Concussions are a common issue in the world of sports today. They affect every sport alike but are more common in particular ones. Concussions are the most common in contact sports such as football and hockey. Most athletes will experience at least one concussion at some point in their life. According to a survey by Robert Pearl, about 60% of college soccer players have reported concussion symptoms. He also surveyed college football players, where only 34% have reported experiencing symptoms of concussions, but another 20% have reported experiencing it multiple times. (Pearl). The center for disease control estimates that up to as many as 3.8 million sports related traumatic brain injuries occur every year in the United States. Due to this large number, people are pulling their kids from sports and not allowing them to play so they are not putting them at risk of this head trauma. There are now more educational programs available to the parents, coaches, and school administrators so that they know how they should handle the situation when they think a child may be suffering from a concussion. Concussions are a problem that not many people know too much about, it is thought about as a minor head injury by many, but the fail to realize the problems go much deeper. That’s why sports around the world need to do a better job at protecting their athletes’ health and do more to prevent these concussions. 

A concussion is when a sudden jolt literally causes your brain to move around in your head. Since it is made of soft tissue and only cushioned by spinal fluid, it is not that hard for it to move. This can cause bruising, damage to the blood vessels, or injury to the nerves(Camarillo). If this happens to your brain, it would no longer function normally. Things resulting from a concussion can be those such as disturbed vision, loss of equilibrium, or being knocked unconscious. However, concussions can also have long term effects. Repeated mild TBI has been associated with permanent diseases such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and other brain disorders that become more prevalent with age.

 Another effect that concussions can have on your body long term is the development of Chronic traumatic encephalopathy(CTE). CTE is a progressive degenerative disease found in people who have had a severe blow or repeated blows to the head. This is commonly found in retired football players as the symptoms don’t usually start until 8-10 years after experiencing repetitive mild traumatic brain injury. Due to the fact that CTE can only be diagnosed by studying brain tissue, it can’t be diagnosed until after death. CTE is a big deal with former athletes because it completely changes their lives. It can result in memory loss, confusion, impaired judgement, impulse control problems, aggression, depression, suicidality, parkinsonism, and eventually progressive dementia. Too many former professional athletes have suffered from CTE and too many committed suicides. This is why former professional athletes that have played these sports are filing lawsuits against both the NFL and NHL for not being truthful about the effects that this steady contact could have on their body. The damage that has been done to the player’s body is so severe that the NFL has agreed to a $765M settlement for the players involved in the concussion related lawsuit(NFL). However, these are not the only effect that concussions have on a body. 

There are also the cognitive issues that come along with concussions. Semyon Slobounov writes about two cheerleaders in his book, one of which is a 12-year-old who has had two concussions, and the other is a 16-year-old cheerleader who has had five concussions. These two girls have suffered greatly from the effects of their concussions. The 16-year-old girl dropped from an A student in class to a C student that requires extra help in class. The 12-year-old former cheerleader had to back to the first-grade level in school(Slobounov). In a research conducted by Hector Arciniega, they looked at two groups of people to determine if concussions actually affected a person’s thinking skills for several weeks after, as the assumption worked. They did this by looking at two groups of people, one group consisted of 43 people aged 18-80, the other was a group of 20 college students with the average age of 21. Both of these groups contained people who had a concussion and some who had never experienced one. The study proved the fact that those who had suffered a concussion in their lives did worse on their tests than those who did not (Miller).

This is why we must do all we can in sports to further prevent concussions. Helmets are not enough to prevent concussions, they are not designed to protect against them. Helmets are designed to protect against skull fractures. The only way to flat out prevent concussions would be to “slow the brain down” while it is inside the skull and someone experiences a blow to the head. Since we cannot “slow down the brain” while it is inside the skull, then it does not matter what is around the outside of your head because your brain will still react the same while inside of that helmet(Camarillo). 

In order to prevent concussions in sports, leagues will need to make further rule changes in order to limit the amount of contact that a player is taking to the head. Not only the big open field hits but the small hits that nobody pays attention to. They have already made a great deal of changes to the rules such as not being able to hit a receiver in the head or neck area when making a catch and not being able to lead with the crown of your helmet when running the ball(Bradley). They also implemented a system where spotters in the press box will be able to stop the game if they think a player may have been concussed, that player will then be removed from the game for testing. However, this system alone does not always work.

 One controversial story where this failed was in 2015. Case Keenum was wrapped up and pulled down from behind, as he was going to the ground his momentum carried the back of his head forcibly into the ground. Teammates tried to help him to his feet, but Keenum was limp as he tried to sit up and fell back over. Keenum was clearly woozy after violently hitting his head on the ground but somehow, he was able to convince the team trainer that he was able to stay in the game. Keenum fumbled a couple plays later and lost the game, but this is not the problem. The issue is that the team did not give him a concussion test until after the game. Not testing him is what allowed him to remain in the game at kept him at risk of furthering the severity of his injury. 

The risks of playing sports are becoming greater known and they are suffering because of it. As more and more parents learn about the risks of their children playing sports, they are keeping their kids out which reduces the amount of young talent in that sport. Even former players and legends are hopping on the bandwagon. Hall of Famers such as Terry Bradshaw and Troy Aikman along with future Hall of Famers such as Drew Brees and Brett Favre all said that they would not let their sons play football. In an interview Aikman said “I think that we’re at a real corssroads, as it relates to the grassroots of our sports, because if I had a 10-year-old boy, I don’t know that I’d be real inclined to encourage him to go play football, in light of what we are learning from head injury.”(Blodget) 

Some have even gone as far as to say if they could go back, knowing what they know now, they would not even play football themselves. Harry Carson is a Hall of Fame linebacker who suffers from the residual effects of concussions still, 20 years later, after being diagnosed with post-concussion syndrome only two years after his retirement. Carson said “When I played, nobody really knew the residual effects of concussions and what it could lead to – dementia, Alzheimer’s and ALS – so we were, in my era, in my generation, basically flying in the dark.” This is a true statement from Carson as they did not know the effects of the head trauma. Carson followed that statement up with an even stronger one shocking most fans. “From a physical risk standpoint, I knew that you could get hurt physically and I assumed that risk, but from a neurological risk standpoint, I didn’t know. So, knowing what I know now, I would never have played football.” (Parise) 

A former Super Bowl champion and Hall of Famer, reaching the games two most decorated honors, put this into perspective for all fans. The game is not worth playing no matter what you achieve if it is going to change your life with mental illness and suffering. 

The long-term effects of repetitive head trauma can lead to many different tragic end results. A more saddening story that has just surfaced from a former legend is that he had been diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS. ALS is a progressive degeneration of the motor neurons of the central nervous system which leads to the wasting of muscles and paralysis. It is not a known fact that this diagnosis is due to the repetitive head trauma, but a protein that gets released during stress, concussions, and neurological damage called TDP-43, is a cause for ALS and other neurodegenerative disease(Fisher). 

These degenerative diseases are the reasons that the NFL and concussions are receiving so much attention. People feel participants in football are greatly at risk to be the ones that suffer a life changing effect that concussions can result in. There have been things such as rule changes that have supposedly helped in making the concussion numbers go down, but more needs to be done. The helmet players wear has been altered many times since the beginning of the game, but since it was only designed to protect from skull fractures and not concussions, it can only do so much to help protect from concussions. Recently, UCLA professor Vijay Gupta has used his expertise in science to help protect the brain. He marveled at the body, saying that the cerebral-spinal fluid in the skull is “the best shock-absorbing system you could ever design.” But it’s not there to withstand the collision with a 250-pound football player. Gupta began creating a polymer that can be placed in helmets in order to diminish the force of helmet to helmet hits(Fricano). With Gupta and other scientists discovering that above 90 Gs of force that you have almost a 90 percent chance of a concussions, they set to put more shock absorbing material in the helmets. After adding a 2-millimeter-thick wafer of a firm, but flexible polymer created to reinforce the helmets foam, they were able to achieve up to a 25 percent reduction in the force that a person feels(Fricano). This also translated to a similar reduction in the probability of getting a concussion. This is the kind of technology that the NFL needs to place in their helmets. It would also be beneficial to the NFL to continue researching the ways they can reduce the force felt and reduce the concussions that result rather than trying to hide the truth of concussions and denying that they are a problem in the game.

These all are reasons why athletic leagues from youth to professional need to be doing more in order to protect their athletes. Concussions start at a young age but the effects are no different. Young players need to be taken care of just as much, if not more than professional players. The concussions in all sports are a problem, with a higher percentage of soccer players reporting concussion symptoms than football players show that even a “non-contact” sport puts their players at risk. 

Some may disagree with this, stating that concussions are not the biggest problem in sports. They might argue that the league needs to focus on something such as protecting young players and their money. Due to the fact that many do not know how to manage their newly acquired millions, they quickly go through their money, making unnecessary purchases or investing in failing businesses. According to a study by Sports Illustrated in 2009 on former NFL and NBA players, 78% of NFL players are either broke or either struggling financially within only two years of retirement and 60% of NBA players are broke within five years of retirement(Hartnett). The average person may not understand how a player who nets millions of dollars over their career can go broke in less than five, but these athletes are not prepared for life outside of their sport as the average person is. 

The answer to going broke is not very hard to find. Players going into the NBA and NFL think their careers will last a long time there, possibly 10-15 years until their retirement from the league, but this is not the case. The average NBA career is less than three years, and with the possibility of getting injured and released due to that injury, the athlete’s career can end any day. 

The NFL does the most that they can to help these young players realize that their careers do not last forever. Every year the NFL hosts a rookie symposium, where rookies new to the league go and people offer advice and they learn new things about the league and their new lifestyle. One person who speaks at the symposium is Phillip Buchanon, Buchanon warns the players about not spending their money and not letting their families exploit them for money(Smith). Buchanon tells the story of he and his mother, who demanded $1 million dollars after he got drafted, as payback for raising him, which he obliged to. Buchanon tells the players every year the stories of his life, trying to make sure that they don’t make the same mistakes that he does with their money, saying that when he got to the NFL, “it was all dollars and no sense” for him(Smith). He hopes to be the mentor he never had for the new players, and show them they need to save and take care of themselves. 

Although, it is a big deal for players to put in all of this work, and not be able to reap the benefits, it is not the biggest deal. Spending is something that a player will do if they wish to do so. Some players may not be fully aware that they are being taken advantage such as Buchanon was, but they should be naturally more responsible to know that if somebody if using them for their money, they should not oblige. This is exactly why this issue takes the back seat to the issue of concussions. Some players still do not understand the full effects that a concussion has on their body and their future. They recklessly play this game, not knowing that they are potentially changing their lives with every hit. The NFL does a poor job of protecting and informing them about these risks. They need to develop better equipment and technology for helmets to protect all that they can, such as Gupta’s polymer. They also need to make more rule changes and safety procedures in the game to limit the head to head contact and make concussion testing more common with players dealing with head injuries.
