Jim McMahon

Jim McMahon was known as the rock star mentality and quarterback of the Chicago Bears, now he is just a retired football player with dementia. After suffering many concussions and continuing to play McMahons short term memory is gone. Within 10 minutes he forgets what he was doing. According to a documentary by ESPN McMahon will walk into a kitchen for a drink and forget what he was doing, all of this just for a game. Concussions had a huge impact on his career, but he continued to play through it, because that was what he thought was normal. After receiving a huge blow to the head against the Detroit Lions McMahon was walked off the field by trainers, at halftime he was assessed by the team doctor. When the 3rd quarter came around McMahon was back out there playing with a concussion. Not realizing the risk of what could happen McMahon took several more blows to the head. The Trainer when asked about his injury said, "He had a concussion, but it cleared by halftime" Chicago Tribune October 12, 1988. It is impossible for a concussion to clear up in less than an hour. The awareness of concussions has improved, and there are many more methods of preventing a player from continuing with a concussion, but there is a lot of room for improvement. Many people are very cautious about playing with concussions, but many kids and athletes don’t know the risk of playing with a concussion and we need to share it.  

Riddell Helmets Dont Prevent Concussions

Protection of athletes should and are the main focus of companies that manufacture equipment. Riddell a football company spent several years developing a helmet that “protects against concussions”. They said that the helmet was 31 percent more likely to prevent a concussion from happening. But the honest truth was that no matter what football helmet you had a player was 95 percent likely to get a concussion from a strong enough blow to the head. After hearing this study thousands of former NFL players sued the NFL and Riddell for marketing a product that did not prevent concussions. The jury ruled Riddell guilty and made them liable for 3.1 million dollars out of a total 11.5 million dollars that was awarded to the family of a young man who was seriously injured after a concussion in a high school football practice. Frank Azar a lawyer for the plaintiffs said, “What it proves is that Riddell knew for sure in November of 2000 that they had a problem with their resting of these helmets and they didn’t disclose it to anybody.” The real issue is that after developing the helmet and determining the problem they continued to market these helmets falsely. Chris Withnall who was the senior engineer at the Ottawa base biomechanical firm Biokinets said, “No helmet can prevent a concussion. Full stop.” Now that Riddell has been sued and convicted guilty maybe they can help design a helmet that prevents a concussion. On top of the companies not doing what they need to, I believe that especially in a sport like football we need to stop young athletes from leading with their head when tackling. We need to teach the proper technic of absorbing a hit and giving a hit. Leading with your head will only cause more brain and neck injuries.

Book Post #1

The book I have chosen for my second semester reading has to do with a topic I am very interested in. The book talks about the importance of treating concussions. It is called The Concussion Crisis Anatomy of a Silent Epidemic. The first chapter of the book talked about how often concussions go un diagnosed. If an athlete takes a blow to the head many people look at it as just a bump on the head. The athlete might not show any signs of being concussed and might feel fine only 10minutes after the blow, but they have a very slight form of a concussion. Most athletes including myself compete as soon as they feel “normal”, but what most athletes don’t realize is the danger they are putting themselves through. The book referenced a story of a college football player in the second chapter. Dave Showalter experienced only one diagnosed concussion before playing in college. Once in college Showalter never got diagnosed with a concussion but he does recall getting “bumped around a little bit”. Now as a graduated student he is suffering from dementia. The doctors accredit it to playing football. Although only being diagnosed with one prior concussion Showalter experienced so many “silent concussions” that his brain was affected. Showalter said, “I never got the feeling in college that I needed to see a trainer, because it only felt like a headache” (9. Carroll). The first few chapters of my book have taught me that we need to eliminate blows to the helmet as much as we can in sports, and that athletes need to be more concussions about what they are putting their heads through.

Senior Year

I was reminded today that we only have 16 days left of school as seniors. I can honestly say I have enjoyed my four years at Deerfield High. Having the privilege of going to a great high school with great teachers made me really appreciate our community. It made me think about "no child left behind" which I believe is very false. There are many kids that don’t have the privilege that we at Deerfield High school have. They don’t have the resources or the caliber of teachers that we do. I hope that most kids take advantage of the privileges given to them. There is a big problem in schools today, because not all kids are given the same opportunity as they should be. My aunt teaches at an under privilege school in Michigan and she told me that the kids come to school with no food and not enough money to get a lunch. People need to be reminded that what is given to them are special, and the kids at Deerfield High School need to take advantage of a great situation.

Boston Bombing

On Friday we finally caught the Boston Marathon Bombers. No one is exactly sure why the brothers from Russia committed this act of terror on the innocent people of Boston, but I can say I hope the punishment that 19 year old Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev receives is worthy of his crime. Not only did these two men kill 3 people and injure over 100 people with a bomb, they also killed MIT police officer Sean Collier, and injured another officer who is now in stable condition. What these two men did to the city of Boston and the families of the victims is awful.  I hope Dzhokhar Tsarnaev will be put through the same terror as the family’s that were affected by the bombings and shootings. I believe that older brother Tamerlan Tsarnaev got the easy way out by getting killed in a shooting with Boston Police. I hope we can find the reason for them committing this act and punish Dzhokhar appropriately. I don’t believe he will receive the death penalty, but life in prison would be appropriate to me.  My heart goes out to all the victims and their families and I hope they can move past this awful week. I was also happy to see the way the people of Boston responded and if I was from Boston I would be proud of the way they responded.

Below is a link of the fans of the Boston Bruins singing the national anthem a day after the bombing. It was a very happy moment in an awful week.

 http://video.nhl.com/videocenter/console?catid=35&id=240938&lang=en

Tiger Woods #1

It has happened again Tiger has climbed the ranks and has become the number one golfer in the world. He's driving like he use to and putting like he was famous for. No one knows the answer to why he is so good again but some accredit it to his new girlfriend Lindsey Vonn. Whatever is helping Tiger it is working. Although he did not win his 5th masters this weekend he very much could have. An unlikely hitting of the pin on 16 on Saturday coasted him a couple strokes. On top of hitting the pin and making it bounce into the water Woods was charged with a two stroke penalty for an illegal dropping of the ball. Many thought that Woods should have withdrawn from the competition after being caught for dropping the ball illegally but I disagree. He did not know of the rule which was put in place only a year ago, and he apologized and accepted his punishment with respect. Many people also said that if it wasn't Tiger Woods then he would have been kicked out, and honestly how can you blame the masters? Woods brings in so much revenue that it would be an awful business move for them. I think with everything that happened this weekend it was not a failure for Woods.

Hidden Bias

After completing my test according to the IAT tests I show a strong preference towards whites. I was surprised by my result, because going into this I agreed that I had a small bias preference towards whites, but I wouldn’t consider myself to have a strong preference. I think I had this result, because I honestly got confused and tried to go fast. I honestly don’t know how I feel about this test because it is a possibility that I do have a strong preference towards European white people and I associate bad things with African American people. The major question I have concerning this assignment is how they get there results? Do they add up the ones you got wrong? I’m curious to know how they come to their conclusions. Also I’m curious to know how this test reflects on my everyday life? Do I always have a strong bias?

I now realize not to take this test as literal as my result and to not assume that I have a strong bias towards whites. I also now understand what it truly means to have “hidden bias” towards someone. I’ve never believed in treating someone different because of the color of their skin but I do agree that people like myself have hidden thoughts in their head about people of a different race. If you see an African American male driving around Deerfield in a very nice car you might assume he’s an athlete or assume a stereotype, purely because of the color of their skin. Although you may not be raciest it still comes to your mind first, it’s the society we live in. I also learned that I am one of those kids that sees an African American male driving a Mercedes and the first thought that pops into my mind is that he is an athlete. I feel ashamed of that, but I can assure you I am not raciest. I know understand the true definition of what it means to have a preference to be around someone of your own race. I agree that people develop prejudice when they are young it is something your born into and when you’re young you have a less developed opinion on subjects. I also agree that people embrace bias after developing a prejudice. Like I said before hidden bias might affect me, because my first thought about a person of different race might be a stereotype.