Introduction

by Jesse Ventura, former governor of Minnesota and former NFL commentator

  I have always enjoyed wrestling with difficult truths. I have confronted them in politics; I have confronted them in the military; and I now believe it is time to confront another difficult truth: that the concussion problem in football and other contact sports is far more serious than any of us want to believe, and it is time to do something about it.

  You may know me from my time as the governor of Minnesota, as a professional wrestler, or as an actor, but before I was any of those things, I was a football player. I started in grade school, playing for five years, and then played three seasons for Theodore Roosevelt High School in Minneapolis, Minnesota, as a defensive end. I went on to play a year of service ball in the Navy while stationed in Subic Bay in the Philippines, and a year of junior college football upon returning to the States.
 

  Since I stopped playing, I have remained an avid football fan and have tried to stay close to the game. I did television and radio color commentary for the XFL and for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Minnesota Vikings of the NFL. I love it so much I was even a volunteer football coach at Champlin Park High School in Minnesota for five years.

   
  When you’ve been so close to the game for so long, you learn to love the positives of the game, but you also become intimately familiar with the negatives. The one negative that jumps off the screen every time I watch the game are the inevitable concussions. As a fan it is confusing to watch, because sometimes they are dealt with as a serious injury to the most important part of a person’s anatomy—the brain—while other times they are joked about by the players, the announcers, the coaches, . . . nearly everybody. Which is it?

  Christopher Nowinski’s comprehensive, indisputable research has convinced me that these injuries are no joke. I met Chris when I was a visiting fellow at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. (Yes, we are the only two Harvard-affiliated professional wrestlers in the world, but I’m the only one that taught there!) Chris “Harvard,” as he is known, had a promising future with my former employer, Vince McMahon’s World Wrestling Entertainment, before the concussions he sustained over the course of his athletic career turned his life upside down.

  And while that may have been a loss for the wrestling world, it is unquestionably a gain for the sports community. He has turned his personal struggle into a quest to educate others on an injury that still seems to be as much of a mystery today as it was when I suffered my one serious concussion in a high school football game. I rammed heads with the fullback in the middle of the third quarter. The next thing I remembered was seeing the scoreboard—it said 5:51 was left in the fourth quarter. Apparently I had been pulled from the game and was sitting on the bench that whole time. As I became aware of my surroundings, everything I saw appeared to be at the end of a long tunnel. It was like having an out-of-body experience.

  That day my coaches and trainer did the right thing by keeping me out of the game while I was concussed. What this book exposes, and what creates a real sense of urgency, is that my experience may not be the norm. Chris’s research shows that most concussions are going undiagnosed, and most athletes aren’t getting proper treatment. Multiple concussions, especially left untreated, can lead to serious long—term problems, including depression and dementia.

  I understand that football is a tough sport, and that half the game is about playing through pain and battling through injuries. You don’t graduate Navy SEAL training without knowing how to push yourself. But even I know that toughness has its limits, especially when we’re talking about a game where 95% of the players have not reached the age of maturity.

  This is the kind of book that everybody who is a part of this game—or any contact sport—needs to read. It has critical information for current players, former players, and future players. It has important guidelines for the parents who give permission to their children to put that helmet on and for the coaches and trainers who are the guardians of those kids on the playing field. It has fascinating stories for the NFL fans who want to know why their heroes keep retiring year after year from post-concussion syndrome.

  Chances are that if you play football, nothing terrible will happen to you. But chances are you will suffer at least one concussion every season. And the difficult truth is that each concussion can have serious consequences on its own, but that successive concussions can have even greater consequences. It is the responsibility of players and parents to learn what those consequences are and what can be done to prevent them. No one should take the field without a clear understanding of the risks of the game, especially when just a little education can prevent so much suffering over the course of a lifetime.

CHAPTER 1

Football’s Concussion Crisis

  Here’s what terrifies me. Twelve-year-old Kyle Lippo, a seventh-grade football player from Round Lake, Illinois, during a game told his coach he had a headache and asked to sit the rest of the game out. Five minutes later, the coach asked Kyle if he wanted to go back in. Kyle said no, because his headache was getting worse. Then he started crying, saying, “It hurts really bad!”

  Kyle was rushed to a local medical center, where he was loaded onto an emergency helicopter and taken to Advocate Lutheran General Hospital. There, on September 27, 2003, the Boy Scout, trombone player, and student council representative died from head trauma.

  A few weeks later, Osten Gill, a 16-year-old high school sophomore from Rushford, New York, collapsed on the team bus as it was returning from a junior varsity football game. He had complained of dizziness and nausea after being hit during the game, and had vomited on the sidelines and on the bus. Osten died at a hospital several hours later.

  Then in November of 2003, 17-year-old safety Edward Gomez drilled a wide receiver coming across the middle on fourth down, forcing a dropped pass. Gomez popped up, was congratulated by his teammates, and headed to the sideline. Moments later he lost consciousness and collapsed. He died days later.

  Unlucky teenagers with isolated head injuries, you might say. After all, it is true that the number of deaths in youth football and youth sports in general caused by head injuries seems low, but I soon learned that death isn’t the only worry associated with brain trauma. I played football for Harvard, and I recently attended a black-tie dinner celebrating the 100th anniversary of Harvard Stadium—the nation’s oldest football stadium. Among the famous people at the event was former Chicago Bear great Dan Jiggetts, Harvard class of 1976. Every Chicago sports fan knows Dan from his playing days and broadcasting career and, since he and I lived within a few miles of each other while I was growing up, he had taken an interest in my career. We chatted that night, and he asked how my wrestling career was going (it was 2003, and I was working for Vince McMahon and World Wrestling Entertainment—the WWE). When I told him that I had been sidelined with post-concussion syndrome, he became very serious. He told me, “You don’t want to mess with that. The players of my generation are all worried about the links they’ve found with Alzheimer’s disease.” This was the first I’d heard of that supposed link. I lost my appetite.

  The more I looked into my concussion problem, the more I realized that I had never heard of any of the true dangers posed by head injuries. Nor had the rest of the United States, it seemed. Why? Because the organization with the most money to study concussions and the biggest stage from which to spread the message at this point hasn’t shown the ability to publicize the truth about these devastating injuries. To do so might hurt not only its game, but also the youth programs that feed its league and guarantee its loyal audience. Instead of promoting the proper information on safety, it uses its bully pulpit only to protect its business interests. The organization? The National Football League.

  Curiously, my study of head injuries in youth and professional sports didn’t start while I was playing football for Harvard, but while I was working for the WWE. “Holy shit, kid! You okay?” was the first thing I heard after the kick to the head that led to the end of my wrestling career. The referee, Nick Patrick, leaned in, trying to figure out if I’d survived. Moments before, Bubba Ray Dudley’s boot had met my chin with enough force to make the Hartford Civic Center explode. Or that’s what it looked like to me as I lay on my back in the middle of the ring. Something was wrong with my vision. I didn’t know where I was, what was happening around me, or why I was staring up at fuzzy-looking lights on the distant ceiling of a gigantic arena— I only knew that something was terribly wrong. I looked to the side, and saw thousands of people staring back at me. I gazed back up at Nick. I didn’t want to move. My head felt like it was in a vice.

  Then, a three-hundred-pound man with a crew cut and army fatigues appeared out of the fog—ready to squash me. I braced myself for the impact.  Crash! My head hurt more. Instead of rolling off of me, he hooked my leg, and the referee started counting.

  “One! Two!”

  Why is he counting? Oh yeah, I’m in a wrestling match. But wrestling is
fake, right? I should be safe, because this stuff is scripted.

  But I can’t remember the script.

  “Kick out, kid!” Nick whispered to me. I jerked the militant off me before the ref reached the count of three. I felt like a panicky little kid lost in a crowd. Slowly I started to remember what was happening. I’m in a tag-team match against the Dudley Boyz, my partner Rodney Mack is in my corner with our manager Theodore Long. . . But, before this crowd of thousands of pumped-up VVWE fans, I still couldn’t answer the most important question: What comes next? I know I have to do something, but what?