HISTORY
Football Concussion Timeline:
- 1933: All NCAA Football Teams receive are given the NCAA's official medical handbook, giving warning that concussions are probably handled too lightly. The book recommended that concussed players remained inactive until their symptoms of the concussion have been gone for two days
- 1937: American Football coaches Association declare a concussed player should be immediately taken out of a game
- 1973: The first instance of "Second Impact Syndrome" is identified. Meaning someone suffers a concussion while already experiencing the effects of a prior one
- 1994: The NFL acknowledges the danger of concussions for the first time, forming the mild traumatic brain injury committee.
- 1997: The American Academy of Neurology posts its own protocol to follow for players returning to a game after being concussed. The guidelines recommended that a player that has been knocked unconscious should not return to a game, and the guidelines were rejected by the NFL.
- 1999: The NFL's retirement board begins to give out millions of dollars in disability payments to players who have suffered from their time playing football, but do it quietly so they could avoid bad press for the NFL
- 2000: A study by the American Academy of Neurology finds that 61% of former NFL players have had a concussion, with 79% of those players saying they were not forced to leave the game
- 2002: Dr Bennet Omalu examines the brain of deceased Football player Mike Webster, and see's the accumulation of tau protein, which is a sign of CTE(a disease found in many boxers that has a direct link between head trauma and dementia later in life)
- 2003: A study of retired football players finds that experiencing multiple concussions doubles your chances of depression later in life
- 2008: An NFL commissioned survey finds that former NFL players suffer from Alzheimer's and Dementia at a rate 19 times higher than non players between the ages of 30-49
Athletes who have died with CTE from Football-
- Ken Stabler
- Mike Webster(The film, "Concussion" is about this man. His brain was said to have gone through "25,000 car crashes" in his 25 years of football)
- Dave Duerson
- Chris Henry (Dies from either jumping out/ falling from moving truck, his mother said Chris had been experiencing headaches and mood swings)
- Justin Strzelcyzk (Drives Car going 90 mph into a tractor trailer at age 36, had been experiencing erratic behavior for months.
- Terry Long ( commits suicide by drinking antifreeze, brain trauma said be a contributing factor to his death)
- Andre Waters (Commits suicide by shooting himself in the head, was said to have the brain tissue of an 85 year old man)
- John Grimsley
- Juniour Seau(had a degenerative brain disease when he committed suicide in 2012 by shooting himself in the chest)
- Ray Easterling
- Ralph Wenzel
- Aaron Hernandez (had a life sentence for murder, committed suicide)