FEATURE ARTICLE 

I get out of the car at the Northport Middle School in New York, and I see the small bodies running football drills with the coach blowing their whistles and the parents on the bleachers.  I’m thinking to myself, “Do they even know about this issue going on with NFL players and their concern to major brain injuries.”  I was about to find out.  Interviewing parents of youth athletes and getting questions in with the assistant coach was a major breakthrough for my mental state and where I stand on this issue of head trauma to athletes.  “Huh? What?” said Marlene, a mother of the kid who was wearing number 6 on the football team when asked if she knew what CTE is.  As I began to fill her in on all of the information about CTE and the effect it is having on current NFL players and the retired NFL players facing it every day.  Her hand went to her mouth with shock over and over again with seriousness in her eyes as she turned her head watching her son run the drills.  “I’m going to have a big talk with my husband tonight about this and see what he has to say.  I was always uneasy about football I always knew soccer was my best option as a concerned mother!”  Said Marlene as I wrapped up the interview. Marlene was wearing a pink shirt and her blonde hair was blowing in her face as we were trying to speak. It is interesting that Marlene had already been concerned about her little boy growing up playing football and referring to wanting him to play soccer.  It was pretty obvious by the facial remarks she was giving as she listened to each question I delivered to her.  I would believe most mothers would have a slight concern about their son first starting to play contact football, but I was able to fill in this mother with a way more in-depth view of what she really should be concerned about.  There were a couple of other parents listening to our talk and it was important to me that by no means was I trying to have them strip their kids from playing the sport they love.  After all, passion and love is what keeps the NFL players every time they take the field to play knowing the risks they are taking.  I hung around after the practice ended and the kids went to their water bottles and headed towards their parents to go home.  Luckily for me, some of the kids stayed and messed around throwing the football with their pads off and I was able to get the coach into a deep conversation about the CTE issue going on in the NFL.  He was very informed on this issue and was able to agree with me on many things and made some valid points.  “They’re kids.  The way we have coached kids here and all over most of the parts of the country, is to lean with their shoulders to the tackle, not with their heads.  All of these guys in the NFL were trained as kids to lean with their head which has led to long term brain injury.”  It was very interesting to see a brand new view of this issue from a man who seems to really know the sport.  He mentioned that he thinks it is a great thing that the NFL has finally admitted the link to football and CTE, because professionalism is all about honesty.  Coach Delgado believes it is very important for these college athletes and NFL athletes to know the truth behind the risks they take every time they go for their next tackle.  He had mentioned that I would be able to interview a good friend of his that actually recently retired from the NFL.  I had to take advantage.

                  Have you ever given up on something you love?  Your whole life you’re enjoying every day smiling because you love what you do, but it is then taken away at your own hands because of a far too long unnoticed problem. For their own safety and future ahead, many NFL players have retired at an early age. For the first time in NFL history, the NFL's top health and safety officer acknowledged Monday, March 14, that there is a link between football-related head trauma and chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE. It has been questioned and brought up numerous times but the NFL has beat around the bush for far too long and this is the first time a senior league official has admitted football's connection to the devastating brain disease.  Over the last two seasons, more and more NFL players have been retiring at an early age due to the concerns over the health of their head and body.  It is a shame that these players have to give up their passion and what they love to do every day, but this is becoming a big issue in not only the NFL, but the development of kids and teenagers playing the sport.  Luckily, I was able to set up a meeting/interview with a formal NFL player, Antwaan Randle El.’               Antwaan Randle El says he regrets playing football, mainly because the 36 year old now has difficulty walking down the stairs.  Randle El retired from football at the age of 31 and says he has had many issues with his body and mind since his retirement from the league.  "I have to come down sideways sometimes, depending on the day.  I have to come down sideways sometimes.” Randle El stated as we leaned against a railing at the train station.  His tall height and deep voice was quite intimidating, but I knew I had to stay calm and get through this important interview.  Randle El’s experiences post retirement is one of many struggling life styles of other former (and probably current,) NFL players.  With that being said, it is very easy to see the passion and love for the game in all of his eyes and how badly it hurt him to walk away.  What Randle El was able to teach me is that Injuries in the NFL have been in the grey area for a very long time, almost as if everyone knew about the risks but at the same time they just play through it thinking “so what.”  It is now 2016, and everything we do in professional sports is certainly under a larger microscope view than ever before.  The league has been dealing with this issue like an elephant in the room for the last couple years and has handled it quite disgustingly.  The NFL commissioner already has one foot out the door for being recorded stating that he “Thinks players’ retirements are personal decisions and not a reflection of heightened concerns about injuries.”  Chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) is a progressive degenerative disease found in people who have had a severe blow to the head.  Symptoms of CTE generally begin 8–10 years after experiencing repetitive traumatic hits to the head and brain. First stage symptoms include disorientation, dizziness and headaches. Further disabilities could be memory loss, social instability, erratic behavior, and poor judgment. Third and fourth stages include progressive dementia, slowing of muscular movements, hypomimia, impeded speech, tremors, vertigo, deafness, and thoughts of suicide.  The scariest part about this is that most players don’t even know what their doping to their head and everything is great, then 8-10 years later and playing football is the worst advice they could give to anyone.  The next year or so will determine a huge amount of gratitude towards the issue that current NFL players will have to face having the NFL just recently admitting the link between football-related head trauma and CTE.  This issue could raise the eyebrows of all different links to football such as youth leagues and a change in parent’s opinions, or even high schools taking away their football teams.  Knowing this issue has been the elephant in the room and that it is finally being exposed, I wanted to hear the opinions of parents and coaches of a youth football team.  After all, these are the adults ‘accepting’ or ‘allowing’ these kids to play the sport.

When some kids are young they have a sports idol that they look up to and try to be like.  For players in the NFL, they have a huge impact on their fan base and the kids that play football themselves and try to be like them.  These players in today’s age are becoming more and more knowledgeable about the link between CTE and football activity as they watch former pro bowlers and former teammates retire at a way younger age than expected.  Antwan Randle El experiences this first hand and was able to express how important this issue is by just his body language and tone in his voice.  I was blessed to be able to interview a man who has been through this and was able to teach me on something I already thought I knew a’ lot about. It is easy to understand why there would be so many different opinions on it, from mothers of kids who play, to coaches in the NFL, and even to the head commissioner of the NFL.  However, the NFL should never try to cover up a major issue like this, one that could change someone’s life forever.  It was an enlightening experience being able to hear the opinions of a mother at a youth football practice and one of the assistant coaches and being able to express my opinions in doing so.  It isn’t like we interviewed random people with irrelevant opinions and I am very impressed with the information we were able to pull from these parents and a former player. With this issue, there are two majorly different lessons that could be taken from it.  A good friend once told me, “sometimes in life you may have to give up something that makes your life enjoyable, just to make your life livable. Secondly, you can do anything you want to and love to do in this life, regardless of what anyone thinks or whatever life throws at you to try to stop you.”  That good friend of mine is Antwaan Randle El, former professional NFL player.