AMERICA’S MOST VIOLENT PAST TIME

By: Matthew Weinsheimer

SILVER SPRING, MARYLAND-- Francis Scott Key’s immortal words “And the home of

the brave” are only faintly audible over the roar of approval from the patriotic crowd as they get

excited for the fast approaching kickoff.

A few moments later, America’ most dangerous mainstream sport and, some might

argue, its most popular sport is underway.

“Football is a great way to learn life skills,” local high school football player and Blair JV

captain Will Osborne claims.

Thousands of high paying customers in the stands and millions of other viewers at home

prepare for a showdown between two teams.

` They fully expect, and hope, to be entertained as an offense attempts to make its way to

the endzone through high soaring passes and soul crushing runs, while a defense squares

against them to manhandle the offense and maybe even cause a turnover.

But what they will probably also witness is a roughly 250lb man repeatedly running his

head into another man of equally impressive size and strength.

This action, according to the Concussion Foundation, could cause one or both to have

serious brain injury, potentially leading to erratic behavior, depression, and even early mortality.

“The average fan needs to understand that our Injury rate here in the National Football

League is 100 percent,” Demaurice Smith, NFL Players Association Executive Director stated.

“Roughly last year in the NFL there were 3,500 injuries. We only have 2,000 players. So that

alone tells you that it's not a matter of if you get injured it's a matter of when you get injured,” He

continues. And don’t worry, it gets worse.

Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) is defined by the Concussion Foundation as,

“a degenerative brain disease found in athletes, military veterans, and others with a history of

repetitive brain trauma”. A protein called Tau forms clumps and blocks up the brain, resulting in
a loss of brain cells. In other words, it turns out that if you hit your head over and over again

against something, there are negative repercussions. Those repercussions take form in a wide

variety of ways, consisting of impulse control issues, excessive aggression, depression, and

paranoia. These symptoms can be apparent as early as a patient’s late 20s-30s.

As the disease progresses, however, the issues increase and become less controllable.

Therapy may be able to help aggression and paranoia, but the problems that come with

memory loss, progressive dementia, and impaired judgement are far harder to manage.

Imagine the memory loss and cognition issues with a 90 year old in a 40 year old, and you have

CTE.

Plenty of people, especially football fans, have heard of CTE. But there are a few

important facts that anyone who has even seen football should know. 1st, of 111 brains of

former NFL players submitted to neuropathologist Ann McKee of Boston University, 110 were

found to have CTE in them. That means all but one had significant brain damage. Even if those

110 players were the only ones to have CTE, that would mean 9 percent of the 12,000

deceased NFL players had CTE.

Second, is that this is not only a problem in professional football players. Of 14 brains

submitted by the families of former high school football players who did not move onto college

football, 3 were found to have CTE. A common misconception is that high school football does

not cause brain damage. That is not true. Based off this study it is entirely likely that 21% of

the players you see take the field at a Blair football game would face the penalties of CTE. And

these players take this into consideration before they step out onto that field.

“If I was offered, I would definetely take my time considering playing in college or even at

the pro level because CTE is a big one. That messes guys up for life,” Will Osborne reminded

me with concern. “I have an uncle who only played into high school and he has chronic pain

now,” Osborne continued.

lineman, the single most dangerous position. They are both lucky enough to have been playing

for a combined 10 years and never endured a concussion. So they are in the clear for CTE,

right?

If only it was that simple. The third and final thing a football fan should consider in

reference to the safety of the players, is a concussion isn't necessary for CTE development;

according to the Concussion Foundation subconcussive impacts can also lead to CTE.

Subconcussive impacts are blows that aren’t powerful enough to lead to a concussion.

“What impacted us the most about the CTE findings is that it indicated that it wasn’t just

concussions that led to long term problems, it was head to head contact,” Smith summarized.

CTE is so crushing to the sport of football because it indicates that the safest, most conscious

player in the world who has never even had to consider a concussion, may be in danger of long

term damage just be playing.

“When we asked our neurologist what you can do to decrease head to head contact,

their only answer was to decrease exposure,” Demaurice Smith added.

In other words, how do we make football safer? Don’t play football.

But wait. There’s more.

As if having to worry about permanent head damage wasn’t enough, this isn’t even the

most common injury in football. Compared to the lower extremities and hands, the head is

considered relatively injury free.

“The top [injuries] for a lineman are your ankles, knees, and hands” Blair starting center

Mervin “Swervin” Mancia explains. “The more I play high school ball, the more I get injured so

now I’m trying to figure out how to play aggressive without getting injured,” he added.

Will Osborne has also had his fair share of injury experience. “In eighth grade, I partially

tore my meniscus and sprained my MCL, and got a bone bruise in my left knee. I was out for a
couple months,” he recalls. “I don’t think you could talk to anyone on the team who isn’t in pain

at some point during the season.”

“I would argue we might have a bigger issue with Rheumatoid Arthritis than we have with

cognitive impairment resulting from the game. But, you know almost no one is talking about

how almost all of our players are suffering from chronic pain,” Smith reminded me.

There is no doubt the football community is concerned. Maybe even startled. But based

on this research everyone who enjoys football or takes part in it should be terrified.

And the NFL isn’t doing what is needed to make it clear they care about their players’

health.

The NFL has donated 100 million dollars to CTE research. That would be a great start

and reason to believe the NFL cares about its players, if the study was about its players. The

study is about horse jockeys and why they don't have CTE. So, to recap, instead of funding

research on CTE effects on NFL players and how it could be treated, the NFL funded research

on why not NFL players don’t need CTE treatment. That’s like if you asked a doctor to fix your

broken arm and he gave you reading glasses. Yes. Get angry.

Smith made it quite clear that the league is doing everything it can to be as annoying as

possible. “In 2010, 2011 we told the league we needed to have neutral sideline concussion

experts in order to make sure team doctors make the right call when it comes to players that

might be concussed. And the league resisted that for years,” he remarked.

And if you are a football fan like me, you may be thinking wait but they have those now,

the league must have cooperated somewhere, right? But if you are also a skeptic, like me, you

are probably also thinking but why?

“The only reason they agreed to it is because I told them I was going to kick off my

Super Bowl press conference with the fact that all of the leading neurologists believed e needed

to have a neutral sideline expert, and I was going to publicly accuse the league of being
indifferent to player health. And after that, an hour before my conference, the NFL announced

they would implement a new thing called a neutral sideline concussion expert,” Smith explained

followed by a chuckle. As if we needed more reason to picture Roger Goodell as a cartoon

villain.

If that wasn’t enough proof that the NFL doesn’t care about the safety and wellbeing of

their players, take Thursday Night Football. The popular weekly weekday football game is well

received by fans. It is an opportunity to watch pro football before Sunday, which is nice. But it

gives players a mere 4 days to recover from their most recent battle, which players repeatedly

have said is simply not enough. The NFL has responded, as the NFL often does, by doing

nothing.

Football is america’s sport. Baseball can say what it wants but when it comes to viewership and

ferocity of a fanbase, football is second to none. Football is also second to none in injury,

violence, and brain damage. The result? Too early to say. But it could mean that the league is

in its fourth quarter. Or maybe even overtime.

Then again, it's hard to judge what the future of the league will be when innovation is the name

of the game.

“The reality is that football has always evolved,” Smith reminds us. “When you look at those

years 1915 to roughly 1920s, 20-25 college players died on the field. And so anytime someone

asks me the question of what I think the impact of CTE is I remind them we were at a time when

men died on the football field from trauma.”

I said we were in overtime. I never said how many overtimes there would be.