http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/30/sports/football/nfl-faces-retired-players-in-a-high-stakes-legal-battle.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=concussion%20suits&st=cse

The Times put the whole mess in perspective in the story’s headline: “For NFL, Concussion Suits May Be Test For Sport Itself.” 

The litigation represents more than 120 retired players and their spouses. And as The Times frames it, the NFL now faces the prospect of having these players taking the witness stand to tell juries about the league’s past practice regarding head injuries, and to talk about the cognitive issues they are now blaming on their past concussions. 

The lawsuits in many cases charge that the NFL concealed, or ignored, data about the long-term impact of repeated hits to the head.

As reporter Ken Belson wrote, “Taken together, the suits filed in courts across the country amount to a multifront legal challenge to the league and to the game itself.”

As he notes, sympathetic juries, listening to the testimony of retired players such as Jim McMahon and Jamal Lewis, could come in with verdicts awarding millions of dollars to these retired athletes.

As The Times points out, retired gridiron stars who were once in their physical and mental prime, yet are now suffering from early-onset  dementia and brain disease, are bound to illicit feelings from jurors. And we’d guess that the feelings would not be about how great a job the NFL did to protect its gladiators.

Needless to say, such trials would no doubt result in a flood of bad publicity for the NFL, and its years of denial, denial that repeated concussions take a long-term toll on the brain.

But The Times notes that the players may not have a cake walk. One federal judge has already ruled that concussion claims raised by retired players are matters for collective bargaining, not trial. 

The NFL, which of course denies the charges raised in the pending lawsuits, will undoubtedly try to get the litigation dismissed. And even if the cases go to trial, the burden will be on the players to prove that their dementia or memory loss or anger-management issues were the direct result of injuries they sustained during their pro careers.

Those are just some of the legal issues raised in article by The Times. We recommend you read the whole story to find out more about the intricacies of these lawsuits.    

In that role, Mueller collects information on sports injuries and accidents. Most recently, he was on the case of a high school linebacker in Kansas City who collapsed and the next day died of an apparent brain injury; and that of a player in Fresno, Calif., who sustained a bad hit, had major brain swelling and is now in a coma.

Mueller was profiled Monday in The New York Times sports section in a story headlined “Learning From the Sadness: Tracker of Worst Injuries Focuses on Prevention.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/08/sports/08injuries.html?ref=todayspaper

At the injury center for the past 30 years, Mueller has analyzed more than 1,000 injuries, according to The Times.

A retired professor, Mueller takes an upbeat approach to his work. His research can lead to ways to prevent injuries. In an example cited by The Times, Mueller noticed that a high proportion of pole vaulters were either killed or paralyzed each year. They would miss the pit, or slide down their poles, and hit their heads, sustaining severe brain injury.  

Those issues were addressed by making the pit larger and surrounding them with some padding, The Times reported. 

Perhaps Mueller will find similar ways to cut down on head injuries in sports like football.

In yet another tragedy that seems to point to tougher rules, last Friday running back Nathan Stiles of Spring Hills High School in the surburbs of Kansas City died hours after collapsing on the sidelines of a Thursday night game.

Stiles had been shaken up at the game after trying to make a tackle, and as he was walking out he complained that his head hurt.  He took off his helmet and screamed in pain. He was then quickly transported to the hospital and died shortly there.   

 http://kevin-blackistone.fanhouse.com/2010/10/30/time-to-rethink-how-we-protect-young-football-players/?icid=main%7Chtmlws-main-w%7Cdl4%7Csec1_lnk3%7C181339

The preliminary belief is that Stiles brain was bleeding, which shut his lungs and heart down. Stiles also had suffered a concussion not that long ago, at a game in early October, but had been given the OK to play.

During a recent broadcast on National Public Radio, Dr. Ann McKee, a Boston University School of Medicine expert on brain injury and football,  said that concussions are more “detrimental” the earlier in age you sustain them. 

In turn, columnist Kevin Blackstone suggested that high school players who suffer concussions not be permitted to play for another 60 to 90 days.

That may sound drastic, but a rule like that may have saved Nathan Stiles life.   

After trying to rehabilitate its image, the league then made a big blunder. In this case, the NFL is being taken to task for releasing data on tests conducted on the safety of helmets, data that has been roundly criticized as deeply flawed. The New York Times wrote about the situation on Sunday, in a story headlined ”Releasing Disputed Data on Helmets Put the Heat on NFL.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/25/sports/football/25nfl.html?_r=1&ref=football

Last Friday the league and the players’ union sent a memo to officials, players and the media that said that three of the 16 helmet models tested had done the best, in terms of protecting players. Two of the three that performed well were made by the official NFL licensee, Riddell, and the third was done by Schutt.

The problem is that just a few months ago the NFL’s helmet testing was blasted by a congressman as inaccurate and infected –  and NFL officials agreed with him. The ongoing flap over the NFL’s seeming indifference to player brain injury ultimately led to the resignations of the heads of  the league’s brain injury research committee.

The new leaders of that committee, Dr. Hunt Batjer and Dr. Richard Ellenbogen, at a hearing in March said they would essentially throw out the work of the men they had succeeded. That was supposed to have included the helmet testing results.

Instead, six pages of test results were released last week. They were carefully worded, according to Times reporter Alan Schwartz, to explain that the results “could not be extrapolated to collegiate, high school or youth football.”

One flaw of the helmet tests, according to The Times, is that they only simulated ”the highest 1 percent of forces to cause concussions.” 

The NFL didn’t make any friends in Congress releasing the helmet test results. Rep. Anthony Weiner, D-N.Y., immediately wrote a letter to NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell. Weiner had grilled Batjer and Ellenboger in a recent hearing in Manhattan that touched on the testing , whose methodology has been criticized.

According to The Times, Weiner wrote, “Yesterday’s announcement of the results of the NFL helmet testing study is a disturbing step backward.”       

Not exactly what you want to have a congressman telling you.