Throwaway Players - Concussion Crisis From Pee Wee Football to the NFL

As frightening as the numbers are—estimates of sports-related concussions range from 1.6 million to 3.8 million annually in the United States—they can’t begin to explain the profound impact of a hidden health problem that can strike any of us. It is becoming increasingly clear that concussions, like severe head traumas, can rob us of our memory, our mental abilities, our very sense of self. Because the damage caused by a concussion is rarely visible to the naked eye or even on a brain scan, no one knows how many millions might be living lives devastated by an invisible injury too often shrugged off as “just a bump on the head.”

This book puts a human face on a huge public health crisis. Through narratives that chronicle the poignant experiences of real people struggling with this invisible and often unrecognized brain injury, Linda Carroll and David Rosner bring home its potentially devastating consequences. Among those you will meet are a high school football player whose college dreams were derailed by a series of undiagnosed concussions, a hard-driving soccer star whose own struggles with concussions pushed her to crusade for safety reform as a coach and soccer mom, and an economist who lost her career because of lingering concussion symptoms from a fender bender.

The Concussion Crisis weaves these human dramas with compelling stories of scientists and doctors who are unraveling the mysteries of how an invisible injury can wreak such havoc. It takes readers into the top labs, where scientists are teasing out what goes wrong in the brain after a jolt to the head, and into the nation’s leading concussion clinic, where patients get cutting-edge management and treatment. Carroll and Rosner analyze the cultural factors that allowed this burgeoning epidemic to fester unseen and untreated. They chronicle the growing public awareness sparked by the premature retirements of superstars like NFL quarterbacks Troy Aikman and Steve Young. And they argue for an immediate change in a macho culture that minimizes the dangers inherent in repeated jolts to the head.

When author Steven P. Locke was a twelve-year-old boy growing up in Canal Winchester, Ohio, he witnessed something extraordinary?a championship football season, coached by his father Mike, that for a brief moment captivated a small Ohio town.

A combination memoir and sports history, Little Locke and the Mighty Indians of 1975 chronicles the high school football team?s winning year from the perspective of the coach?s son. It paints a portrait of the town and its people as it was at the time?the way people lived, the music they listened to, the television shows they watched, their politics, and the mores of the time. It also focuses on the ten-game season?how football was practiced and played, the grueling nature of two-a- days, his father?s coaching style, the growing attention paid to the team as each victory led to more pressure to succeed the following week, and the town that followed and cheered them on in summer heat, driving rain, bitter cold, and disappointment.

A snapshot of a town, its people, and their way of life in the second half of the twentieth century, Little Locke and the Mighty Indians of 1975 provides a firsthand look into the sense of wonderment and excitement of the experience from the eyes of a twelve-year-old boy