Editor’s note: Lasting Impact, an eBook from NESN.com, explores the controversy surrounding concussions and CTE. Each chapter examines a different part of issue, including youth-specific concerns, what’s behind CTE, the NFL’s involvement in the concussion crisis, how youth sports have responded and what the future of sports could hold. Today: Chapter 3.
While much of Lasting Impact‘s focus is on youth sports, no discussion of the current concussion crisis is complete without a look at the NFL. The league has set the tone for not only football at all levels but also all professional sports when it comes to concussions and other head trauma. Recent revelations about how the NFL has handled concussion care show how damage has gone on for so many years — and could continue.
In Chapter 3, Lasting Impact shares the stories of former NFL players Fred McCrary and Mark Kelso while tracing the NFL’s head injury record, including observations from Mark Fainaru-Wada and Steve Fainaru, who reported last fall on the NFL’s history of covering up concussion issues in the Frontline film League of Denial: The NFL’s Concussion Crisis and book League of Denial: The NFL, Concussions and the Battle for Truth. It wraps up by wondering where the NFL and other sports, pro or not, can go from here, especially as their players continue to put aside safety for sports they love.
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