What Do you Value?

Football, the most popular sport in the United States has come under scrutiny in past years and continues to find itself in murky waters as more and more football players deaths reveal that they have some degree of CTE.

A brain is like a sponge; squishy.

When someone hits their head hard their brain can bounce around the inside of their skull creating traumatic brain injury known as a concussion. Hits to the head happen every week at every level on every play. In 2017, 281 players in the NFL had a concussion. This number doesn't account for the numerous hits to the head that don’t reach the level of a concussion either.

Many of us have believed, including myself, that CTE is caused by a single concussion. Instead CTE is caused by repetitive hits to the head. So basically what happens every play in football.

A study was done on 202 deceased football players whose brains were donated to research. 87% of those brains had CTE. 111 of the 202 football players played in the NFL at some point. 99% of them had CTE.

So where do we draw the line?

Licking Valley Senior and Iowa State Football Commit; Jarrod Hufford who claims he has had “about 8 to 10” concussions says that he “would let his kids play football.”

To some, football is just a game. To some football is a way of life and they have dedicated everything to it. With full knowledge of the risks there’s quite the amount of players who would do it all over again if they could.

One of the ways that could lead to the prevention of CTE among football players is implementing new helmets that tend to the specific needs of preventing concussions. According to Fox News the Vicis Zero 1 helmet is “ranked No. 1 on the NFL/NFLPA 2017 Helmet Laboratory Testing Performance Results.”

The helmet is designed with columns inside of a “reflex layer” that breaks the impact of a hit to the head. Innovative and revolutionary helmet designs like this lead the way for concussion prevention in football and seem to be on the cutting edge of change.

As we work towards a safer on-field result and progress on new technology we have to decide what our priorities are. Do we value safety more or do we value competition and passion more?