Resetting The Brain
By Mitch Berg
There are times I’m glad my son never took to playing football.
This, though, is a fascinating piece by former Packer Jermichael Finley about coming back from five career concussions.
10 Responses to “Resetting The Brain”
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June 2nd, 2017 at 6:16 am
I played every year, and I like to watch it, but playing football is a dumb idea. The way the NFL is handling this is shameful. Opiate of the masses.
Also, I hate the BCS. Boring and unfair. #TheCentralizationOfEverything #Soviet
June 2nd, 2017 at 6:22 am
I read an article about Dwight Clark, Joe Montana etc. etc. and all of the damage it did to them. They said they didn’t quit sooner because they were addicted to the excitement of winning NFL games.
June 2nd, 2017 at 6:29 am
Also, Roger Goodell is a horrible Ruling Class lackey. His old man was a senator or something. 40 million a year or something to be the owner’s bitch.
June 2nd, 2017 at 8:01 am
Moving story. Unfortunately, many football players have been in his position and had their careers cut short from head injuries. Ben Utecht was a fairly recent one. Went from the U to the Indianapolis Colts and Cincinnati Bengals. His struggles with memory loss due to his 5 concussions, are documented in his book “Counting the Days While My Mind Slips Away”. Hopefully, he finds the help that Finley found.
June 2nd, 2017 at 8:14 am
My brother in law is brain guy at a Big Ten university and I think he got to do some football stuff. His kids were going to play football only over his dead body.
June 2nd, 2017 at 8:20 am
Also, Roger Goodell is a horrible Ruling Class lackey
My spoof of Goodell in Trulbert was heavy-handed, broad, borderline-defmatory – and one of the more accurate elements in the story.
June 2nd, 2017 at 8:22 am
And watching the documentary about Buddy Ryan last year was…er, sobering. I mean, great bio of a great coach and a great team…
…but watching what’s happened to McMahon and a few of the others is just difficult.
June 2nd, 2017 at 8:26 am
Goodell is far, far more like a WWE executive than a sports commissioner. I read an article about it once and it made me sick.
The BCS is the same damn thing.
June 2nd, 2017 at 9:18 am
Amen. Every day, I praise God that when I was young, I had lineman’s speed (not to insult linemen–I’m way slower, really), a receiver’s body, and hands of stone. Off to the cross country and track teams. 35 years later, I’ve got two good knees, two good shoulders, and one halfway decent brain.
I think it would help a LOT if states and the federal government didn’t give massive subsidies for stadiums, both at the college and pro level. That buzz with the game has got to be enhanced by the rush of all the bling you get along with it, to put it mildly. It also would help if the NCAA would start taking academics seriously–just pretty cruel how they take these guys and give them Cadillac tastes and a Chevy budget by leaving them with bupkus besides old jerseys after five years.
June 2nd, 2017 at 12:20 pm
I’m remembering the sad story of the death a few years back of Wally Hilgenberg, a very talented former Viking linebacker. They suggested his declining health and demise was caused by a form of ALS. After his death his brain was sent to a research facility to be studied. In the course of study of his brain the doctors suggested the earlier diagnosis might have been wrong and the deterioration they noted could well be related to the numerous concussions he had during his career.
I believe we’re just at the tip of the iceberg in understanding the long term impact of brain trauma.