‘I started crying. I lost my breath’: the long toll of concussions in college football

“The six-month stretch of both developing concussion symptoms and continuing with football activities was the worst time of my life,” former Vanderbilt offensive lineman John “Jabo” Burrow told us by email about his time in college football.

That stretch took place between spring training in 2011, when he suffered what he considers an undiagnosed concussion, and the first game of that fall season, at which point he opted to medically withdraw from a sport that was popular in the small town is treated as a religion. where he grew up.

“The acute symptoms were worse than anything I’ve felt since,” he says. “I was both suicidal and experiencing self-loathing… It was the first time I doubted my ability to trust myself with something as basic as how I felt… I sat in my locker and feared for my existence. I felt like I was surviving exercise after exercise and at any moment my brain would give out. The whole time there were people questioning my commitment to the team.”

Vanderbilt did not respond to our request for comment on this article.

As we discuss in our upcoming book The end of college football: On the human cost of an all-American gameHead injuries are a defining feature of college football, just as they are an inseparable aspect of the tackling version of the sport at every level. a Study from Boston University has found that every 2.6 years of participation in football doubles the risk of contracting the degenerative brain disease chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), symptoms of which include “memory loss, confusion, impaired judgment, impulse control problems, aggression, depression, suicidality, parkinsonism, and ultimately progressive dementia.”

Participation in football seems to do the same increases the probability of developing Parkinson’s disease by 61% compared to athletes in other sports, a risk that is in turn 2.9 times higher for those who have played at the university or professional level.

Compelling evidence suggests that the NCAA, the primary governing body of college sports, has long understood the magnitude of the sport’s danger. In a letter from 1973NCAA attorney Donald Wilson wrote to the head of the body’s football rules committee that it should ignore warnings from medical experts about the dangers of head-first tackling because: “In my opinion, any attention paid to their suggestions will undermine the current will destroy football. as we know it… Please be aware that if any of their letters, speeches and/or reports are published in magazines, it will provide the basis for devastating cross-examination of football coaches at all levels in the future.”

The NCAA, for its part, says its sports science institute “has played a leading role … in evaluating the impact of concussions and repetitive head impacts, and in developing cutting-edge research and best practices to mitigate the potential effects of head injuries in sports . ”

Decades after Wilson’s comments, Burrow faced the effects of brain trauma. He says he has had more than ten concussions in his life. All but one in a car accident were a product of his football career, although he says only three or four were diagnosed. That matches the experiences of former players from the Power Five, the elite level of college football, with whom we spoke for our book. One of them also explicitly remembers having suffered at least ten concussions during his career.

Burrow told us what it was like to experience that concussion. “It was very clear and I never had any doubt that there was something wrong with me. The common factor is that I have no clear memory of the moment of impact or the immediate aftermath of being helped up. All my memories start on the sidelines, being cared for by the training staff. So the first real symptom that comes to mind is the inability to remember what happened. In addition, the usual symptoms for me were an aversion to light, loss of appetite, inability to fall asleep or stay asleep, and migraine-like pain when bending over, getting up too quickly, or increasing my heart rate.”

One of the former players we spoke to for the book described his experience with a concussion this way: ‘I could barely go to school… I would forget what I was talking about mid-sentence. I would forget everything that happened ten minutes ago. Sometimes I would just zone out completely. It was like I was halfway there. I actually had no control over it.”

Another told us: “My helmet flew about 100 feet. And immediately I started crying. I lost my breath. It wasn’t like I had the wind knocked out of me. It was like when you’re so scared you can’t breathe… they sent me back into the field. They did the concussion test, [found out] that I have a concussion. I’ve had maybe six workouts, maybe a week and a half? Was right back out there as if nothing had happened.

A third player explained it this way: “So ‘camp fog’ or ‘camp brain’ was something we would discuss. And it was just so normal. I’ve never had a concussion.” He thinks he’s had a few concussions. “And in my second year, I was… throwing up on the sidelines. And [a linebackers coach] looked at me and said, “Are you okay?” And he didn’t ask, he told me. And he ruffled my hair and gave me a joke on the head, and he said, ‘Yes, you’re doing well.’ So unless you got knocked out, or the fans saw you stumbling off the field, you just played.”

According to Burrow, the symptoms persisted in the weeks after he thought he had a concussion, including in the form of “depression-like symptoms.”

“Loss of interest in almost everything except staying hidden in my room, inability to concentrate on subjects [and] performing tasks for more than 15-30 minutes at a time, intense fear of failure related to soccer training,” he says. “If you’ve ever had a hangover and still had to function the next day, it’s similar. While I was playing, practicing, and going to school, I actually felt like I was hungover.

It got to the point, he says, that “I remember sitting in my locker, fully clothed, and being completely terrified of the idea of ​​practice. I knew I would spend all my time surviving.”

Part of the problem for Burrow was that he was a starter and therefore faced high performance demands in training: “It’s almost easier when you’re a scout team guy, just because there’s less of it day in and day out you are expected in terms of performance. . I was burning thousands of calories every day and had absolutely no appetite. It was very difficult for me to maintain my weight at that time. I went from the high 290s [pounds] in the summer to the low 280s within the span of six weeks simply because I couldn’t force myself to eat. I felt nauseous and hungover.”

Burrow says he’s still experiencing the effects of the concussion he suffered: “The long-term effects, in my opinion, are more related to brain development,” he says. “I have some things related to my ability to concentrate that are more often associated with traumatic brain injuries, but the biggest problems I have are with executive functions. Organization and the ability to focus on tasks are two of the most common daily things that I struggle with more than they should for someone my age. The biggest lasting problem that I directly associate with playing football has to do with regulating my emotions. I have learned that the frontal lobe is critical in regulating emotions, and I see a direct line between my brain injury and the development of my frontal lobe. I have also been diagnosed with depression and anxiety, and my doctors believe there is a link between my mental health and my brain injury.”

Many of the players we spoke to for the book felt haunted by the specter of CTE, which can only be diagnosed after death through an autopsy, and other long-term consequences. One explained: “I feel like there’s a good chance I’ll get CTE… But I won’t find out until I die, which isn’t comforting at all.”

Based on his experiences and understanding of the game, Burrow isn’t optimistic that the sport can ever be truly safe. “The game is fundamentally dangerous. I like to compare it to cigarettes. All they can do is put a giant disclaimer on every sign-up form, from little league on down, saying, “You will have a negative impact on your brain development, the risks of traumatic brain injury are ______.” The game is fundamentally flawed in that regard, and it is simply unfair to say otherwise.”

Given everything he told us, we asked Burrow if the sport – which he loves – should continue.

“What a question,” he says. “It must be clear where I come from [Warrior, Alabama], it’s almost blasphemous to even ask that question… That being said, my answer is still no. The game is inherently dangerous to your brain and the reality is that the sport has purposefully pushed that fact under the rug over the past few decades. It pains me to say that.”