As the spotlight on the dangers of the game has grown substantially, so
too have the number of questions being asked. It is no longer just
about college or professional athletes being grinded through a so-called
exploitative system, but whether or not kids should ever be allowed to
participate in youth leagues.
Concussions had once thought to have been limited to trauma so
substantial that it caused players to be knocked unconscious and, thus,
restricting the population most susceptible to being concussed to the
high school, college, and professional levels. Now, however, a greater
understanding has developed which acknowledges that concussions come in
varying levels of severity. A minor concussion may exhibit symptoms on a
smaller scale. Seeing stars, headaches, blurry vision, auditory or
visual sensitivity, and dizziness are just a few of the common reactions
to a concussive force to the head; be their duration a mere few minutes
or sustained over several days or weeks, these symptoms are indicative
of some sort of concussion.
Justifiably, parents are more worried about their children. The human
body does not fully develop until the late teenage years. Structural
stability is established over many years, particularly the skull and
vertebral column that surrounds and protects the brain, brainstem, and
spinal cord, the integrity of which governs our basic core functions. A
child’s development could be stunted – structurally and internally – as
a result of playing football.
Controversy reigns over the sport. It was back in 2011 when a retired
NFL player sued the league for its supposedly "concerted effort of
deception and denial" about the long-term damage that the sport could do
to the human body. That lawsuit eventually awarded former players a
settlement of $765 million. Nary has a month gone by these last four
years without the latest wrinkle added to the developing story of
concussions vs. football. Chris Borland, a former University of
Wisconsin All-American who had a fantastic rookie season as a linebacker
for the San Francisco 49ers last year, made waves this spring when he
abruptly retired from the NFL in an effort to avoid future brain
damage. For a burgeoning star to quit football at age 24 was perhaps
the start of a trend and the biggest sign of the changing times. It was
a bold move that inadvertently made Borland the de-facto face of the
movement that believes football may not be around in another twenty or
thirty years.
Borland also represents a fascinating dichotomy that has emerged since
traumatic brain injuries became such a prevalent water cooler topic:
people who have deeply rooted passion for the game – players, coaches,
and fans - are finding themselves torn between their love of football
and the progressively clearer evidence that it is ruining peoples’
lives. In a feature story in an August edition of ESPN The Magazine,
Borland said he was reluctant to even watch football anymore and, when
asked whether or not he would someday allow his kids to play, he
responded, “I don’t know. I don't think it's black-and-white quite
yet.”
It certainly is not. Family bonds are forged over football. Important
values are taught through it. Fortunes are made from it. Memories are
created by it that last a lifetime. So, attempts are being made to
find a common ground; to better recognize its hazards and to use that
attentiveness to make football safer. Dr. Alex Powers is a neurosurgeon
who works for Wake Forest University. He is also an avid football
fan. His research and his passion for the sport are often at odds
because Powers is one of the leading physicians exploring the topic of
brain trauma as it relates to football. According to an ESPN The Magazine
article last fall, Labor Day weekend 2014 was a classic example of his
plight. He was in the lab, examining the charts of high school football
players the week prior and then flew out with his two sons - both youth
players - for a family vacation on the west coast to see the Oregon
Ducks play on Saturday and the Seattle Seahawks on Sunday.
According to Dr. Powers’ data, a single season of high school football
does potentially irreversible damage to the brain in proportion to the
severity and number of hits taken. His stance has created widespread
panic amongst football people. Shawn Springs, a former Pro Bowl NFL
player and the co-founder of a company that designs football helmets
with greater safety measures, has told Powers that his research is going
"to scare everyone to death...and kill football." Doctors and
researchers have told Powers, “You have to kill the game. There's no
way, as a physician, that you can condone the data."
All of us that have any interest in football are being forced to
reevaluate our positions and form updated opinions based on the data
that has become available, especially when determining whether or not to
let our kids participate. "I was totally naive about it,” Dr. Powers
told ESPN The Magazine. “I thought people would see the data
and say, ‘This is awesome. No one has ever looked at it this way.’”
Instead, it seemed to explicitly point out the sad truth about football:
that there may not be a way to make a violent game safe.
Imagine building a home on a tiny island in the middle of the most
common area in the world to be affected by hurricanes. Even if you
constructed the sturdiest house on the planet, why would you voluntarily
build it in a place where you knew – for a fact – that it was going to
be subjected to high winds and flying debris for four months per year?
Is not football the equivalent for the human body? Is it logical to
subjective oneself to a game so intrinsically brutal (especially for
kids)?
Of course, repetitive trauma during the first ten years of life is very
common, extending beyond the realm of youth football. Though a study
was recently released suggesting that 1 in 30 pee wee football players
would have at least one concussion per season, another study stated that
bicycle accidents were twice as likely as football to cause
concussions.
The scope of this discussion needs to expand even further. In many
cases when we are young, symptoms that result from trauma do not
immediately set in; oftentimes, traumas start a domino effect, which
quietly takes its toll and produces the gradual onset of symptoms long
after the fact. Noticeable, subjective complaints like pain or
Migraines or numbness may not happen, for instance, until a year (or
many years) after an incident, and most doctors do not make the
connection to trauma at that point. To this day, concussions are a
microcosm of a common problem in modern healthcare that only associates
symptoms with trauma when the proximity of it can be tied to immediate
effects.
Knowing of a concussion and its detrimental effects is only half the
battle. Proper concussion detection should stimulate the advancement of
education toward how to appropriately help the concussed heal and
recover. One of the most overlooked aspects of repetitive trauma is its
affect on the upper neck area, where the lower brainstem responsible
for regulating your organs, muscles, and tissues resides and where
cerebrospinal fluid flows in a loop between the brain and the spinal
cord. The hits, tackles, and falls have a greater impact on the upper
neck than any other body part because of its unique, more mobile but
less stable structural design. The head and neck protect your life
line. Helmets do not protect that vital head-neck junction, the
misalignment of which can affect the brainstem, decrease the flow of
cerebrospinal fluid, and throw off the body’s structural balance.
Super Bowl-winning quarterback, Jim McMahon, is one of the higher
profile concussion victims. For years, he suffered from debilitating
headaches, memory loss, and the early signs of dementia. Dr. Scot Rosa,
an Upper Cervical Chiropractor in New York, corrected McMahon’s upper
neck misalignment. Since then, McMahon noted in a recent article, “I
haven’t had any headaches.” Numerous noteworthy personalities from
Montell Williams to Sidney Crosby to Jerry Rice have had the same
procedure and achieved similar success. The correction does not reverse
the damage accumulated over decades in cases like McMahon’s, but it can
halt the downward spiral and remove one of the major obstacles to
concussion recovery. In kids, however, the chances for full recovery
are much greater; the earlier the problem is identified and addressed,
the better the odds of getting back to normal.
Frankly, this is a scary topic. As fans of the game, are we to ignore
the ever more prevalent dangers? “It's an American pastime, but it's
hurting people,” points out Chris Borland’s mother, Zebbie, in the ESPN The Magazine
piece. “I’m conflicted,” adds Borland. Can we be passionate football
fans, simultaneously denounce the sport as too dangerous for our kids to
play, but then condone it for other kids? One thing is certain: we can
no longer bury our heads in the sand and pretend that there is no
discussion to be had; there is a wide-ranging conversation to be had
about ethics, safety, prevention, treatment, etc. So, enjoy the season,
but join the debate too.
Sources: ESPN The Magazine, ESPN Outside The Lines, Institute of Medicine and National Research Council, The Deseret News
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