Posted on 03/22/2011 8:58:05 AM PDT by Titus-Maximus
Award winning mini-documentary where Phil Villipiano of the Oakland Raiders gives some riveting footage on head trauma, Jack Tatum and his son playing football. Harry Carson of the NY Giants is on as well.
The second part: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_oyyTz63xI&feature=related
My son had two head injuries in one game and had to see a doctor a few days later. He was staggering and mumbling. It changed my life when I saw how he and his coach and the sports trainer all put him back in the game to get another more serious head injury.
I pulled him from the season, junior year in high school because I did the research and realized this stupid game might very well end the quality of my sons life at age 17. It just wasn't worth it, I was hated by the team and the coach but my son received no further injuries that season.
I was in physical therapy last year when I heard women talking about the Manning brothers. They were talking about how jealous the third Manning brother must feel. I interrupted that he won't feel so bad in 20 years when Eli and Peyton are spending two or three days a week in PT.
Players are too big and too fast compared to even the 70s, the irony is, that the more protection, the worse it gets, compared to the days of leather helmets.
My son plays HS baseball with the first game this weekend so they are still in the preseason. Last Friday every player had to take a test; computer based that took about 45 minutes to get through. The test centered around memory type questions and answers; read a string of words then recall the string, look at diagram and identify what changed, etc. This was all billed as a concussion test, presumably to establish a baseline.
When I played football somewhat accurately counting fingers got you back on the field; seeing 11 fingers would get the QB back in.
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