.  Concussions are added to the list each week from multiple sources to give you, the reader, a picture of what is happening on the field.  Each week we will bring you the information along with relevant statistics.  This study recognizes that the NCAA has no mandated requirements in reporting injuries, but hopes to shed light on an issue that hasn’t received the kind of critical recognition to that of the National Football League’s.  We encourage reader involvement in contributing to this comprehensive online study.  We will be using Fink’s rule to classify a concussion/head injury.

As we all very well know, college athletics are a beloved element in our national sports culture- controversy aside.  With understanding this country-wide phenomena in the adoration of college football, specifically, we recognize this love, and sit back in our own respective comfort zones of viewing games with our friends and families cheering on our favorite programs and alma mater institutions.  College football is a significant part of our exposure to sports, but for the sake of specificity as it relates to the regards of our blog, college football has not necessarily been given much attention in consideration of the sports concussion crisis.  The purpose of this study is largely to bring forth such attention, and to generate critical questions of the standards in place as football as a whole, without secluding the focus to only that of the professional levels.  This is a hard task, mainly because of the abundance of programs at the Division-I level, but also due to the fact that the NCAA has no requirements placed on coaching staffs to report injuries sustained by players during play. Continue reading →

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2011 NCAA Football Reported-Concussion Study: Week 10

10 Nov

The Concussion Blog Original, 2011 NCAA Football Reported-Concussion Study, is a weekly compilation of reported head injuries in Division-I college football.  Concussions are added to the list each week from multiple sources to give you, the reader, a picture of what is happening on the field.  Each week we will bring you the information along with relevant statistics.  This study recognizes that the NCAA has no mandated requirements in reporting injuries, but hopes to shed light on an issue that hasn’t received the kind of critical recognition to that of the National Football League’s.  We encourage reader involvement in contributing to this comprehensive online study.  We will be using Fink’s rule to classify a concussion/head injury.

As we all very well know, college athletics are a beloved element in our national sports culture- controversy aside.  With understanding this country-wide phenomena in the adoration of college football, specifically, we recognize this love, and sit back in our own respective comfort zones of viewing games with our friends and families cheering on our favorite programs and alma mater institutions.  College football is a significant part of our exposure to sports, but for the sake of specificity as it relates to the regards of our blog, college football has not necessarily been given much attention in consideration of the sports concussion crisis.  The purpose of this study is largely to bring forth such attention, and to generate critical questions of the standards in place as football as a whole, without secluding the focus to only that of the professional levels.  This is a hard task, mainly because of the abundance of programs at the Division-I level, but also due to the fact that the NCAA has no requirements placed on coaching staffs to report injuries sustained by players during play. Continue reading →

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SYB Wristbands Available Online

9 Jun

The fundraising of Save Your Brain via their We <3 Brain wristband is now available for purchase online.  Simply go to the Facebook page and click on the “Get Your Gear” tab on the left hand side.  It is that easy!  From Brandon Drummond;

We figured out a way to sell the wristbands online. If you click the “Get The Gear” tab on our facebook fanpage you can purchase them right on fbook via paypal. If you “like” the fanpage and store you get $1 off each wristband.

Go there and get yours.  Also a reminder to those in the Illinois/Midwest I have some for purchase as well, let me know via email.  I have been sporting mine, get yours!!!

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Tracy Yatsko: Video

22 May

The video is a couple of years old, but her message stays the same…  From our contributor Tracy Yatsko;

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Mailbag: Response/Comment

10 May

I know we have talked about Michelle Trenum before, in fact she has been a very good sounding board for us here at TCB.  When we posted the Mailbag yesterday she had a thoughtful response and very intuitive words for everyone to see.  She even said it was OK to share with everyone.  So here is the email in full;

I really think what you are doing is so important…I only wish more people knew the information before they needed it instead of reading about it afterwards.

In today’s posting there was a mention of seeing yellow.   Austin and my other son would come home from football practice each day and tell me their “war stories” of particularly difficult or funny things that had happened at that day’s practices.  I enjoyed hearing about the practical jokes; about who was got put in their place by the coach that day; and who made everyone laugh.  They would also update me on particularly hard hits or injuries.  One day Austin told me about being hit so hard by our 300 lb lineman that he passed out for a moment then woke up and everything looked yellow.  He described it like he was looking through a jar of pee.  The mom in me freaked out when he said he’d passed out and he said “it is no big deal, I’m fine, I probably just got the breath knocked out of me because REDACTED is so big and he was on top of me, I don’t think I was really passed out….mom, stop freaking out, I’m fine”.  The possibility of a concussion was never on my radar.  I did mention the story after Continue reading →

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The Downfall of Dave Duerson

6 May

(Project Brain Wave)  In 2007, at a Senate subcommittee hearing regarding the implications of long-term cognitive deficits as it relates to repetitive trauma to the head in football, Dave Duerson questioned the legitimacy of such a claim by dismissing any thoughts of relation to the game he played and loved to the neurological struggles of his peers.  Such an assertion at the time was of course denied by many involved with the game, and was largely considered an attack on the forefront of football’s integrity.  During his career, Duerson had at least ten concussions, and lost consciousness during some, according to his family.  And yet Duerson’s argument was founded upon the following claim:

“In regards to the issue of Alzheimer’s, my father’s 84, and as I mentioned earlier, Senator, spent 30 years at General Motors,” Duerson testified.  “He also has—he also has Alzheimer’s and brain damage but never played a professional sport.  So the challenge, you know, in terms of where the damage comes from, is a fair question.”

2007 was a time of inquiry for the national pride of football, as it found itself under tremendous scrutiny dating back to the finding of chronic traumatic encephalopathy in former Pittsburgh Steelers Hall of Fame center, “Iron” Mike Webster.  Chronic traumatic encephalopathy is a progressive degenerative disease of the brain that develops as a result of repetitive head trauma.  This trauma includes the symptomatic, and asymptomatic concussive blows to the head.  It is a disease that is associated with memory loss, impulse control problems, confusion, impaired judgment, aggression, depression, and eventual progressive dementia, most notably characterized by the build-up of tau protein in the brain—an abnormal protein that serves as a decisive key to the mental deterioration of the individual.

What is it that Duerson allowed to blockade his openness to such a proposal?  Without a doubt the pride instilled in the football athlete holds true and strong to the immense withholding of responsibility to the game itself.  Players will defend their sport, because they feel indebted to the numerous life lessons, experiences, and unforgettable memories that paint the legacies of players such as Duerson.  It is also a tremendous rejection of anything that may have been perceived to be a way of life to rather be a way of deferring one’s future to that of an accelerated cognitive decline.  It is fear.  It is knowing that the unknown could be developing without your awareness.  Duerson’s comments regarding the rejection of such a proposal of neurodegenerative implication as a result of playing football signify the feelings of the time.  After all, this was only found in just a few of his fellow football retirees.  This was something that was not widely accepted or acknowledged by those with medical degrees all throughout, and it certainly was something that the National Football League was not willing to endorse. Continue reading →

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Save Your Brain

2 May

We would like to introduce Save Your Brain, an organization headed by a Penn State University graduate amongst others who seek to take on the sports concussion crisis from a unique perspective.  Their approach is to synthesize entertainment with education, while encouraging the playing of contact sports in correlation with the emphasis of the need for concussion education.  The Concussion Blog’s “Project Brain Wave” will be working with Save Your Brain in the near future on some collaborative efforts in educative interviews and fundraising events.  Check them out!  You can also follow their mainstream & student-athlete targeted campaign on Facebook and Twitter.

With regard to America’s youth, entertainment and education have long been thought to be mutually exclusive entities. We at Save Your Brain seek to merge the two in a unique pursuit to revolutionize the instruction of tomorrow’s athlete.

Save Your Brain is an activist organization with the goal of both raising awareness and educating athletes on the concussion epidemic in youth sports. We are presenting a unique approach to teaching young athletes, making it fun to learn about brain injuries.  Concussions are a 21st century problem that requires a 21st century solution. Odds are if you try to tell a high school athlete that he’s gonna be a part of a statistic, he‘s going to tell you where to go (and it’s not a happy place). Nobody questions an athlete who takes appropriate time to heal a torn ACL or broken arm. We feel that it is just as important, if not more important, that this same mentality is applied to concussions. Our goal is to make it an inherent part of their athletic psyche to know that these are serious injuries that require proper attention and recovery. Continue reading →

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PBW and Tracy Yatsko In Action

27 Apr

This morning in the Morning Call, John L. Micek wrote about the concussion legislation in Pennsylvania and how the push is on to make it final.  While reading through it, at the very end our contributor and Project Brain Wave Advocate, Tracy Yatsko had some very clear and powerful words;

Tracy Yatsko, 23, a former basketball star at Tamaqua Area High School until a head injury ended her playing career in 2005, told a crowd in the Capitol rotunda that “this bill should not be about safety and politics. It should be about our safety and protection. We deserve action.”

Thanks Tracy!

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Getting It Across

27 Apr

(Project Brain Wave) In June, the Newfoundland and Labrador Brain Injury Association, of which I am on the Board, is holding a symposium-type event to discuss brain injury, who it affects and how we think we can help people in the province. I have been asked to talk about my experiences, so now, I am writing and gathering ideas – from previous posts on this blog and from my mind – so that I can talk about my brain injury, my recovery and the struggles and opportunities that have come out of my experiences. I have named my talk: (Brain injury) Recovery experiences, challenges and new opportunities. Now it’s just a matter of putting this all together.

Before my brain injury I wasn’t a very confident speaker, but once I got going, my nervousness would disguise itself as confidence and I could ramble and bullshit my way through a lot. I have almost the opposite problem now; Now, my speech belies my confidence (this is unfortunately true in more situations than public speaking) and there’s a lot for me to talk about on this subject.

I am very excited about talking about this and I’ve got to make some decisions to keep the audience interested. Here’s the way I see it:
  1. Most people reading this blog are my friends and you may be interested to hear my thoughts because most of you knew me before I was injured and want to know how I feel now and what’s changed for me personally. I can’t thank you enough for your support during and since. Thanks so much everyone!
  2. You’re the audience for this blog, not for my talk in June. That talk is for people who — Continue reading →

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Coping With Injury [Tracy Yatsko]

19 Apr

(Project Brain Wave)  Six years ago I suffered a concussion while playing basketball, and have been dealing with post-concussive symptoms ever since.  As all athletes who have sustained concussions know, as well as their families, it is a terrifying journey.  In 2005, when I first got hit and was in agonizing pain, many people said to me “there’s a light at the end of the tunnel.”  I hoped and I prayed that they were right.  As other outsiders preached the same thing throughout the second year of my exhausting adventure, my depression told them I was not in the mood to hear it—but maybe, just maybe, it’s almost over.  After the third year, if you were the individual to tell me that there was a “light at the end of the tunnel,” it was not a good thing for you… Let’s just say that it was in their favor that I was not a violent person, because I would have loved to shove that “light” where the sun doesn’t shine…

At age seventeen, I was taken out of high school and was told I would never be allowed to play basketball again.  At age eighteen, I was ripped out of college because my migraines took over my life, and at nineteen, I wanted to end my life.

I am now twenty-three-years old, and I make it my goal in life to raise awareness about the severity of concussions, as I want to help those who have suffered and who are now suffering from the lasting effects.  Six years ago I only had the support of my family, and I believe that there needs to be more than just that.  I had very few friends, but their lives went on and left me behind.  Other than my family, I had no one—no one to talk to, no one who could understand the pain I was in, and no one to help me. Continue reading →

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A Calling For Ease: Drew Fernandez’s Story

16 Apr

(Project Brain Wave)  High school football is one of the most exciting, defining, and proud markers of American culture, and is a level of play that to many, extends beyond being just a game.  The dreaded months of training camp, the long hours in the weight room and practice field, and the time spent studying playbooks to perfect a team’s system all contribute to the same goal—that being the unforgettable feeling of standing beneath the lights on a Friday night before your home crowd, set to take on the opponent you have prepared for.  This feeling that empowers our student athletes, that makes our parents proud and supportive, that makes our friends anxious to witness game day, is what the coaches and players live for.  High school football is defining, and is home to life lessons to be learned and experiences to cherish.  But for the Fernandez family, the high school football season of 2008 is one they will never forget.

Drew Fernandez, a young up and coming running back for his high school’s football program that was known for state championships in seven of the previous ten years, was productive both on the field, and off the field, executing plays on the field and performing well in his studies in the classroom.  His older brother had also been part of their high school’s championship legacy, and Drew was looking forward to contributing to such successes as well.  His first year in high school was in 2008, and it would be the first time he would have an opportunity to be a part of his hometown’s illustrious football program also.  According to his mother, Tracey, “football was everything to him.”

But such a mentality would soon be combated during one of his freshman football games, as Drew received the ball at running back during play, and then took hits from defenders in both the front and back of his head while he was being tackled.  Drew had sustained a concussion, and would be removed from play.  His mother told me of what events would then follow after her son took a blow to the head, resulting in his diagnosis.

“The trainer of the opposing team (the game was away) called me to tell me Drew suffered a concussion, and asked me if I wanted him to go back to school on the team bus or if he should call the paramedics,” said Tracey.  “I asked him to call the paramedics, and I met them at the ER.  The last thing Drew remembers from the day of his injury was riding on the bus to the game.  He has no recall of the trip to the ER via ambulance or anything thereafter until the next morning when he woke up at home.” Continue reading →

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Why I Do What I Do: John Gonoude’s Story

7 Apr

(Project Brain Wave)  I often say that I wish I could go back in time and live the life that I missed out on in high school.  I wish that, when hanging out with my friends, I would not have moments where I would feel out of place, detached from conversation, and left in a state where I could no longer relate to the memories they shared.  I wish that I could have played all throughout my high school years, and that I could have stood alongside those who I considered to be my closest friends, my family, through three seasons of varsity competition.  I wish that I could put on the helmet one more time and give it all I have to play just one more game, to look up at the lights shining down upon the gridiron on a Friday night, with my father in the stands, my teammates beside me, and my heart on the field.  But as much as these feelings come to creep their way into my thoughts, I still feel that I did the right thing by setting my helmet aside and considering the future that I have ahead of me.  And yet it still hurts.  It hurts to say that I lived a career that never was.

In 2007, our high school football program had brought in a new coaching staff following the resignation of the previous coach months before.  It was a strange moment, for we had all been prepared to play for the previous system, but we were now introduced to one that was innovative, powerful, and decorated with a prestigious reputation.  I told myself that I would do anything for this coaching staff, because I believed in them.  I understood what they wanted to accomplish with our team, and how they wanted to go about doing it.  I bought into their platform immediately to mentally prepare myself for months of rigorous work in hopes of competing for a starting role my sophomore year.

Training camp was something that I had never been involved with before.  It was my first year with the varsity program, and as an offensive lineman and defensive lineman, I knew that I had much competition to reckon with.  The days were hot in the summer.  The hours put into the weight room were long and frustrating, but productive.  The sprints up hills challenged us all mentally.  But many of us made it through that 2007 summer.  I made it through, and little did I know that my name would be included favorably on the depth chart when our guard was injured leading into two-a-days. Continue reading →

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Project Brain Wave

5 Apr

The Concussion Blog would like to introduce to the public Project Brain Wave, a movement of contributions committed towards the protection and preservation of athletes’ careers through the sharing of knowledge and personal stories.  Project Brain Wave originated at the community level in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, and has since expanded to become adopted by The Concussion Blog, for the goals of all contributors at this site target one thing—addressing the sports concussion crisis.  Through this effort, we hope to give a platform for the voices of those who were once rejected by the stigma concussions are associated with.  The sharing of stories of those who have suffered from mild traumatic brain injury, as well as the thorough distribution of facts regarding the brain and concussions specifically, will be essential to the fight to gain universal attention and acknowledgement of concussions in sports.  As Christopher Nowinski once said in an interview with John Gonoude, “We need to take a step back and start taking care of ourselves.”

Project Brain Wave is, by no means, a movement whose structure is set in stone—it is rather a tool for all to use as an outlet to voice their ideas, stories, and opinions.  The Concussion Blog contributors will produce the sharing of such information in an effort to represent the unheard.  In addition, this project—this movement—targets widespread concussion education while working towards altering the stigma of the injury.  We are not advocates of repudiating contact sports.  Mild traumatic brain injuries are an inherent risk of contact sports, but the ways in which we manage them are essential to the safety of our athletes, at all levels.

Dating back to the conception of The Concussion Blog, there has been a desire Continue reading →

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Marquette Soccer Player Has To Give Up Soccer

4 Apr

Shannon Walsh has posted a two-part story about Marquette soccer player Scott Miller and his decision to forgo his senior season due to concussions.  The stories have been posted on TopDrawerSoccer.com (LINK to Part I) and are very informative, well worth your time.  Here are some excerpts;

In April 2010, Miller collided with a goalkeeper against Northern Illinois(m), leaving him with a broken nose and concussion. Though Miller experienced symptoms of the concussion, he decided not to tell the team medical staff or coaches, and was cleared to play ten days later against Milwaukee(m) in the Wisconsin Cup.

“That was the biggest mistake of my career at Marquette,” Miller said of his decision to play against UWM. “I told the team doctor and coaches that I felt normal and would be ready to play. Going into the game against UWM, I did not feel well but decided to play. It was one decision that if I had done differently probably would have saved my career.”

Underlining the need for awareness and education, Miller exemplifies exactly the stigma associated with concussions.  In retrospect Continue reading →

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Yankees Acknowledge Concussions

31 Mar

For sixteen years Jorge Posada has been behind the plate for the New York Yankees, and today, he is listed in the line-up as the team’s designated hitter.  Of course there have been several factors that have led to such a position change, but of those listed, we come to find that concussions may have played a part in such a change for the five-time all-star.

The catching position is closely associated with debilitating knee issues developing over time in an individual player, as being the rock behind the dish does not come with any ease.  It is a difficult position to play, and is but an essential piece to the puzzle for any roster in any level of the game.  But what many may look beyond, at least those who have not played the position before, is the fact that catchers are prone to taking balls off of the mask from foul tips.  Let’s not forget that they are the other half of the equation during a collision at the plate when a base runner is striving to touch home plate.  Catching is associated with pride, and pain.

With that in mind, this is where we come to note Posada’s predicament.  It turns out that Posada has battled with symptoms relative to that of what would be considered to be a concussion throughout the extent of his career, and has not necessarily been one to take himself out of the mix when dealing with headaches and feeling ‘not right.’  This is something that manager Joe Girardi, a former Yankee catcher himself, was concerned about.

“He’s experienced things with the headaches and stuff. He had some headaches last year with the concussions, that sort of thing, that we were concerned about,” Girardi said. “When he had that concussion last year, you could see that he was foggy for a couple days.” Continue reading →

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Madden NFL Football Introduces Concussion Policy

30 Mar

Madden NFL Football has been one of my favorite series of video games throughout my childhood.  It has truly captivated a generation of young athletes, and even adults for that matter, and has come to produce a world that is so intricately similar to that of what you would see on a Sunday afternoon on your HD television.  It has come a long way since its conception, and has leaped to the foreground of sporting video games to be, without a doubt, the most popular and well-known.  Today, Madden NFL Football, despite any rumors of the lockout for the NFL this upcoming season, is back in the news.

According to a report published by NBC Chicago, the game has decided to incorporate up-to-date management policies on how a concussion is dealt with in the game.  As noted on my own personal Facebook wall, I called this- for lack of a better term.  I had a feeling that, with all of the attention concussions were getting during the 2010-2011 season, concussions would soon find their way into the game of Madden NFL Football, which has been praised for how close-to-reality it has been.

And yet as soon as I posted this on my Facebook wall, the expected response came up as a notification.  Please, excuse me and the individual’s comment for using the following adjective in an inappropriate and incorrect way…

The response: “wow, this is gay” (followed by an immediate ‘like’). Continue reading →

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Time to Heal: Tracy Yatsko’s Story

22 Mar

Last June, I had the pleasure of speaking at a press conference at Lincoln Financial Field in support of Pennsylvania State Representative Tim Briggs’ proposed concussion management legislation.  I was an eighteen-year old who had been researching concussions in sports for nearly ten months at that point—a task that I engaged in to further educate myself and others on the subject at hand; a project that would essentially close many doors in my past that had been left open for too long.  But as I situated myself beside the podium at this press conference, I had no idea what kind of story the young woman sitting to my left had to say.  Of course, throughout my research, I understood that others have been through worse—much worse—than what I had experienced, but never did I think I would meet someone I could relate to.  It was even more than just relating to, for this individual shared a heartbreaking story to the public.  She was at the press conference for the same reason as myself, and that was to promote the need for concussion legislation in our state, but she did more than that.  Her words were more than the cover to a bill.  Her words were the voice of the sports concussion crisis.

Today, Tracy Yatsko, a twenty-three-year old woman from Tamaqua, Pennsylvania, is still fighting the repercussions of an injury that ended her high school athletic career.  Six years removed from the moment of her last concussion, Yatsko represents the qualities of strength and motivation, for her battle has not been one that has been easy.  Sure, I have heard of stories in which athletes have sustained decisively fatal blows to the head.  But when I talk to this woman, and when I think about her story, the only words that I can describe how I have perceived her story is hell on earth.  Why did this situation in which Yatsko found herself within come to be?

2005 was a year, with regards to concussion awareness, that was still present in the sports’ ‘Era of Good Feelings.’  There was not much to worry about, and though there were stories creeping out of the media regarding concussions in football, there was not much of a worry in other athletic activities.  There really wasn’t much consideration as to what a concussion was.  It was merely an injury that was ignorantly summarized as a headache; a distraction; a joke.  And with such stigma comes tides of the familiar phrase that claims pain to be weakness leaving the body.  Only did we, or rather, do we, come to open our eyes to what a concussion is until the moment of a tragedy personally affects ourselves or those who we consider to be close to us. Continue reading →

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Morneau Returns

12 Mar

The breeze beneath the Florida sun smells of baseball.  It is that time of the year for baseball fans and baseball players to begin developing feelings of eagerness and excitement, for opening day is only moments away.  For now, however, they must settle for the spring training schedule that sets the tone for clubhouses and helps audiences gain insight into what they must prepare for regarding the upcoming season.  But for Justin Morneau, spring training is a new life- a chance for him to rebuild himself after sustaining a concussion in 2010 that sidelined him for eight months.

Yesterday was Morneau’s first time on the field since mid-season last year when his head collided with the knee of a Toronto Blue Jays middle-infielder while trying to break up a double-play.  At the time, Morneau didn’t think he would be out for long.  He remained optimistic, but days turned into weeks, weeks turned into months, and months nearly came to become nearly a year of being sidelined from play.  When he realized that he was not okay, and that it was going to be awhile for him to become fully recovered, Morneau stared straight in the face with reality and accepted his injury.  This type of injury is not the most common of injuries in baseball, nor is the severity of the one that affected him.

“It’s one of those things, the best way to describe it is like being on an island,” he said. “Nobody can really know what you’re going through every day, what you’re feeling every day, and it’s got its own timetable.  It’s not up to you.” Continue reading →

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Diamond Cutting Concussions

7 Mar

Today we stand in a dilemma of disappointment complimented by controversy and conspiracy, and in the midst of the sports’ concussion crisis many have lost sight of the real issue—the protection and preservation of athletes’ careers at all levels.  This is more of an issue of safety as opposed to how ‘malignant’ some modifications may be to the sports, or how certain sports may lose the interest of upcoming athletes, or how financial investments may come to hurt those in positions of authority—ah, yes, it is money that makes the multi-billion dollar industries go round.  The spotlight on concussions has been directed mostly toward football and hockey, for they are truly of the most prevalent incidents of contact and collision.  Standing behind these two major sports—which have been rightly criticized for an extensive period of time regarding concussion management—are sports such as baseball, to name one, which is not necessarily considered by all to be a contact sport.  What would the concern for concussion be in baseball?  Is it time for America’s pastime to provide a leading example in the management and addressing of concussion in sports?  Maybe so.

When I was in middle school, I witnessed a baseball-related head injury for the first time.  We were doing somewhat of a drill consisting of simulated game play, and were not required to wear helmets.  After all, nothing THAT bad could happen right?  This was just practice.  Wrong.

One of my teammates had got caught in a run-down, from what I recall, which involves defensive players playing “cat and mouse” with the runner until he is tagged ‘out.’  During this predicament that my teammate had caught himself in, he was nailed in the head by the baseball… fell to the ground… was hardly responsive… could not open his jaw… and was taken to the hospital.  Afterward, the coach blamed one of the defensive players for not being careful enough, and yet the coach was the one who rightfully deserved blame.  Base-runners are REQUIRED to wear helmets in games, so why would my friend not be required to wear one during practice?  Looking back on it, it is quite a frustrating situation, especially knowing what I know now about concussions.  Now I may be speculating here, but, it just so happened that the child who took a baseball to the head in middle school also led a football career in high school that was cut to an end due to multiple concussions (amongst other injuries). Continue reading →

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