Posted on 02/06/2016 7:52:57 PM PST by MinorityRepublican
As a pediatric neurosurgeon at the Seattle Children’s Hospital, Sam Browd brought a swift end to the early athletic careers of innumerable youths across a myriad of sports due to concussions. Browd’s experience prematurely “retiring†children from athletics—most notably football—and the countless emotional conversations with parents made him question what could be done to address head injuries suffered by children while playing sports.
In 2013, Browd, an associate professor of neurological surgery at the University of Washington, connected with Dave Marver and Per Reinhall—both of whom also had ties to the Seattle-based university and backgrounds in medical technology and mechanical engineering, respectively–about the systemic problem of concussions among athletes. Within a matter of weeks, Browd, Marver and Reinhall founded VICIS. Latin for “change,†the name VICIS fit the trio’s ambition: to reimagine the football helmet and reduce concussions in the sport.
After two years of development and just shy of $10 million in funding, VICIS launched its Zero1 helmet last month in collaboration with the University of Washington. Whether the helmet will effectively address the concussion quandary remains to be seen, but for VICIS’ credit—the helmet is unlike any other on the market.
(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...
I think the Powers That Be want America to move to soccer. They want American football dead, one way or another.
I think that the great unwashed fail to understand, as Forbes notes, that you can have a $20M quarterback wearing an off-the-shelf helmet when Tiger Woods can get custom-made clubs.
The John Riddell Company designed the American WWII helmet and made the liners their self. When I played junior high and high school football they pretty much had a lock on the helmet market.
I think they are still the leading maker.
Make the helmets out of Nerf material.
Mike Dukakis approves this helmet design.
I’ll never watch kick ball.
It might reduce concussions. But reducing all the other lesser repetitive abrupt changes of direction the brain sustains over the course of a football career into the pros would require some sort of anti-inertia time/space manipulation.
You don’t have to hit your head to sustain a concussion. Any very fast in direction that jerks the brain hard enough will get the job done.
Freegards
Until they get even bigger and faster players.
I’ve heard that soccer actually has the highest concussion rates because there are no helmets and collisions are common.
I don’t expect it, and I wouldn’t call for it — but one solution has nothing to do with the helmet. They could mandate that no one can be a professional football player if they weigh over 250 pounds.
Head injuries would greatly diminish, right?
But they all want their cake and they want to eat it too. “Give me guys who are six foot seven and weight 400 pounds, and oh by the way, make sure no one every gets hurt.”
That’s not a serious position.
That’s true.
From Alinksy: The issue is never the issue. The issue is always the revolution.
This isn’t about helmets and it isn’t about head injuries. This is about making America play the same sport as the rest of the world. Why should we be so special????
If it just doesn’t make the game faster, it might work. It would seem to be stopping the potential severity of blows to the brain caused by player’s mass as opposed to just the number of total blows. I’m not sure if anyone knows if that would actually help the supposed problem at this point. Maybe one way to know is if heavyweight boxers generally have more problems with their brain because they hit harder than lightweights or flyweights.
Freegards
From an economics sense, this is all too true. You make a better shield, and someone will find a better sword.
When the NFL fails, you should be one of the first displays in the entrance to the museum.
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