The injury you can’t see

What are you willing to sacrifice in order to achieve your dream? What if that sacrifice meant giving up on getting to spend time with people you love, or maybe are not even around yet? When you’re a teenager or in your early 20s, most of us think we’re invincible. Young men aren’t thinking about families, or grandchildren, at this age – they’re thinking about friends, dating, video games, parties, and stuff like that.

But if you’re a young man playing football, your brain is in serious danger – no kidding.

According to the Sports Concussion Institute’s research you are 1-to-2 times more likely to get another concussion after you suffer your first one. The news only gets scarier after you’ve had two concussions: A person is 2-to-4 times more likely to have another. After the third? A person is 3-to-9 times more likely to sustain a concussion. These are absolutely frightening statistics, or are they? It sure seems like a lot of young men playing the game and their parents don’t seem too worried about concussions.

What is a concussion, you ask? The definition by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention is “a bump, blow, or jolt to the head… (or) a blow to the body that causes the head and brain to move rapidly back and forth-literally causing the brain to bounce around or twist within the skull.”

Now, do these words have your attention?

I am a gigantic football fan, and I have been my whole life. I have played quite a bit of football, and I have sustained a few concussions. I have also had a few concussions just horsing around. I have lost consciousness from a few of them. I couldn’t imagine having them on-and-off for a decade, or two, while playing regularly.

Jim McMahon is a retired quarterback who played in the NFL. He used to play for the Chicago Bears, and I hated him with a passion! (I’m a diehard Minnesota Viking fan.) I was a young kid, and I loved watching him “get his bell rung.”

Fast-forward 25 years, and McMahon now gets lost when he leaves his home. Imagine how scary that must be, when you can’t find where you live. He has early onset dementia, and depression. He has had spinal fluid removed from his brain, and this treatment has helped him a little bit. He is 56 years old, and he should have another 25 years of life to enjoy.

Simply put, he will not remember who he is by then.

Worse yet, McMahon is far from alone. In 2014 autopsies conducted on 79 former NFL players showed that 76 had brain disease. Yes, you read that right.

We are only born with one brain, and one life. If I told you that you could be a famous, rich football player, knowing what we know now, would you chase that dream?

Sadly, there is no other way to play the nation’s most popular sport. The NFL generated 7.24 BILLION dollars in 2014. Money talks, so billionaires are making enormous money at the cost of these men’s health.

The fans’ love for the game isn’t dwindling, it’s growing, meantime. But it’s hard for me to see my beloved sport the same way. These players are human beings, with families. I know why they are risking so much, but it doesn’t work out for them all.