It seems to be harder for people to comprehend or even choose to acknowledge things they cannot physically see. When one suffers a concussion, that person and the people around them cannot see the physical injury caused to the brain. The key word in that statement is injury. When people think of injuries they think of physical things that doctors can fix. With concussions the most you can do is rest the brain, there’s no big surgery or medicine to remedy it. Another example where people don’t tend to acknowledge the problem is with mental illness. Why is it that doctors and other medical professionals will recognize these as debilitating illnesses, yet the public and society chooses to ignore them? I have come up with an idea that since one cannot see the problem our conscious feels better when we choose to ignore since it is an inconvenience to us. Over the past couple years the talk about concussions has surfaced and is now more openly and freely talked about. This is also true for mental illness; celebrities and other people openly talk about their struggles on social media. Even though it is talked about there is still a stigma around concussions due to the inconvenience it causes for businesses like the NFL and other sporting corporations. Just like concussions are to the NFL, mental illness is also that same inconvenience to society.

One of the sports where head injuries are often seen is football. Football has always been a contact sport and players have always been praised on how hard they hit. Now that doctors and other medical professionals are telling athletes and coaches the opposite, everyone seems to be confused and angry about the medical professionals opinions. People feel that sports themselves are being threatened and ruined because of these opinions. Medical professionals are aware that the likelihood of stopping hard contact sports like football is very slim, however they want to raise awareness and try and make the sports safer for the athlete. That is why it is their job to educate people on prevention rather than telling them to quit the sport in general. 

CTE is a disease that is developed due to repeated head trauma; Dr. Bennet Omalu is the doctor that found this disorder. He is originally from Nigeria and it is revealed to us in the book “Concussion” that when he discovered the disease he was afraid that people would choose not to believe him since he was not originally from the US. This book was later made into a movie, showing that this is a serious topic and this doctor’s story deserved recognition. His passion and immense knowledge is seen throughout the book and movie, where he never gives up and ends up finding what he was looking for. Since Dr. Omalu is from Nigeria he believed that people would think some foreign man has come in to the country to eliminate football, the most American thing, and ruin everything. This is basically how the NFL and people everywhere did respond. No one could possibly fathom the idea of anything being wrong with football. They also, could not grasp that since the problem was never brought up before why was this doctor from Nigeria bringing it up? NFL doctors then began to try and discredit everything Dr. Omalu had come up with from his finding trying to save the NFL franchise. The problem with this is that the NFL never considered that any compassionate or normal human being would step back and think if they actually did contribute to the effects NFL players felt later in life due to their concussions. Instead of stopping and having the athlete’s health in mind they immediately went into crisis mode to save the money over the human being. The people and athletes chose to believe the NFL doctors who are paid to do what their told and have many different fields of study over someone who’s only field of study is brains. Since the idea was so outrageous and challenged everything everyone knew and loved they chose not to believe it. People hear what they want to hear and if they are presented with evidence by a respected individual they are more likely to believe it because it supports their way of thinking and doesn’t challenge it.

People tend to have preconceived notions when it comes to Mental Health problems. Society and the media have previously portrayed anyone with mental health problems as crazy, irrational and bad people. Where in reality there are many more people dealing with mental health issues than you think. Research has stated that the family members and the people close to us are the most willing to stigmatize mental health issues. This means that not only are these people being isolated by random strangers, they are being judged by their closest people who are meant to be their support system. A lot of prejudice and stereotypes are created due to lack of education, if more people are educated about mental illness they would treat it as an illness, and not as an inconvenience. The NFL and other media can be considered society because of the large platform and influence they hold in today’s world. Mental illness can affect anyone and most of the time it does. As a society we don’t like to focus on the bad things in life that make us have to think deeper and delve into what is it to be a human being. We don’t like to think of ourselves as flawed and images from the media encourage the thought of reaching perfection. Athletes especially are painted as these heroes for kids and people watching they are taught to be perfect and are in the spotlight 24/7. This then translates to everyone in society trying to ignore the flaws within them, striving to become these heroes or images we create for our wannabe selves. Celebrities now are trying to bring awareness by random acts that bring awareness or even talking about their own struggles with mental illness. Society and the Media dictate the opinion of popular vote. These celebrities are heroes to people around the world and them coming out and showing that they are going through it too can instill strength in these people who are struggling and feel like they have nowhere to turn. I think if more celebrities are hero figures who are portrayed as perfect through the media, show their flaws and say it’s alright to not be more people will be willing to accept normal everyday people with mental health issues. Once someone has a flaw it is not acknowledge or if it is it is looked at as an inconvenience.

Doctors, Athletic Trainers and Speech Pathologists have come together to invent better tests and ways to prevent concussions. The article “Concussion Management Plans’ Compliance with NCAA Requirements: Preliminary Evidence Suggesting Possible Improvement.” talks about how Athletic Trainers are coming up with a plan to prevent more concussions from happening. The medical professionals who wrote this article have come up with a solution to the multitude of concussions derived from football. Along with the prevention plans medical professionals are making, NATA and NCAA have made guidelines to protect the athlete and the integrity of the sport. Since one cannot 100% see what is going on with the brain during a game, they have created laws and regulations in case a player suffers head trauma (Baugh). Coaches and some Athletic Trainers can easily get caught up in the game and loose sight of what’s really important, the health of the patient. Before these rules on concussions, athletes were thrown into games directly after they were hit in the head and seemed “fine”, but how can a Athletic Trainer or a Coach really tell if a patient is fine without performing any tests or looking deeper into the brain. These rules now protect these athletes from these authority figures who only have the game in mind. Many times a star athlete will get hurt and try and pretend like nothing has happened, like they didn’t just get hit in the head, and play through the pain. These rules that provide the Athletic Trainer set standards on how to deal with a head trauma patient can end up saving lives and stopping the ambiguity of concussions. 

Helmets and pads allow for people to feel better about watching players brutally sack and basically attacked each other on a regular basis. Players receive praise from the crowd and teammates when they take someone down or hit hard. The idea that this entertainment might be taken away due to doctors questioning the sport itself because of the harmful affects it has on professional athletes brains. I originally knew how years ago the NFL used to deny anything that had to do with concussions and CTE, so I looked up “NFL denying CTE” and the first article I picked led me to links of old articles where doctors and board members were bringing up facts that were exactly the opposite from what the doctors who were studying CTE were saying. To think that these board members and NFL doctors could lived with themselves knowing that the evidence they used to discredit the doctors studying CTE was not correct and totally false, is disgusting. To knowingly put these people in danger and not educate them on risks all because of the threat it has on the money and entertainment of the industry. The article “Doctor Yes.” talks about the NFL attempting to discourage press and people about having discussions about concussions. At this time when the article was written this was when former players started to blame the NFL for their head injuries post careers. One of the doctors that worked for the NFL, Elliot Pellman, dismisses the idea of secondary concussion injuries and even the worry about returning athletes to play after they had loss consciousness due to the concussion that was afflicted upon them in that same game. The NFL saw concussions, the severity of them and the threat that they pose to the whole industry itself. Instead of worrying about the player safety they decided money and entertainment was more important then that athlete’s health at the time and even the rest of the athlete’s life after their career.

Since there is a stigma around concussions and mental illnesses, athletes are more apprehensive to admit what is really going on in their head. Zac Easter, a high school football player who died from the multiple concussions he endured, says in a journal he put together for concussion awareness that since he was an amazing football player he was a hot shot in his school. Everyone seemed to think he was perfect and everything in his life was amazing; when really everything was the total opposite. Zac was suffering from depression, anxiety, self-hate and headaches. He says he didn’t want to tell anyone because it would ruin the image that was automatically created since he played football. Once Zac came clean about his internal feelings, a doctor later told him that he more than likely has CTE. The only problem was that they couldn’t diagnose it until after Zac was deceased. Zac knew deep in his soul that he had CTE and his mind was not the same from before he suffered from his 3 concussions. 6 years later he was still feeling the affects from his concussion and knew he would never be the same. Unfortunately Zac’s deteriorating mind only showed him one way out of all of this, which was suicide. The stigma he felt was portrayed to him that surrounded mental illness prevented him from seeking the help he deserved. Mixed in with his bottled up feelings and also the CTE slowly deteriorating his brain, Zac felt helpless and like he could turn to no one. One sport, one hit, one decision, one stigma, one person’s silence changed the life of this athlete. 
