April 1st!

I emailed my proposal to my mentor to take a look at it.

I will email my proposal and process record to my judges later today as I make my final adjustments to it. 

Here is the rest of my script (After LETRR till conclusion):

So you may be asking yourself: why does any of this really matter? I’m not going to be playing football, who cares? Imagine your a kid growing up in San Diego, California. You love football and you can recite the entire San Diego Chargers football lineup. Your favorite player: Junior Seau, your defense’s signal caller, anchor, and captain. The heart and soul of the team. You grow up alongside Seau. He leads your favorite Chargers to the Super Bowl. You cry when they lose. You get angry when he gets traded to the Dolphins. But what do you do when on May 2, 2012 when he commits suicide by shooting himself in the chest. What do you feel when Seau becomes the first hall of famer to be award posthumously, that instead of him up there on stage his two sons are. How do you feel when your favorite wrestler, Chris Benoit kills his 7 year old son and his wife before taking his own life? Or for you cowboy fans, when Hall of Fame running back Tony Dorsett becomes prone to uncontrollable outbursts at his wife and daughters due to CTE. A lot of athletes are role models. How do you explain to your child that their favorite athlete, somebody they look up to immensely, has killed themselves because of a degenerate brain disease in which no actions were taken by their employer to not only prevent such a horrific disease from occurring but also provide support to help cope with the disease? This matters because there is nothing more precious in this world than life itself. 

Mental health is no joke. For far too long, mental illnesses such as depression, anxiety disorders, and bipolar disorder have been thrown under the bus because of the fact that they aren’t  physical in nature. You can’t see what’s going on in one’s brain but you can see somebody with a broken leg. However, the stigma around mental illnesses is just unacceptable. Mental illness is real. You can’t ask somebody if they tried not having the flu but it’s perfectly fine to ask somebody if they tried not being depressed and that they should at least make an effort to be happy. I can’t attribute this quote to any one person but I remember reading this quote that summarizes how it feels to have a mental illness “You know how in school, even if you didn't have assigned seats you kind of sat in the same seat all the time anyway? I always feel like that one day that you walk in and somebody else is in your seat.” Take someone like Boo Williams for example. Everyday he took the same route to work. He’d head down Airline Drive to Stable drive, then he’d make a left and follow the road to the training facility. In 2010, five years after his career ended, Williams found himself retracing that same path - except this time he turned right towards the train tracks. He spent two days sleeping in a cement alcove near the tracks. On day 3, he climbed onto the tracks and laid down, waiting for the train to come and end his life. Luckily, a homeless couple came to his rescue. The depression Williams experienced after leaving the game is painfully common. Some of it stems from struggles with a loss of income, or diminished adulation, or the sudden isolation of no longer being part of a team and the camaraderie it brings. Eddie George, another player who suffered depression after leaving the game of football said, “You want to go ahead and say that you gave the game up and you’re done with it and you’re at peace — and you may be. But there’s a part of you that dies, and part of death for the person that survives is grieving. If you don’t go through that grieving stage, then you’re dealing with some issues. So you got to allow yourself to go through that. You got to peel back the onion. You got to be willing to say ‘OK, this was very real for me. Where do I go now? How do I function? how do I let go? Is there a certain ceremony I need to have to say that this is the end for me and I can move on from this?” When you couple depression with a degenerate brain disease, suicide seems like a very plausible way out for many. I put Robin Williams up on this slide because he probably had the most high profile suicide in recent years. The same people that would cry over Robin Williams’ death would laugh at actress Amanda Bynes series of outlandish tweets. The NFL once fined then Bears receiver and now Jets wide receiver Brandon Marshall $10,500 dollars for wearing green cleats to raise awareness for bipolar disorder, a disorder that he himself has. Why do we shame mental illnesses? Mental health is no joke. 

No bigger news came out this year that relates to my thesis presentation than the unexpected retirement of 49ers linebacker Chris Borland. Borland is only 24 years old. He was a rookie this year that showed a lot of promise. On March 16, 2015, Chris Borland officially retired from professional football over worries that a prolonged NFL career could lead to long-term effects from head trauma. There is so much to say about this decision. The first point I would like to make is that Borland loved the game of football just as much as anyone else and he gave his all on the field. His decision was purely based on health concerns and nothing else. He’s even paying back three fourths of his signing bonus, only keeping the amount of money that he earned. Borland’s decision matters for a plethora of reasons. First off, it has raised concussion awareness massively. A 24 year old rookie has walked away from the game of football on his own terms because he is concerned about his future health and the longevity of his life. Secondly, it now changes the way players are drafted. Teams are going to want players who are desperate to play the game of football and don’t have a fallback option like Borland. This brings me to my last point, the demographics of the NFL may be changing. Borland is a white male who comes from a middle-class family and has a college degree. For him, there is much to do besides football. He most likely will not suffer the same depression that Boo Williams or Eddie George felt. However, for a lot of NFL players, there is no backup plan. College isn’t seen as a place to receive an education for many athletes. College is simply the platform needed for them to reach the pros. Football is seen as their only option to succeed, so those players will often tolerate the trauma for the paycheck. No decision is right or wrong. It comes down to the quality of life for each individual. That’s why you see lots of former football players like Troy Aikman, Brett Farve, Kurt Warner, Mike Ditka, and so forth saying how they wouldn’t want their sons playing football because since they are well off there is no real necessity for their own child to go through the years of hits and blows that they had to endure. Borland made the decision because he could. For a lot of players that isn’t the case. 

To close, I would like to re-emphasize LETRR, my comprehensive proposal for the betterment of concussion management in the game of football. Through the use of changes and advancements in Legislation, Equipment, Technology, Rules and Regulation, the game of football can become a whole lot safer. I want to ask a question before I conclude my presentation. Everybody in this room has kids or has at least thought about having kids in the future. With all the information that is out there about the long term effects associated with sustaining concussions, would you let your own child play the game of football? Is the game of football worth it? I’m not here to change your mind or persuade you to think one way or the other. I love the game of football. So does Chris Borland. However, to him, the game of football simply is not worth it. 

This concludes my thesis presentation, are there any questions?