Head Shots
I talked about scars, strains and broken bones, but I didn't mention the major recurring injury of my life, concussions. At a casual count, I've had at least five of varying intensity, all from football.
The first and most dramatic of these was during a junior high football game when I was in eighth grade. We were away at (I think) Hatton-Finley-Sharon. Late in the game there was a fourth and long situation for the other team. I was playing defensive line and managed to snag the ballcarrier short of a first down. Then my teammate Brian landed on top of us. I was knocked unconscious for at least five minutes. Supposedly the first thing I asked when I woke up was whether or not I'd prevented the first down, which is certainly in character. Anyway, that one got me an ambulance ride all the way to Grand Forks from Hatton, with Dwight driving along behind the ambulance in his sports car. The ambulance also managed to hit the gate of the field on the way out, or so I'm told. This was the rare game my parents missed, as it happened on Simchas Torah and they'd gone to the synagogue, which means it must have been September 30, 1991, which tracks junior high games being on Mondays.
This and all of these concussions happened long before the current state of concussion research, which is now such mainstream knowledge that there was a Hollywood movie with Will Smith about concussions, and most levels of football now have strict concussion protocols that are used to evaluate players with suspected concussions and govern when they can reenter games and practices. None of that was present when I played football in the 1990-96 time frame, which is why after being knocked out cold I skipped one day of practice and was back in it the next day.
Later in high school I, in retrospect, probably had two more minor concussions during practice over four years, what we would call getting your bell rung. That's actually pretty accurate, because your brain is "ringing" against the inside of your head. I don't remember specifics except that in both cases I was barely able to stand, was pretty dizzy and sat out the rest of practice. I never sat out more than that. Nowadays I probably would have been held out for at least a week, if not longer.
When I played in college in 1996, I got my bell run twice in one week. The first time I missed the rest of practice. The second time I got inspected by the team doctor, who told me to sit out a few days, but that was about it. I didn't miss any of the games (I played in 9 out of 10, missing only, ironically, parents weekend which was the one time my folks came up to see me).
Now, the science may not have been clear but even back then I could tell that getting hit in the head that much probably wasn't great for me. Concussions aren't fun, especially close together in a short time frame. It was a factor in me quitting football altogether, although to the best of my recollection it was secondary to how much of a time suck football was and how little reward there was for it socially.
If the concussion research they have today about CTE had existed back then, I'm absolutely certain that my mother wouldn't have let me play football. I don't blame her. While I got many, many positive benefits from playing football and it's pretty much unarguably the thing I did in high school that had the most impact on who I am today, I certainly wouldn't let any child of mine play it, and I'd think carefully before letting them play hockey or other sports that have significant potential for that kind of injury.
You might reasonably ask if I experienced any long term impacts from all these head shots. In the long term, I guess we'll see if I did enough damage to cause any of the dementia that CTE drives. In the short term, it has been so long since my first concussion that I don't have any clear memory of before and after. My assumption is that someone who knew me back then would have said if my behavior changed after those, so probably not.
Thankfully, I've managed to avoid further concussions since then. The closest I came was probably during the incident that strained my MCL in boot camp, since my head hit the ground after a fairly long fall, but somehow I managed to avoid any head injury there beyond a brief stunning. I've had two car accidents of note since then and one bike crash, and avoided hurting my head in either thanks to the magic of seat belts and helmets. Hopefully that trend continues.
The first and most dramatic of these was during a junior high football game when I was in eighth grade. We were away at (I think) Hatton-Finley-Sharon. Late in the game there was a fourth and long situation for the other team. I was playing defensive line and managed to snag the ballcarrier short of a first down. Then my teammate Brian landed on top of us. I was knocked unconscious for at least five minutes. Supposedly the first thing I asked when I woke up was whether or not I'd prevented the first down, which is certainly in character. Anyway, that one got me an ambulance ride all the way to Grand Forks from Hatton, with Dwight driving along behind the ambulance in his sports car. The ambulance also managed to hit the gate of the field on the way out, or so I'm told. This was the rare game my parents missed, as it happened on Simchas Torah and they'd gone to the synagogue, which means it must have been September 30, 1991, which tracks junior high games being on Mondays.
This and all of these concussions happened long before the current state of concussion research, which is now such mainstream knowledge that there was a Hollywood movie with Will Smith about concussions, and most levels of football now have strict concussion protocols that are used to evaluate players with suspected concussions and govern when they can reenter games and practices. None of that was present when I played football in the 1990-96 time frame, which is why after being knocked out cold I skipped one day of practice and was back in it the next day.
Later in high school I, in retrospect, probably had two more minor concussions during practice over four years, what we would call getting your bell rung. That's actually pretty accurate, because your brain is "ringing" against the inside of your head. I don't remember specifics except that in both cases I was barely able to stand, was pretty dizzy and sat out the rest of practice. I never sat out more than that. Nowadays I probably would have been held out for at least a week, if not longer.
When I played in college in 1996, I got my bell run twice in one week. The first time I missed the rest of practice. The second time I got inspected by the team doctor, who told me to sit out a few days, but that was about it. I didn't miss any of the games (I played in 9 out of 10, missing only, ironically, parents weekend which was the one time my folks came up to see me).
Now, the science may not have been clear but even back then I could tell that getting hit in the head that much probably wasn't great for me. Concussions aren't fun, especially close together in a short time frame. It was a factor in me quitting football altogether, although to the best of my recollection it was secondary to how much of a time suck football was and how little reward there was for it socially.
If the concussion research they have today about CTE had existed back then, I'm absolutely certain that my mother wouldn't have let me play football. I don't blame her. While I got many, many positive benefits from playing football and it's pretty much unarguably the thing I did in high school that had the most impact on who I am today, I certainly wouldn't let any child of mine play it, and I'd think carefully before letting them play hockey or other sports that have significant potential for that kind of injury.
You might reasonably ask if I experienced any long term impacts from all these head shots. In the long term, I guess we'll see if I did enough damage to cause any of the dementia that CTE drives. In the short term, it has been so long since my first concussion that I don't have any clear memory of before and after. My assumption is that someone who knew me back then would have said if my behavior changed after those, so probably not.
Thankfully, I've managed to avoid further concussions since then. The closest I came was probably during the incident that strained my MCL in boot camp, since my head hit the ground after a fairly long fall, but somehow I managed to avoid any head injury there beyond a brief stunning. I've had two car accidents of note since then and one bike crash, and avoided hurting my head in either thanks to the magic of seat belts and helmets. Hopefully that trend continues.