Quickie: Culture change doesn't come easily

My schedule keeps conspiring against my ability to blog lately, but I certainly didn't want this one to get overlooked: an NFL player actually self-reported concussion symptoms in the course of a game. And the player was a fairly big name to boot.

The culture of football has demanded, pretty much as long as football has existed, that players play hurt, and more specifically they play hurt without saying anything about it. Back in Teddy Roosevelt's day it was literally better to die than to fess up to being hurt. While I doubt that most modern players truly feel that way, In the course of a game a football player really doesn't care about his future. I'm not trying to be cruel; ask one. The only thing that matters is staying on the field for the next play, and the next, and so on. If something is broken or your bell is rung, hide it. That's the code.

So, when a pretty big-name quarterback came to the sideline and reported feeling concussion-like symptoms on Nov. 29, it was a bit of a jolt. Ben Roethlisberger did exactly that, though, in the Pittsburgh Steelers' game against the Seattle Seahawks. Accordingly, he was put into the NFL's concussion protocol, and ended up missing the rest of the game. The Steelers lost.

Roethlisberger continued in the concussion protocol for part of that following week. (This article has a quick-and-dirty summary of the requirements a player in that protocol must meet in order to return to the field.) He was found not to have a concussion, and returned to action the following game.

There will be troglodytes who will see nothing but Roethlisberger missing the end of that game and blame him for being soft. He's been accused of exaggerating injuries before, so that is a fairly easy leap for such a trog to make. So far, most of the public reaction has been restrained and even somewhat supportive, as in the initial link above. But the troglodytes tend to lurk in comment sections.

Seeing a big-name athlete watch out for his own health is not a thing to be dismissed or taken lightly. Even so, though, it's hard to assume that some high-school kid who gets his head slammed into the ground and suddenly can't remember his name is going to think, "I need to get to the sideline, that's what Ben Roethlisberger did." The culture change has to be built in from the bottom as well, which is presumably the purpose of this site.

Tied into the forthcoming movie Concussion (and quite unafraid to pitch the Will Smith film, as you can see at the bottom), this site, also tied to this educationally oriented site, appears to be aimed at making the avoidance of head trauma part of the early levels of football. How much effect it can have I don't know (young boys aren't always noted for having a lick of good sense, and are often allergic to looking or seeming uncool), but at least somebody's trying, I guess. When paired with news like this out of Florida some weeks back, one might be excused for feeling vaguely hopeful.

For a better view go visit that website.