The brain is arguably the most important organ in the human body, it is also the most delicate. The brain is made of approximately eighty-five billion neurons, it monitors the actions and reactions of the entire body, and carries out close to five trillion chemical reactions every second (Rivas). Given how crucial the brain is, not only to normal functionality but survival as well, why is it allowed to be the part of the body most subject to injury in many sports? Boxing, football, and soccer all produce thousands of traumatic brain injuries each year. These injuries are becoming very common and occurring at young ages for many kids. These concussions are causing lasting effects that hinder critical thinking, contribute to emotional apathy, and lead to brain diseases later in life. In order to stop this growing wave of traumatic head injuries in sports, new protocol is needed to deal with the assessment and treatment of concussions from youth levels all the way up to professional competitions. Professional bodies like the National Football League and the World Boxing Association need to put new rules in place that will bring the number of blows to the head down and also control the tenacity of said blows. Rules like this can then be translated down into youth sporting associations to protect children and young adults. These kinds of sanctions will help to preserve the minds of some of our best athletes while also helping to prevent kids from being subject to serious head injuries at an early age.

Due to the number of concussion victims there are annually, this research can have a significant impact on many lives. Young kids playing contact sports can learn about the real long-term effects of concussions and how to deal with them. If new rules are put in place across the nation to prevent head injuries in-game, these players will not have to worry about such serious brain damage. Parents of these players are also effected. Parents have to deal with the financial consequences that come along with their child sustaining a traumatic brain injury. However, money is often the least of a parent’s worries. It is extremely tough for many parents to watch their kids play sports like football knowing the possible outcome of every tackle made. Parents should not have to worry about their child’s future for the sake of maintaining the “integrity” of a sport. Coaches will also benefit from new sporting legislature. It is a coach’s responsibility to make sure his players are safe while simultaneously doing his best to assure his team’s victory. Sometimes the two cannot go hand-in-hand, one must be prioritized over the other. Not all coaches can make that choice. New rules and procedures for head injuries would stop coaches from having to make tough decisions like that. Finally, leagues will benefit significantly from new ways to deal with concussions. In fact, a couple years after implementing new rules to prevent serious head injuries, recorded concussion cases in the NFL dropped from 173 in 2012 to 148 in 2013, then to 112 in 2014 and so on (Reyes). Changing concussion protocol will have a positive effect to many different people, on and off the field.

Many people view concussions as simple, longer-than-normal headaches that are caused by bumping craniums with someone else. While sometimes head bumps amount to nothing more than that, traumatic brain injuries are much more serious. WebMD defines a concussion as “a type of traumatic brain injury that is caused by a blow to the head or body, a fall, or another injury that jars or shakes the brain inside the skull.” In young kids, concussions can slow down or alter the development of the brain and lead to learning disabilities later in life. Traumatic head injuries are also linked to early onset of diseases more common with elderly citizens, such as dementia and Alzheimer’s. The true effects of concussions may not be evident until years after the head trauma is suffered. It is only recently that scientists have discovered how significant the effects concussions can cause later in life. Players who participated in high-impact sports were studied to find such evidence, 

“Examination of the brains of several professional football players and wrestlers has 

revealed the pathological underpinnings for the cognitive and neuropsychiatric decline seen in these men in later life… The pathological findings in this and subsequent cases were identical to those of dementia pugilistica. In all cases, cognitive decline began years after retirement from the game” (DeKosky).

As clearly stated, concussions and mild traumatic brain injuries in sports can accelerate the process of the brain becoming weak and fostering severe mental illnesses. It is not right to allow professional sports players to subject themselves to repeated head trauma in order to please an audience, just so they can make money. These mental diseases are not even the worst-case scenarios. The sport of boxing holds prime examples of what repeated head traumas can yield. According to reports from German researchers, approximately ten boxers have died per year since 1900. Of those deaths, more than eighty percent were caused by neck and head injuries that were dealt by opponents in the prize ring (Förstl). Internationally, it is estimated that more than 800 boxers have died due to incidents in the ring since 1884. Even in the modern era, from 1950-2007, there have been 339 deaths after boxing matches. More than half of those mortalities are linked with in-match knockouts (Baird). 

A famous boxer, Muhammad Ali, suffered from Parkinson’s disease. Parkinson’s disease is the second-most-common neurodegenerative disease, trailing only Alzheimer’s. The Parkinson’s that Ali suffered from is often considered to have been brought on due to the repeated blows to the head Ali took in his many years as a professional boxer. However, Ali is not the only story. Hundreds of football, rugby, hockey, and soccer veterans also have dealt with serious mental repercussions from their time playing competitive contact sports. These former professional athletes often deal with changes in emotional behavior and personality shifts. Such drastic emotional changes can lead to depression and even suicide. Former Patriots linebacker and football world champion, Junior Seau, committed suicide at the age of 43. His brain was given to neuroscientists and through examination they learned that Seau had serious brain tissue damage which may have led to the mental struggles he faced off the field. It was confirmed by the examiners that his brain showed signs of CTE, or Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy. CTE is commonly linked to concussions and traumatic head injuries. Seeing morbid examples, like in Seau’s case, of the serious long-term effects that concussions can have, beckons for change in ruling over high-impact sports like football. Players should be better protected by the governing bodies that contains the ability to adjust the rules to accommodate for concern for traumatic brain injuries.

In recent years, the National Football League has made strides towards preventing concussions by putting basic measures in place. These measures have helped improve the numbers slightly, but there are still more than a hundred reported cases of serious head injuries each season. There could be even more that are not reported or dealt with properly. The NFL simply implemented a penalty system for players who made hits above a referee-determined “shoulder” line. A similar penalty system was also established for players making tackles deemed unnecessarily rough or with malicious intent. While hard tackles are not good for one’s head, that is not the main contributor to the mass of head injuries. The driving force behind this epidemic of traumatic brain injuries are the constantly repeating head blows seen in sports like boxing and football. Unless rules change drastically to accommodate for concussions or equipment improvements accelerate to counter the vulnerability of the brain, these injuries will continue to threaten mental well-being of all players.

Head traumas are not only a problem at the professional level, but growing numbers of concussion victims are plaguing youth and collegiate sports as well, “Concussions, or mild traumatic brain injuries (TBIs), place a tremendous burden on student athletes, accounting for 13% of all injuries among US high school athletes,” (Wasserman 1). With this many kids suffering from concussions in high school, there is a plethora of evidence that suggests student-athletes who are effected still deal with the consequences years down the line. Often times, concussed students will return to school without much more than a week of rest after receiving the injury, the brain is said to still be recovering during this time. This study was done to figure out if concussed students deal with more sever academic hindrances than those who have suffered a variety of other injuries. Studies were in done in many different sports, including football, baseball, soccer, basketball, rugby and more. Different age ranges and effects based on gender were studied as well. The conclusion was found to be that concussed students experience more hindrances short term, while other injuries can show signs of dysfunction further in the future, “Concussed students experienced significantly more academic dysfunction 1 week after their injury than those with an extremity injury, but most issues appeared to resolve at 1 month,” (Wasserman 5). It was also discovered that females seem to be at more risk than males when dealing with more than one neurologically traumatic incident, “results also showed that female students and those with a history of 2 or more concussions may be more susceptible to the effects of concussions,” (Wasserman 5). 

As a result of the light being shed on the true nature of traumatic brain injuries and concussions becoming one of the highest volume sporting injuries in the world, there is of course a lot of controversy and opposition. Annual numbers for head trauma victims are reaching two million in America. With no sign of kids opting not to play sports like football, soccer, rugby and more, certain regulations needed to be put in place. Legislation, regulation, litigation, or any sort of legal restriction can have a serious impact on sports at all levels. Even President Barack Obama acknowledged the rising count of concussions and cranial injuries due to high-impact sports and repeated head-to-head collisions. Because of the mounting laws and rules placed on certain sports, a significant number of lawsuits have emerged, targeting helmet manufacturers. Lawsuits directed at helmet manufacturers are meant to force companies to make the helmets safer, however due to fresh litigations and laws helmets need to be constantly refined. This forces these companies that produce equipment for contact sports to focus on these lawsuits rather than advancing their products. These lawsuits are backed by good intentions, but in the end, they have a more negative affect on the progression towards safer sporting events. 

Legislation in any medium can cause difficulty and confusion when initially put into place, but the purpose is always to improve faults that were evident before implementation of the proposed changes. The NFL and the NCAA have taken steps to help prevent concussions and to better assess injuries soon after serious collisions. Following the suicides of former NFL players Junior Seau, Dave Duerson, and Ray Easterling, lawsuits towards the league ended up producing an outcome that the players’ association was happy with, “On August 29, 2013, mediator Layn Phillips publicized that the NFL and more than 4,500 former players had reached a $765 million settlement agreement (pending court approval) for medical benefits, injury costs, research, and legal costs.” These kinds of conclusions are what each lawsuit strives to reach, however with parents and players of every age and sport getting legally involved, mass amounts of court cases are being held in the same time frame. Given the sheer number of lawsuits being brought up, it would be nearly impossible for all of them to be beneficial to the research and improvement of concussion protocol and protective equipment. Parents and young players should be focused more on making others aware of the actual severity of concussions and become a part of organizations that will attempt to spread information on the topic. New organizations and associations focused on concussion awareness pop up frequently. Often times it is a group of parents looking to spread the word following a head injury sustained by their child or a loved one, “Washington became the first state to formally adopt youth sport concussion legislation with the Zackery Lystedt Law in May 2009.  Zackery sustained a catastrophic brain injury playing football in 2006…This law was spearheaded by Representative Jay Rodney, parents Victor and Mercedes Lystedt,  the Brain Injury Alliance of Washington (BIAWA), with the support of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDCP), the Seattle Seahawks, the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association (WIAA), the Washington State Youth Soccer Association, the Washington State Athletic Trainers Association, Cannfield & Associates Risk Managers, Harborview Medical Center, the University of Washington, and the Seattle Children’s Hospital (Zackery Lystedt Law, 2009).” There are many stories like that of Zackery Lystedt, and these are the kinds of actions people should be taking rather than filing for action in civil court. With strong evidence being discovered each day to back new head trauma guidelines, backing from large public figures, “President Obama advised caution and commended organizations such as the NCAA, the Department of Defense, the NFL, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology for taking a lead research role in the area of head and brain injuries,” and lawsuits beginning to conclude, it is only a matter of time before improvement will be seen in the number of concussion victims nationally. Lawsuits meant to hinder companies, that are actually working towards the same goal of helping to prevent traumatic brain injuries, seem frivolous and regressive.

Lawsuits are not the only kind of opposition to new concussion laws. Many hardcore fans of sports like boxing and football believe that restricting where players can throw punches or make tackles, or beefing up equipment too much will ruin the virtue of the game. Part of what made these sports popular are the heavy hits and knockout right hooks that drop opponents to the ground. Big changes in sports are not always welcomed with open-arms by fans. For instance, the NFL has struggled back and forth with the idea of expanding its regular season. They have been put under fire ever since this proposition was introduced and thus have dealt with fans on both sides. Due to the extremely polar views, no progress was made. Back in 2002 the MLB decided to make the All-Star Game significant by giving the winning conference home field advantage in the World Series. Strong backlash forced Robert Manfred, the commissioner, to rescind that incentive. Some fans fear that proposed legislation will take away the identity of the sports they love, in essence, they are afraid to lose what they call “the beauty of the game.” 

Even through difficult lawsuits and disagreement from fans, changes must be made in order to protect players from these serious injuries. Right now, players are putting their livelihoods and their futures on the line every time they step on the field or into the ring. New legislation to protect players and fresh, innovative technology to keep players safe while in action are crucial. The stories of likes of Muhammad Ali and Junior Seau should be tell-tale signs of the seriousness to handle traumatic head injuries with. Sports governing bodies should take notice and prioritize the safety of the players. If results begin to show, and concussion numbers drop, players and the leagues both win.
