Your brain on football

Features

February 3, 2010

By Tracy Williams Picayune Item Wed Feb 03, 2010, 09:46 AM CST

PICAYUNE — It is being proven that football players are getting dumber.

Yes, I said it. Jocks that play the game of football are mentally challenged. That is, if they play years and years of hard hitting and violent games and never take any precautions to protect their most vulnerable part of their anatomy—their brain—insert your own joke.

Kyle Turley would agree with me. Our wild man former Saint offensive linebacker is experiencing post concussion symptoms from playing violent NFL football. He was an aggressive tyrant on the field. He was a manly man. If he is lucky, he will not slip into dementia in his fifties due to a debilitating disease associated with NFL injuries called Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy or CTE.

Should parents be worried? Should the NFL protect its own?

One of my crusades is to get the word out about head injuries that can deceive you into thinking everything is okay, but secretly, your body is going through intense dramatic changes. It’s complicated and yet so simple.

My friend, Maria Benton showed me the light. Her battle with Traumatic Brain Injury destroyed her successful life as a car dealership owner in New Orleans and for many years she has been spiraling into a dark place. Tragic. Sad. Not a happy ending.

Her main agenda was to get the word out, especially to parents whose children play sports. It’s more dangerous than you think.

A bump on the head is evidence of trauma to the brain, but the violent shaking of your brain is the unseen danger. You should be very afraid of things you can’t see.

The NFL has been coming around to agree with Maria. Now, Time magazine has an article pulling back the curtains of NFL’s secrets to reveal the serious result of playing football affecting the player’s brain long after they hang up their helmet. Sean Gregory is the author of this piece and if you have little football player in your house then you might want to be informed.

Should we ban football? No way! It is not about getting rid of the game, but playing it with more information, more safety precautions and changing the mentality of the athlete. It’s okay to be brave and manly when you break your leg and you drag the limb back onto the field to keep playing, but the quiet damage of a brain injury is way too deceptive. Most guys haven’t a clue what is happening. They don’t know what to be afraid of.

Players need education on the subject. They need to talk to veteran football players like the one I saw on a special report about this subject when the former football player in his forties could not recite the order of the months, “January, February, June, May.” Seriously, I have memory loss, but nothing like that.

Our soldiers face the same issue of damage due to brain injuries. Their stories are riveting in “Hidden Battles on Unseen Fronts” by Patricia B. Driscoll and Celia Strauss. They use one of my quotes in the introduction from an article I wrote about soldiers and brain injury. It is story after story of our brave soldiers’ battle with the demons of this generation’s war injury.

The word is getting out.

As a player ages, he may face the demons of too many hits. Studies are showing, it’s not just the big hits causing concussions, but the repetition of many mini-hits over a long period of time. One football game is the same as a kid being in many car wrecks, his brain is floating and banging into his skull although we can’t see it.

Now granted, Cosby was right that all kids have brain damage. The twins have a severe hearing loss problem. I tell them to put their shoes on at least four times every morning. I can’t even imagine them after a few head bangings.

The answer is more protection, less purposeful head hitting, and rules to protect manly football players who lie to their medical staff and coaches. It’s not a wimp who keeps playing, but an idiot already made. Can’t imagine dumb getting dumber, but it can happen if you ignore the body’s warning signs.

It is okay to sit out. The mentality is changing, but stupid is still a character flaw of some professional athletes. When Pittsburgh Steeler’s quarterback Ben Roethilisberger sat out a game this season because of a concussion, his teammates criticized it. They said he should man up and not tell the doctors. They had been hit and they could still play. Those are the attitudes that have to change.

As the Pee Wee football suits up, make sure as a parent you know the danger. It will take the collective to change the game.

Saying all of that, the rules are in place to protect. Gregg Williams was criticized for urging his defensive players to hit the quarterback, in which he states he is not trying to hurt Peyton Manning. He just wants him to be uncomfortable. So, nothing wrong with that.

If you can’t take the hits in football, then don’t play.

Just refrain from using your head when you play the game, to hit with that is.

So, this week let’s not hurt, but hit. Let’s play the game and if someone is injured, protect their future by being up front about the injury. There is more to life than football.

Yet, what would life be without it? Yikes! May the Who Dats finish strong!

Who needs to work crossword puzzles when you are old any way!

Tracy Williams is a guest columnist and can be reached at her website: myhometowncolumn.com

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