Seeing Stars: How Concussions and CTE Are Affecting Football
SACRAMENTO, CALIF: The year was 2012, the locker room was full of smiles and laughter. Those vibes tend fill the air when you have just beat your rival school in football by the ungodly margin of 49-0 in the first game of the season (42-0 at halftime).
Lost in the scene, though, was the team’s middle linebacker – he was in the trainer’s office going through concussion protocol.
Again.
For all the school knows, this was only his second concussion in his life. In reality though, his teammates know that this was his 6th concussion in the past couple of years. He was only a sophomore at that time.
This story, though, doesn’t end in tragedy; that student went on to be admitted and study at Harvard. Others however, are not so lucky. Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy, most commonly known as “CTE”, is a disease that affects thousands of people every year, and the sad part is that the majority of those affected do not even know it until it is too late.
Until recently, concussions and the subsequent effects of them have been stuck in the shadows, hidden by larger corporate agendas in order to protect their precious game from being neutered, and their reputation from being tarnished. You may have seen the movie Concussion recently; it was the first major reality check that the American public was given about brain damage in football. Since Concussion, CTE research has expanded greatly, with even the NFL investing millions of dollars.
A recent study conducted by Boston University found that CTE was present in 96 percent of the ex-NFL players they examined and 79 percent of the players from any level of football. In total, 131 players from every level of playing had CTE from a field of 165 deceased people whose brains they studied.
As a fan and an ex-player of the sport, it is terrifying. It is terrifying to know that while I am sitting back lounging on my couch every Sunday morning, I could be watching players whom I adore – good people – ruin their lives. All the big hits that I used to cheer for, I now cringe at.
I am thankful to God every day that I was not big enough to ever see the field much in high school. Because this is not just a professional football issue. In fact, because of the rules, regulations, and coaching at the professional level, the issue hardly applies to those players. By the time they get to the national league, most of the damage has been done and at that point they are well informed adults who do this as a career.
At least they have a choice.
Professional football players chose a violent sport as a career and are paid handsomely for it. The real issue starts at the roots – when people start playing as children and into high school. This is the time period when habits are developed, technique is taught, and the love (or hate) for the game grows.
Andrew Edwards is an ex-high school football player and now writes for a college football blog. The recent studies of CTE and concussions haven’t influenced the way he views the sport though, despite his friend having had 14 concussions in high school – “His brain is fucked”.
“I knew football was a dangerous sport, everybody does. The fact that you can get a brain injury from knocking heads together inside of plastic helmets is not all that surprising. Football is still America’s sport and hopefully it always will be. I’m more angry at how concussions have changed the game to make it less interesting. If you don’t want to risk an injury of any sort, don’t play football. It’s as simple as that. You see players like Chris Borland understand that. He was drafted high, played one year, made a couple million, and retired.”
The story of another high school football player went viral earlier this year after GQ’s Reid Forgrave wrote about Zac Easter and his “concussion diaries”. It outlines the life of a young man – from the peewee league he played in, to his suicide just years into his twenties.
“I learned around this age that if I used my head as a weapon and literally put my head down on every play up until the last play I ever played [sic]. I was always shorter than a lot of other players and learned to put my head down so I could have the edge and win every battle. Not only that, but I liked the attention I got from the coaches and other players. I can look back and remember getting headaches during practice. Of course by now, I had gained the reputation from my coaches and classmates about being a tough nosed kid and a hard hitter so I took this social identity with pride and never wanted to tell anyone about the headaches I got from practices and games. In 6th grade, I really became a road grater as a fullback and running back. I was short and chubby, but I would try to run over the linebacker’s every time I got the ball. I’m sure my parents still have the game tapes to prove it….” – Zac Easter
Systemic hyper-masculinity.
This is the reason many players who stop playing the game before they reach 20 years old develop CTE. Coaches can teach form and technique all they want to try and prevent these hard hits from happening, but in the end they are still kids and they go out there every game to show their family and friends just how “good” they are.
When asked if he thinks players are dropping technique in favor of big hits, Andrew said, “Yes, but I believe that can change. I grew up a wrestler and played rugby as well, and learning how to properly tackle saved me from a lot of pain. Form tackling needs to be more enforced in the NFL, but big hits are part of the game.”
Over the past few years, states like California have passed multiple laws to try and prevent young players who have been concussed from returning to the game before they are fully “healed.”
Scarred might be the more appropriate term, though.
California assembly bill 2007 went into effect January 1st of this year, and it aims to put concussions into a greater light.
“An athlete who has sustained a concussion shall complete a graduated return to play protocol of not less than seven (7) days in duration under the supervision of a licensed health care provider. If an athlete seventeen (17) years of age or younger has been removed from athletic activity due to a suspected concussion, the youth sports organization shall notify a parent or a guardian…”
Jerry Brown also signed bill AB 2127 which severely limits full-contact practices for middle and high school leagues. This was met with almost no backlash as the NFL has already implemented similar rules, and, as we have seen, how the NFL goes so goes the rest of the nation’s youth leagues.
Compare this to what a state with more relaxed laws is doing, and you will see that this is a non-partisan issue and it is being handled nationally with the same degree of carefulness. “The AIA (Governing board for Arizona high school sports), has put into play concussion protocols. The schools must abide by all these rules. Trainers are now receiving even more training in terms of concussions. All athletes in all sports must now take a base test before their season. Any time during the season if the trainer suspects a concussion, the player is tested. If they fail, they go into concussion protocol and must be cleared by a physician before returning to play. Parents are more aware and I have seen more parents spending money on better helmets for their athletes,” says Justin Unger, a high school football coach in Arizona.
The problem with young children playing football is that they are not aware of the effects that it can have on their bodies. Most of the time, they do not even know they have a concussion.
“I do think players will withhold information about having a concussion because they feel like they are letting their coaches and teammates down if they are not playing. I try to convey to my players that your health is more important than one game,” says Unger.
Athletes are some of the most prideful people on this planet. For kids in high school or college, this game and their performance is their entire life. They define themselves based on how fast they run, how hard they hit, and how many ankles they can break one night a week. Taking them out of the game? Don’t even think about it.
“These kids, when they put on those helmets and step out onto the field…[they feel like] they’re invincible,” says Julieta Guzman, the head athletic trainer at University of California, Davis.
Unfortunately, invincibility is just a mirage for them. After the adrenaline wears off, and the cheering crowds go home, they feel the pain. It might be in their legs. It might be in their shoulders. But for the really unlucky ones – it’s in their heads.
Go on any social media site during a football game, and you will hear men from past eras cry about how the referees and the new rules of the game are “pussying” the sport.
“Back in my day, none of these hits would have been called. Now, you have players complaining every time someone lays a finger on them.”
Many of the people who say statements like these come from times when football was the quintessential “manly man” sport. Today, the sport and the players have shifted dramatically to help prevent injuries to the entire body, not just the head.
Football is now a game more about speed, finesse, and skill, rather than brute force and strength.
So how do you coach kids who were raised in a national culture where their fathers root for big hits? Well, it starts at the top, according to Unger:
“I feel that we are seeing more of a change as the changes come from the top down. When the NFL and now college put an emphasis on protecting the players and not allowing illegal hits, the high school players notice and change the way they play.”
The downside to this is that the NFL and its players have to understand they are role-models for these young kids. Not just in how they play football, but how they live their lives. These are the people whom high schoolers dream of becoming, so if these NFL players hit hard, so do the kids. If these NFL players are caught doing drugs to enhance their performance, then you can bet your ass so will those high schoolers.
Ultimately, it comes down to parents to educate their children about the good and bad effects of the sport they play. As parents, they have the responsibility to allow or not allow their children to play the game.
I am sure as hell glad I am not a parent yet, because that is one of the hardest decisions a parent has to make. When given all the information about CTE and the long term consequences, would you let your kid play football? It’s a question that seems so easy until you actually have to answer it. It is harder to feel bad about educated adults who decided to play the game and got hurt, but to willingly put your child at risk, without him knowing or grasping the full extent to which he could be hurting himself and his future, is a dilemma millions of parents will have to tackle as CTE and the effects of concussions become more known to the public.
Unger would allow his children to play, “I would allow my kid to play football. However, I would wait until they were at least 12 years of age. They need to develop the neck muscles and mature brain wise before they take the risk of injury”.
Guzman, though, has a more complex opinion, “I struggle with this question, as people ask me all the time. I don’t know. I love football, I think it is a fantastic sport. I love the comradery of it, but I don’t enjoy the violent nature of it…I think that contact football, me personally, should not be allowed before the age of 16, they should be more fully developed, ya know, mentally, their growth plates haven’t developed, there is so many things that could go wrong as the young brain is developing. I don’t know, maybe I’ll let him be a kicker [sic]?”
I don’t think I would.
But again, that is easy for me to say, not having a kid begging to be like the people I cheer for every week.
And it seems like America is agreeing with me if you look at the participation statistics in youth tackle football compared to flag football. USA Football, the preeminent body for youth football in America says that youth tackle leagues have had participation decrease by 20 percent since 2009, while flag leagues have steadily risen over the past years.
Executive Director Scott Hallenbeck knows that this decline is due in part because parents have had more exposure to the negative effects of violent hits in the media in recent years. Nationwide, they have implemented a “new” form of tackle football with less players on the field, no kickoffs, and shorter field lengths, in an effort to minimize violent contact.
The nation is in a time of historic change for its prized sport; parents and players alike are dropping the sport in favor of healthy minds and bodies.
The interesting thing is that violence in the sport has never been lower than it currently is. If you watch how games were played even 20 years ago, the difference is startling. So, why are these concerns greater now than they have ever been before? It just goes to show how afraid people are of the unknown. There is something so tangible about breaking your leg or tearing your ACL. Hurting the exterior of the body shows visible effects and visible healing.
You never know when your mind will break.
And there is no “fixing” that.