From last class I said I would post my final presentation script. Anytime I work outside of class on my script, the following thesis period I will post the work I had done outside of school. So without further ado, here is the introduction to my thesis project:
"Good morning and thank you all for being here, my name is Yousef Nofal and I am a senior at the School for the Talented and Gifted. The title of my thesis presentation is - Concussions and Football: A Hidden Epidemic.
Is it safe to assume that everybody in this room watched the Super Bowl? Super Bowl 49 became the most watched program in American television history, with an average amount of 114.4 million viewers. That’s more than a third of the entire country. So with a third of the entire country watching, what do we see? An unacceptable handling of an issue the NFL has been trying to quell for years.
He had 109 receiving yards and the game winning touchdown. You know what else Patriot’s wide recover Julian Edelman may have had? A concussion. As you see in this first clip, Edelman catches the ball down the middle of the field and immediately makes contact with a defender, only to remain upright and continue to “wobble” down the field. What time of contact exactly? An uncalled 15 yard penalty for helmet to helmet contact. Later on that same drive, we see Edelman catch another pass before falling to the ground and having to crawl and be assisted by one of his teammates to get up. Edelman did not come out of the game, allowing him to finish the drive, possibly concussed, and then receive testing. He wasn’t even led into the locker room for an extensive evaluation, just a quick baseline test that relies on honest self-reporting took place. And this story has some skeptical, for when asked whether or not he took a concussion test on the sideline, Edelman responded by saying, “we’re not allowed to talk about injuries.”
So who knows if Edelman underwent testing. The real question is - why all the secrecy from the NFL? Why are we having to rely on reports from outside observers and anonymous sources to find out if the NFL’s concussions protocol was followed to the letter? Wasn’t this policy created to appease fans’ fears of watching players wantonly destroy their own minds? This year’s Super Bowl was also known for its heavily emotional commercials. Yet, we did not see a single commercial about making the game safer and keeping the head out of the game of football. Death is an emotional subject. Let’s not forget all the players who have lost their lives from CTE or Alzheimer’s.
Edelman clearly showed symptoms of a concussion. Whether he was concussed or not, he decided that he was not coming out in the fourth quarter of the Super Bowl. It all boils down to this point: players like Edelman shouldn’t have to, or even be allowed to, make that choice for themselves because they are not medical professionals.
I have spent the last 8 or so months, give or take, doing research in this field of study related to mild traumatic brain injuries and the game of football."
As evidenced by my seemingly random last sentence, I stopped at a transition into what would be LETRR, the acronym I created to solve the concussion crisis. The first part I am working on is the ET part, equipment and technology. This is because I don't have to actually "change" something myself, I have to just lay out a detailed plan on implementation for the various new equipment that I've researched and the implementation of concussion sensors in helmets.
The RR part is like the ET part in that I will have to give a detailed plan of implementation, but is like the L part in the respect that I will have to alter the rulebook as I make rule changes to the game of football.
The L. This is in my opinion the most crucial and most difficult of the acronym to discuss in detail and alter. It all comes from within me, the changes I will propose to existing legislation and future legislation as I try to outline a plan to keep the game safe at a young age.
When you think about it, it's like a latter. Legislation is that first step of security to get you where you need to go. Equipment and technology is the next step, it's the outside, visual, physical changes you can see in the exterior of a player that helps him be safe. Rules and regulation are the last step, it's the safety net of the entire process, to keep the game safe at no matter what level of play. It's like the ground that the latter is on, it's part of the earth just as rules and regulation are part of the game, but just as the ground gives support to the latter, newer and more stringent rules and regulation will give that same support to the game of football that has been non-existent before and is desperately needed.
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