Concussions Affect On Professional Sports

Connor Graham
Nelson High School
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Concussions have been a hot topic of conversation in the past decade, as significant

people have come forth admitting to have been dealing/ dealt with concussions and brain injuries

in the past and or present. Few of these people are well known athletes, and have gone to a state

of madness, or some Concussion awareness has resulted in dramatic changes to contact sports,

impacting the rules, equipment, and safety and awareness for the players. There has been an

overwhelming amount of discussion about player safety and longevity with regard to head

injuries. Diehard fans, current players, media, and older generation players are debating the

changes necessary to ensure the safety of the players. The question is have concussions played a

role in sports? Concussions have altered sport, and as a result, efforts have been made to create

concussion awareness. However, not enough has been done to support current player's and

former players already having to deal with the cruel disorder. Concussion awareness has resulted

in dramatic changes to contact sports, impacting the rules, equipment, and safety and awareness

for the players. There has been an overwhelming amount of discussion about player safety and

longevity with regard to head injuries. Diehard fans, current players, media, and older

generation players are debating the changes necessary to ensure the safety of the players. The

question is: Have concussions played a role in sports? Concussions have altered sport, and as a

result, efforts have been made to create concussion awareness. However, not enough has been

done to support current players.

Many questions that are being asked are, is this all just too hyped up? Are we taking

concussions to cautiously? These are personal opinion questions, if you believe that not enough

is being done to protect athletes from concussions and to prevent your children or yourself from
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the risk, you should do some real research, then you can choose if you or they are going to

participate or not, that is completely your opinion that you are entitled to. If you believe that it is

all just hyped up and everyone is getting worried about nothing, you should do some real

research and then continue from there. Boston university is a world renown school for their

studies in the medicine and human anatomy. In 2009 Boston University did a study on five

former professional football players. Three played offensive line, one played defensive line, one

played linebacker. All five had evidence of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE). The people

being studied had gone through constant intense mood swings, (2009/8/7, Ann C et all)

According to recent studies concussions have been rising significantly. Last studied in 1999 by

(2011/1/29, Andrew E. Lincoln). Concussions have risen 95% in high school sports since the last

recent study done in 1999.

The current stigma around the sensitive issue has caused a few athletes to retire well

before needed. Chris Borland once a top rookie in the NFL playing for the San Francisco 49ers

decided to retire after his rookie season because he was afraid of concussions and their ever

lasting, and unknown symptoms of CTE. (3/17/2015, Mark Fainaru-Wada, Steve Fainaru).

Many kids are being pulled or dropping out of contact sports because of fear of long term effects

from brain damage. There is an incident rate of 0.24% of boys per 1000 in the US, real fear is

instilled into parents and kids because they are watching NFL or the NHL where big hits happen

and their favorite are getting concussions like Sydney Crosby, or Cam Newton. Many smaller

kids are afraid of the hits they see on tv so they opt out of contact high school sports. While

reviewing the survey 21% of Nelson high school students have opted out of sports like football

and hockey due to fear of concussions. As this continues to take place it will ruin sports because
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you change the entire dynamic of the game when you take contact out, or nothing will change

and kids will stop being allowed to play and there will be no next generation. You wont be

able to watch the toughest fighter on tv anymore or watch the scariest middle linebacker in the

league dominate and run over quarterbacks and running backs like they do now or how they did

since the creation of these games. The sports wills will die, creating many problems with the

countries economies. There is definitely two sides of the stigma. There has been a strong positive

side of the stigma in the sense of wanting to support players for what comes after the game if

they have dealt with concussions or had any type of concussion symptoms. Since the movie

concussion has been released portraying Dr. Bennet Ifeakandu Omalu and his discovery of CTE

the stigma has become much worse and understandably why. If you click the video link below

you will see Mike Webster Iron Mike. One of the toughest NFL centres to ever play. He was

the first case of CTE found and recognized. The next person interviewed is Gene Atkins who

was a hard hitting safety in the NFL and you can clearly see the impact that improper treatment

has had on both individuals. The stigma is well earned for being scared of the unknown disease.

But how concerned should people really be?

Rules have changed for many professional sports that include contact like hockey and

football. For the NFL and NCAA football a rule was added penalizing head to head contact in

2006. The rule is suppose to keep players safe from injuries like concussions. As society

becomes more increasingly aware of the dangers and long term effects of post concussion

syndrome. The next question to be asked is how can we help players more? and there are three

simple answers to that. The first one is simply take the contact out of the sports. By doing this

you remove roughly 11 positions between offence and defence for football and not to mention
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the part of the game that everyone loves. As Well as for hockey it would change the flow of the

game completely, and Boxing would not exist. Second option is building the best equipment for

impact on the body. There will never be equipment that can completely stop concussions from

occurring, but if equipment developers can create equipment that takes more of the force from

the violent crash, the less the body has to take making concussions less likely to happen. But

because you can not put a helmet on your brain there will always be that risk that players will

have to accept. THe third and final option is to do something drastic. The very unrealistic

thought could be the best option for players. To end the organizations like the NFL, NHL UFC,

and parts of the NCAA.

In conclusion the statistics and cases should bring more than enough evidence to provide

a person with a completely conclusion on the question has professional sports been affected by

concussions? The evidence brought forward should persuade a player or parent to realize that

such sports have been damaged with the number of cases with clear proof of post concussion

syndrome symptoms from improper or undiagnosed concussions. With the stigma causing

current players to retire early, high school and college players to stop playing in fear, and former

players committing suicide or talking on how CTE has affected their lives like Brett Favre has (

6 July 2013,Bryan Lipsky) has made all leagues try and compromise with player safety, but at

the end of the day it's a business. As soon as one player goes down from head injury the team

cuts them and brings a new one in. This issue will never be properly solved. It will either explode

and all the loved sports will once be a thing of the past or no one will care because there is little

to no talent because everyone is scared of becoming the next Iron Mike. Good luck to the
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current players who hide from diagnoses because the pay check is to enticing. The sports might

build character, but they also build brain dead suicidal zombies.