TAMPA, FL -- Each time Ernest Mingo, a senior running back for Middleton High School, crashes through the line of scrimmage carrying the ball, his mother, Caprice, holds her breath.
She’s worried that the next tackle will be like one Mingo received last year, a hit so hard that he couldn’t move. Mingo had a concussion.
“That was the worst injury,” Caprice said. “That was the scariest.”
Caprice has concerns that all of the hits on the football field will not be good for her son. And recent research shows those concerns may be warranted.
According to a study from the University of Michigan Institute for Social Research, former NFL players are 19 times more likely than non-players to develop Alzheimer’s or a memory-loss disease.
Worries about the long-term effects of helmet-to-helmet collisions have become so great that Congress held a hearing this week on the topic.
Former Tampa Bay Buccaneers team president, Dr. Gay Culverhouse, spoke at the hearing, pleading for something to be done.
“I don’t want to read about another one of my players that’s dead,” Culverhouse said. “I don’t want to tell my children another one of their gentle giants is dead.”
Dr. Adam Brunson, a sports medicine physician in St. Petersburg who serves as a ringside physician for boxing matches, agrees with Culverhouse.
He said while there has surprisingly been very little research done on this topic, he does believe NFL players will suffer long-term cognitive and emotional impacts from the hits they’ve received. The most likely cognitive impact, Brunson said, would be memory loss.
Brunson also believes that high school players like Mingo are also at risk for brain injury. He said even though the high school game is far less violent than the NFL -- where players are quicker and stronger -- high school players don’t have as much muscle strength in their neck to support their head when they are hit.
“Absolutely, they do have a reason to be concerned,” Brunson said about parents of high school players.
He did not suggest parents forbid their sons from playing high school football. Instead, he advised parents to educate their children about brain injuries and how to avoid them.
He also believes the people who run the sport should focus on ways to make football as safe as possible. For example, a helmet-to-helmet tackle in college football is now a penalty.
