We see them all the time on the gridiron and are fascinated with the violence. The sheer sound of the pop of pads is enough to stir most Americans into frenzy over the “Big Hits” in a sport of hits. I love them as a player of the game, and football fans all over the nation and world who love to watch the entertainment of the games can’t get enough of them. Recently, especially in light of the news and information surrounding former Texas Tech coach Mike Leach and Adam James, concussions and the handling of athletes has come under much scrutiny in America. This is because in large part, little research has shown a common, definitive link between concussions and the health of the brain and neurological system of the years. Many scientists, M.D.’s, and society at large has viewed these incidences as isolated ones that do not correspond to lifelong damages if treated correctly.
Recent studies about the health of NFL, collegiate, and even high school football players are starting to disprove our preconceived notions about football, its safety, and the dangers that concussions and even the smaller hits at the line of scrimmage can have on the human body for an extended period of time. The disease that scares me and should really scare anyone else who knows any person who plays the game on any level is being termed Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy or CTE. CTE was once thought to exclusively be found in the remnants of older boxers who donated their bodies to science. Now, researchers like Dr. Mckee, who is a leading neuropathologist who specializes in degenerative brain diseases, is finding startling evidence that this disease is being found in numerous individuals, including retired NFL professionals and the youngest case to date, a diseased high school football player who died at the age of 18.
Symptoms of CTE do not appear until about a decade after play has ceased and they seem to appear out of the blue. Symptoms include depression, loss of judgment, loss of impulse control, rages, and memory loss that quickly turns into dementia. This disease is a particularly hard one to stomach because there are absolutely no tests that can screen or diagnose the disease in a living person. Indeed, the only way researchers are even able to clinically diagnose this disease is to observe the brains of those affected by it post-mortem. Brown spots can easily be seen on the brains as a buildup of a protein called tau is released in the body after it has sustained the hits generated from football.
This disease and its threats are an issue at hand for youth sports because of the recent findings that an 18 year old high school football players showed early stages of CTE when his brain was examined. This incident causes us to question the impact hits have on youth, middle school and high school aged children. It is particularly disturbing in a sport where children are able to participate in from very young ages, like youth football. One can only imagine the affect hits can have on the still underdeveloped brains of youth. This topic is one that will undoubtedly be on the mind of any coach or parent as we learn more from the research at hand.
Christopher Stewart
Social Foundation of Coaching
