Concussions major issue for prep athletes

February 10, 2009 • Jesse Crowell  
Filed under Sports

 

Every Friday night during the fall, 1.2 million high school football players prepare for battle. They tighten their cleats, pull on their shoulder pads and strap on their helmets. Each athlete keeps one goal in mind: to win. 

This idea, the culmination of leaving every last bit of body, mind and heart on the field for a single game, is what guides America to hold prep football above all else in high school athletics, but it is also a haunting element of the beloved game.

This issue facing high school football, as well as other sports, is one of the most dangerous injuries coaches have to deal with because of a “code of silence” the possibility of a player not knowing or caring what a concussion is, there is also a certain mentality of ”toughness” that football players are taught to demonstrate on and off the field by coaches.

Whether it is a player not wanting to come off the field in an important game or simply an attempt to avoid embarrassment, many athletes choose to follow the “code of silence.” Unfortunately, this ill-motivated choice allows the athlete to continue playing. This often worsens the injury, possibly making it fatal.

“Athletes keeping a concussion to themselves can be a combination of factors,” said Summit athletic director and head basketball coach Dan Munson. “It’s often a mixture of competitiveness and the player not knowing the symptoms.”

 The dangers of concussions are not only being felt on prep levels but also in collegiate athletics and professional sports. 

Recently, the National Football League (NFL) has dealt with questions about its handling of former players who suffered concussions while in the league. 

Even with the highest level of medical care, the NFL reported four former players in their mid-30s with significant brain damage.  

     Also, in a series of biopsys on deceased NFL players’ brains, results have all shown severe brain damage, caused by repeated head trauma.

     These disturbing results, along with studies of the brains of athletes as young as 18, have convinced researchers that stricter measures need to be taken in order to prevent concussions in high school athletes.  

Without top-of-the-line level of medical care, high school players are arguably at the highest risk of any athletes to receive long-term effects from a concussion.  

Since 1997, at least 50 high school level or younger football players have been killed or have sustained serious head injuries on the field due to concussions, according to research by the New York Times.  

The most haunting aspect of this statistic is that, according to experts, many of these accidents could have been prevented by an awareness of the condition.

Studies show that many high school athletes often mistakenly think that a concussion requires a player to be knocked unconscious. This can be connected to the drastic amount of under-reported concussions in prep football. 

Athletic trainers commonly report that about five percent of high school players received a concussion each season, but with a more accurate survey of athletes, that number is believed to be much higher. 

A concussion is defined as “a blow to the head that causes the brain to crash into the skull.” Symptoms include dizziness, nausea, headache, impaired vision, lethargy, or other disruptions in brain function.  

The process athletic trainers, coaches, and even parents use to determine whether or not a player has a concussion is common; ask questions that gauge the athletes awareness and short term memory.

To do this, questioners might request the player to repeat strings of numbers and letters or conduct short pencil and paper tests. 

Even though many school districts require their high schools to have an ambulance and team of paramedics on site, these same schools often do not receive the luxury of an athletic trainer roaming the sidelines.

 In fact, according to the National Athletic Trainers’ Association, only 42 percent of high schools have access to a certified athletic trainer. 

These factors have combined to create one of the most prominent, and most unknown, dangers in prep football.  

The fear of extended danger following a concussion has also effected Summit. 

During his sophomore season Davis Resor, a defensive end, suffered a concussion during a road game versus rival team Mountain View. Following the play on which he received the injury, Resor came off the field with a broken face mask and blood running down his chin. During the play, Resor’s face mask was cracked, leaving his face exposed to injury, and then was hit in the chin by another player’s helmet. 

“When I first came off the field,” said Resor, now a junior, “I wasn’t aware of how bad the injury was.”

Resor was then treated and diagnosed with a concussion by former Summit athletic trainer Wyatt Malloy that night on the sideline. After being diagnosed with a concussion, Resor was removed from the game and not allowed to return.

“I didn’t really understand what a concussion was or what its symptoms were at the time,” said Resor. “I knew that small concussions were common and I had seen teammates return to play in the next week.” 

Unfortunately, Resor’s concussion was not minor at all. In the following weeks, after many memory, reaction, and medical tests, his personal doctor declared to him unable to participate in any sports for the remainder of his high school career and ruled out Resor for the remainder of the season. 

“I was shocked,” said Resor. “I didn’t realize the further impacts a concussion could have.” 

Although Resor’s injury is the most extreme example of a concussion case in recent Storm athletic seasons, his is not the only one. 

In the summer of 2006, the Storm football team, then coached by Lowell Norby, attended the team camp hosted by Linfield College. On the second day, sophomore lineman Kyle Grech suffered a concussion after being blind-sided during a team scrimmage. Grech was diagnosed with a serious concussion, and for the following days of the camp, he was not allowed to participate. Fortunately, Grech returned fully healthy in time for the following season.

However, the contrast between Resor’s case and Grech’s cases show how unpredictable concussions can be. 

“It’s an injury that can be easily overlooked,” said Grech. “Most of the time, a concussion only turns out to be a minor injury, but what makes it so dangerous is that you can’t always tell.” 

When an athlete suffers a sprained ankle or a dislocated shoulder, there are signs that are obvious to anyone viewing or participating in the game. When an athlete suffers a concussion, this is not always true.

Aside from severe head injuries, in which case the athlete may not even be able to stand, minor concussions do not cause the recipient to limp, wince or advertise the injury in any way. 

Athletes not understanding the symptoms, coaches and trainers not being aware of the it, or a mixture of both sides ignoring the injury– with all these factors combined, it is hard to say what the best approach is to handling the inevitable dangers of concussions. 

However, this is not a dead end. 

The most important thing athletes can do to benefit themselves is simply to become more aware of the signs of a concussion. 

By doing that, they give themselves the chance to halt a concussion instead of compounding more head injuries. 

For some athletes, avoiding a concussion comes down to a choice of participating in a contact sport versus sitting out. But, in the end, the athlete’s choice boils down to their understanding of risk and reward of athletics. 

There is no right or wrong answer to this question, but it stays important that each high school athlete understands that he or she should not play in fear of injury, but instead for the love of the game.