Danyelle Heinz
English Composition II
Professor Stalbird
April 4, 2016
CTE in the National Football League
Everyone has a favorite football team. Whether you like high school football, college football or even professional football, injuries do occur when you least expect it. Every league has a set of rules that the players must abide by to ensure that everyone has a tough, yet fun time on and off the field. When it comes to the National Football League, also known as the NFL, player safety rules and regulations are set when a player puts on a uniform and takes step onto a field.
For the past 100 years, players have taken blows to the head that have caused substantial injuries that are invisible to high medical machinery when alive, but found easily when dead. The NFL needs to take permanent injuries like this seriously as new safety rules and regulations should be brought about and a waiver should be mandatory listing CTE as a major side effect in playing a professional sport like the NFL.
Dr. Bennet Omalu, a Nigerian-American born physician, forensic pathologist, and neuropathologist was the first to publish findings of Chronic Traumatic Encepalopathy in American Football. Chronic Traumatic Encepalopathy, also known as CTE, can be found in players after a traumatic blow causing a player to lose their mind. This can cause physical harm to not only the player, but others around them as well. CTE is a form of tauopathy which is a progressive degenerative disease found in people who have suffered a severe blow to the head. (CNN Wire. 2015)
The first person Dr. Omalu tested was former NFL player Mike Webster. Mike Webster played in the NFL for seventeen years as a center for the Pittsburg Steelers and Kansas City Chiefs. Dr. Omalu discovered a neurological deterioration that was almost as similar as Alzheimer’s in Webster’s brain. As Dr. Omalu went through Webster’s brain, he got curious as to the other players and if they could possibly be carrying the disease as well. (Concussion 2015)
Dr. Omalu figured that the NFL would have looked into the fact that, “Repeated sub-concussive blows to the head can cause microscopic injuries to the brain”. He figured wrong. The NFL was no where close to being interested in what was discovered in Webster’s brain. The NFL repeatedly attacked Dr. Omalu’s reputation and the research that was presented. “They went after me… But I fought back.” (MasterFile Premier. 2016)
A new question then arose. Should youth football be abolished? Dr. Omalu wrote that parents should not get to decide whether their kids play football.
"Our children are minors who have not reached the age of consent…wait for our children to grow up, then provide them, as adults, with
information on the risks involved and let them make their own decisions.”
Thirteen high school football deaths occurred in the 2016 year alone causing Dr. Omalu to have a valid point.
With that being said, a new problem arose with new scientific evidence. This evidence shows that,
“repetitive non-concussive blows to the head-the kind that are inherent to the sport-also can produce significant brain damage. Some
experts suspect those blows may lead to the development of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), the mysterious neurodegenerative
disease that has been found in many former NFL players, including some who took their own lives.” (Trahan)
Perdue University researchers studying high school football players, found that between 5 and 10 percent will be diagnosed with a concussion per season. They also found that 50 to 80 percent will suffer brain damage. This research appears to be equally severe within their brains as a regular MRI could be done and shows similarities through CTE.
Bob Gfeller, a parent of a deceased high school football player, still has the painful memory of his son, who was fifteen at the time and what happened to him one August night in 2008. He goes to say that, “I still have a slideshow in my mind of what happened… I can see all the images from the minute I saw him on the ground to the minute we left the hospital. It’s terrible and I don't want people to go through this.”
Bob and his wife, Lisa, created the Matthew Gfeller Sport Related Traumatic Brain Research Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to help make football safer at the high school level. Researcher Dr. Christopher Whitlow says that, “A lot of people say that the work that we’re doing is going to kill football but it’s really the work that can save football.” (MasterFile Premier. 2016)
One thing that could really save football is the NFL changing the safety rules and regulations. Rule changes and increased penalties for helmet to helmet contact have been implemented in an effort to reduce the number of violent blows to the head in association with concussions (Trahan).
Since 2010, the NFL has said that they will be changing the safety regulations but not all of them have been implemented. Although changing the rules on safety on and off the field could make a significant change in football, studies have shown that players will continue to play violent no matter what the rules because the ideal of preventing a concussion is inevitable. (Academic OneFile 2016)
With concussions dating back as far as 1994, medical professionals have warned them on the negative impacts that players face when stepping onto a field. Some players who have passed with CTE found in their brain, have had family members sue the NFL for the cause of the players to take their own lives. The thought of signing a contract with the possible side effects, especially CTE, should be listed when signing onto a multi-million dollar contract. If that were to be implemented into the contract, players would have a choice to continue chasing their dreams or to back out and care more about their health and their well-being.
A new program called, “Heads Up” Football, is built in to be a “safer” tackling initiative that was promoted by USA Football. “Heads Up” football may decrease concussions among players at a youthful age. It is viewed as a reformed way where risks can be significantly decreased. The tackling method with “Heads Up” football involves using the shoulders as a defense instead of the use of the head.
In Kevin Trahan’s article, Is the NFL’s Big Bet on Making Football Safer working?, he talks about former San Francisco 49ers linebacker Chris Borland and his announcement in March saying that he was giving up football due to medical concerns. "Having been associated with concussions over many years, I really believe that it's never been safer before in terms of the sport," said Pittsburg Steelers-affiliated neurologist Joseph Maroon. The phrase “Never been safer” has been used by the NFL, League Commissioner Rodger Goodell and youth football officials.
Joseph Maroon has a 30-year history with the NFL and there was something he failed to disclose in the study downplaying the risk of long-term neurological disease among former NFL players.
"It's a rare phenomena. We have no idea the incidence. There are ... more injuries to kids falling off bikes, scooters, falling in playgrounds
than there are in youth football. I think again, it's never been safer. Can we improve? Yes. We have to do better all the time to make it safer.”
Due to the concealing of what was going on in the NFL with concussions, the league is in the process of finalizing a settlement in a class action lawsuit filed with thousands of retired players claiming that the NFL concealed the long-term effects with the sport. A group of ninety former players are appealing that decisions and two hundred former players or their relatives have opted out of it in order to continue litigation. (SB Nation)
One of the former players was NFL Hall of Famer, Junior Seau. When he was inducted into the NFL Hall of Fame, he passed previously from a gunshot wound to the chest in his home. The NFL denied his family a speech after Seau was inducted due to the fact that his family was bringing up a law suit against the NFL and the carelessness that they have towards their former and current players involving CTE.
CTE not only was being concealed through the NFL, it was driving players insane to where taking their life was the only thing that could take the voices out of their head. The most recent case of CTE was found in Tyler Sash. Sash was a star defensive back for the University of Iowa and a member of the New York Giant’s Super Bowl XLVI. The examination that was done on Sash brought light to his family as to why he chose to end his life. The amount of CTE that was found in his brain was comparable to Junior Seau who committed sucide in 2012. Alarming as it is, Sash only played 23 regular season games in the NFL. (USA Today)
“You can say, ‘I enjoy football, and Hawkeye football,’ ” said Adam Jacobi, managing editor of BlackHeartGoldPants.com, “but you can also
be concerned for these guys and sort of want to make sure that they’re well taken care of after their careers are over. You can’t assume this
is safe for these guys anymore, which is a bummer.” A gladiator’s code also prevails.
“You put your body through so much as a player,” said Anthony Herron, an ex Hawkeyes player and analyst for the Pac-12 Network who
played in the NFL. “I can remember times when you’re seeing double or you’re seeing triple. You feel like you’re going to pass out or faint,
going through different things on the field.“So your body is so often on the brink of something traumatic that it feels like the norm.”
Is playing football and feeling this way really worth what could happen. The players who thought that they were invincible ended up dead by their own hand from their own mind controlling them. How many deceased players is it going to take for the NFL to see what is truly happening to their beloved players and their families. This is not normal nor is this something to just brush off to the side, let alone hide. Something has got to give to help protect these players on or off the field.
The NFL needs to take permanent injuries like this seriously as new safety rules and regulations should be brought about and a waiver should be mandatory listing CTE as a major side effect in playing a professional sport like the NFL. The incredible findings by Dr. Bennet Omalu, the research concealed and denied by the NFL and the deaths of past and present NFL players should be marked as a red flag for the drive of football as we know it. ”I’m not against football," insists Omalu, "I just think people need to know the risks involved. They need to know the truth.” I couldn't agree more.
Working Bibliography
Auerbach, Michael P., MA. "Football." Salem Press Encyclopedia (2015): Research Starters. Web. 1 Mar. 2016.
Concussion. By Peter Landesman. Dir. Peter Landesman. Prod. Ridley Scott, Giannina Scott, David Woltroff, Larry Schuman, and Elizabeth Cantillon. Perf. Will Smith. Columbia Pictures, 2015. Film.
"Concussions and NFL: How the name CTE came about." CNN Wire 2015: Business Insights: Essentials. Web. 29 Feb. 2016.
Dodd, Johnny, Diane Herbst, and Michelle Boudin. "Taking On The Nfl His Fight To Make Football Safer." People 85.1 (2016): 56. MasterFILE Premier. Web. 29 Feb. 2016.
Drysdale, Thomas A. "Helmet-to-helmet contact: avoiding a lifetime penalty by creating a duty to scan active NFL players for chronic traumatic encephalopathy." Journal of Legal Medicine 2013: 425. Academic OneFile. Web. 1 Mar. 2016.
Fainaru-Wada, Mark, and Steve Fainaru. League of Denial: The NFL, Concussions, and the Battle for Truth. Print.
Logue, Andrew. "CTE found in short-time NFL player." USA Today 2016: Academic OneFile. Web. 29 Feb. 2016.
Omalu, Dr. Bennet. "The League of Denial: The NFL's Concussion Crisis." PBS. PBS, 25 Mar. 2013. Web. 29 Feb. 2016.
Trahan, Kevin. "Is the NFL's Big Bet on Making Football Safer Working?" VICE Sports RSS. Vice Sports, 13 May 2015. Web. 01 Mar. 2016.
Van Bibber, Ryan. "The Doctor Who Says CTE Is 'exaggerated' Hid NFL Affiliation in Published Study." SBNation.com. SB Nation, 24 July 2015. Web. 26 Mar. 2016.
English Composition II
Professor Stalbird
April 4, 2016
CTE in the National Football League
Everyone has a favorite football team. Whether you like high school football, college football or even professional football, injuries do occur when you least expect it. Every league has a set of rules that the players must abide by to ensure that everyone has a tough, yet fun time on and off the field. When it comes to the National Football League, also known as the NFL, player safety rules and regulations are set when a player puts on a uniform and takes step onto a field.
For the past 100 years, players have taken blows to the head that have caused substantial injuries that are invisible to high medical machinery when alive, but found easily when dead. The NFL needs to take permanent injuries like this seriously as new safety rules and regulations should be brought about and a waiver should be mandatory listing CTE as a major side effect in playing a professional sport like the NFL.
Dr. Bennet Omalu, a Nigerian-American born physician, forensic pathologist, and neuropathologist was the first to publish findings of Chronic Traumatic Encepalopathy in American Football. Chronic Traumatic Encepalopathy, also known as CTE, can be found in players after a traumatic blow causing a player to lose their mind. This can cause physical harm to not only the player, but others around them as well. CTE is a form of tauopathy which is a progressive degenerative disease found in people who have suffered a severe blow to the head. (CNN Wire. 2015)
The first person Dr. Omalu tested was former NFL player Mike Webster. Mike Webster played in the NFL for seventeen years as a center for the Pittsburg Steelers and Kansas City Chiefs. Dr. Omalu discovered a neurological deterioration that was almost as similar as Alzheimer’s in Webster’s brain. As Dr. Omalu went through Webster’s brain, he got curious as to the other players and if they could possibly be carrying the disease as well. (Concussion 2015)
Dr. Omalu figured that the NFL would have looked into the fact that, “Repeated sub-concussive blows to the head can cause microscopic injuries to the brain”. He figured wrong. The NFL was no where close to being interested in what was discovered in Webster’s brain. The NFL repeatedly attacked Dr. Omalu’s reputation and the research that was presented. “They went after me… But I fought back.” (MasterFile Premier. 2016)
A new question then arose. Should youth football be abolished? Dr. Omalu wrote that parents should not get to decide whether their kids play football.
"Our children are minors who have not reached the age of consent…wait for our children to grow up, then provide them, as adults, with
information on the risks involved and let them make their own decisions.”
Thirteen high school football deaths occurred in the 2016 year alone causing Dr. Omalu to have a valid point.
With that being said, a new problem arose with new scientific evidence. This evidence shows that,
“repetitive non-concussive blows to the head-the kind that are inherent to the sport-also can produce significant brain damage. Some
experts suspect those blows may lead to the development of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), the mysterious neurodegenerative
disease that has been found in many former NFL players, including some who took their own lives.” (Trahan)
Perdue University researchers studying high school football players, found that between 5 and 10 percent will be diagnosed with a concussion per season. They also found that 50 to 80 percent will suffer brain damage. This research appears to be equally severe within their brains as a regular MRI could be done and shows similarities through CTE.
Bob Gfeller, a parent of a deceased high school football player, still has the painful memory of his son, who was fifteen at the time and what happened to him one August night in 2008. He goes to say that, “I still have a slideshow in my mind of what happened… I can see all the images from the minute I saw him on the ground to the minute we left the hospital. It’s terrible and I don't want people to go through this.”
Bob and his wife, Lisa, created the Matthew Gfeller Sport Related Traumatic Brain Research Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to help make football safer at the high school level. Researcher Dr. Christopher Whitlow says that, “A lot of people say that the work that we’re doing is going to kill football but it’s really the work that can save football.” (MasterFile Premier. 2016)
One thing that could really save football is the NFL changing the safety rules and regulations. Rule changes and increased penalties for helmet to helmet contact have been implemented in an effort to reduce the number of violent blows to the head in association with concussions (Trahan).
Since 2010, the NFL has said that they will be changing the safety regulations but not all of them have been implemented. Although changing the rules on safety on and off the field could make a significant change in football, studies have shown that players will continue to play violent no matter what the rules because the ideal of preventing a concussion is inevitable. (Academic OneFile 2016)
With concussions dating back as far as 1994, medical professionals have warned them on the negative impacts that players face when stepping onto a field. Some players who have passed with CTE found in their brain, have had family members sue the NFL for the cause of the players to take their own lives. The thought of signing a contract with the possible side effects, especially CTE, should be listed when signing onto a multi-million dollar contract. If that were to be implemented into the contract, players would have a choice to continue chasing their dreams or to back out and care more about their health and their well-being.
A new program called, “Heads Up” Football, is built in to be a “safer” tackling initiative that was promoted by USA Football. “Heads Up” football may decrease concussions among players at a youthful age. It is viewed as a reformed way where risks can be significantly decreased. The tackling method with “Heads Up” football involves using the shoulders as a defense instead of the use of the head.
In Kevin Trahan’s article, Is the NFL’s Big Bet on Making Football Safer working?, he talks about former San Francisco 49ers linebacker Chris Borland and his announcement in March saying that he was giving up football due to medical concerns. "Having been associated with concussions over many years, I really believe that it's never been safer before in terms of the sport," said Pittsburg Steelers-affiliated neurologist Joseph Maroon. The phrase “Never been safer” has been used by the NFL, League Commissioner Rodger Goodell and youth football officials.
Joseph Maroon has a 30-year history with the NFL and there was something he failed to disclose in the study downplaying the risk of long-term neurological disease among former NFL players.
"It's a rare phenomena. We have no idea the incidence. There are ... more injuries to kids falling off bikes, scooters, falling in playgrounds
than there are in youth football. I think again, it's never been safer. Can we improve? Yes. We have to do better all the time to make it safer.”
Due to the concealing of what was going on in the NFL with concussions, the league is in the process of finalizing a settlement in a class action lawsuit filed with thousands of retired players claiming that the NFL concealed the long-term effects with the sport. A group of ninety former players are appealing that decisions and two hundred former players or their relatives have opted out of it in order to continue litigation. (SB Nation)
One of the former players was NFL Hall of Famer, Junior Seau. When he was inducted into the NFL Hall of Fame, he passed previously from a gunshot wound to the chest in his home. The NFL denied his family a speech after Seau was inducted due to the fact that his family was bringing up a law suit against the NFL and the carelessness that they have towards their former and current players involving CTE.
CTE not only was being concealed through the NFL, it was driving players insane to where taking their life was the only thing that could take the voices out of their head. The most recent case of CTE was found in Tyler Sash. Sash was a star defensive back for the University of Iowa and a member of the New York Giant’s Super Bowl XLVI. The examination that was done on Sash brought light to his family as to why he chose to end his life. The amount of CTE that was found in his brain was comparable to Junior Seau who committed sucide in 2012. Alarming as it is, Sash only played 23 regular season games in the NFL. (USA Today)
“You can say, ‘I enjoy football, and Hawkeye football,’ ” said Adam Jacobi, managing editor of BlackHeartGoldPants.com, “but you can also
be concerned for these guys and sort of want to make sure that they’re well taken care of after their careers are over. You can’t assume this
is safe for these guys anymore, which is a bummer.” A gladiator’s code also prevails.
“You put your body through so much as a player,” said Anthony Herron, an ex Hawkeyes player and analyst for the Pac-12 Network who
played in the NFL. “I can remember times when you’re seeing double or you’re seeing triple. You feel like you’re going to pass out or faint,
going through different things on the field.“So your body is so often on the brink of something traumatic that it feels like the norm.”
Is playing football and feeling this way really worth what could happen. The players who thought that they were invincible ended up dead by their own hand from their own mind controlling them. How many deceased players is it going to take for the NFL to see what is truly happening to their beloved players and their families. This is not normal nor is this something to just brush off to the side, let alone hide. Something has got to give to help protect these players on or off the field.
The NFL needs to take permanent injuries like this seriously as new safety rules and regulations should be brought about and a waiver should be mandatory listing CTE as a major side effect in playing a professional sport like the NFL. The incredible findings by Dr. Bennet Omalu, the research concealed and denied by the NFL and the deaths of past and present NFL players should be marked as a red flag for the drive of football as we know it. ”I’m not against football," insists Omalu, "I just think people need to know the risks involved. They need to know the truth.” I couldn't agree more.
Working Bibliography
Auerbach, Michael P., MA. "Football." Salem Press Encyclopedia (2015): Research Starters. Web. 1 Mar. 2016.
Concussion. By Peter Landesman. Dir. Peter Landesman. Prod. Ridley Scott, Giannina Scott, David Woltroff, Larry Schuman, and Elizabeth Cantillon. Perf. Will Smith. Columbia Pictures, 2015. Film.
"Concussions and NFL: How the name CTE came about." CNN Wire 2015: Business Insights: Essentials. Web. 29 Feb. 2016.
Dodd, Johnny, Diane Herbst, and Michelle Boudin. "Taking On The Nfl His Fight To Make Football Safer." People 85.1 (2016): 56. MasterFILE Premier. Web. 29 Feb. 2016.
Drysdale, Thomas A. "Helmet-to-helmet contact: avoiding a lifetime penalty by creating a duty to scan active NFL players for chronic traumatic encephalopathy." Journal of Legal Medicine 2013: 425. Academic OneFile. Web. 1 Mar. 2016.
Fainaru-Wada, Mark, and Steve Fainaru. League of Denial: The NFL, Concussions, and the Battle for Truth. Print.
Logue, Andrew. "CTE found in short-time NFL player." USA Today 2016: Academic OneFile. Web. 29 Feb. 2016.
Omalu, Dr. Bennet. "The League of Denial: The NFL's Concussion Crisis." PBS. PBS, 25 Mar. 2013. Web. 29 Feb. 2016.
Trahan, Kevin. "Is the NFL's Big Bet on Making Football Safer Working?" VICE Sports RSS. Vice Sports, 13 May 2015. Web. 01 Mar. 2016.
Van Bibber, Ryan. "The Doctor Who Says CTE Is 'exaggerated' Hid NFL Affiliation in Published Study." SBNation.com. SB Nation, 24 July 2015. Web. 26 Mar. 2016.