what the researchers were saying w... - Mark Fainaru-Wada - Quotes.Pub

what the researchers were saying was that the essence of football—the unavoidable head banging that occurs on every play, like a woodpecker jackhammering at a tree—can unleash a cascading series of neurological events that in the end strangles your brain, leaving you unrecognizable. The

League of Denial: The NFL Quotes Concussions and the Battle for Truth Quotes

Mark Fainaru-Wada Quotes

A man will not believe something that his livelihood depends on his not believing.

League of Denial: The NFL Quotes Concussions and the Battle for Truth Quotes

Barth’s major discovery was that concussions might be regarded as “minor” injuries by coaches, trainers, and even doctors, but they weren’t minor to the people who incurred them.

League of Denial: The NFL Quotes Concussions and the Battle for Truth Quotes

The brain is essentially an oddly shaped sphere of Jell-O, crammed inside a box, covered in a shallow layer of cerebrospinal fluid. This gelatinous material contains a kind of electrical grid—hooked up to an EEG, the brain can power a toy train—that transmits information through the body via microscopic fibers called axons. When someone is hit in the head or stops suddenly, the brain is jolted against the skull’s jagged interior, distorting or even severing the axons and interrupting the function of the synapses, the connections between the fibers of the brain.

League of Denial: The NFL Quotes Concussions and the Battle for Truth Quotes

In some major cities today, having a pro football team is a higher priority than providing basic services. The city of Oakland and Alameda County, for example, shell out over $30 million each year to support the Raiders; by 2012, Oakland, with one of the worst crime rates in the nation, had cut 200 police officers to save money. The

League of Denial: The NFL Quotes Concussions and the Battle for Truth Quotes

officials would acknowledge that only 317 out of more than 10,000 eligible players were receiving benefits. Brain injuries were viewed as the hardest sell.

League of Denial: The NFL Quotes Concussions and the Battle for Truth Quotes

Joe Gordon, the team’s longtime public relations director, said he would be right over. The Rooneys had hired Gordon in 1969, the same year they had hired Chuck Noll, in an effort to upgrade the previously dismal franchise. Gordon was a Pittsburgh native who had played varsity baseball at Pitt and whose hard-knuckle attitude fit perfectly with the brawling team. In the days preceding the 1976 AFC Championship Game against the hated Raiders, Gordon decked an Oakland TV reporter. Asked the next day if his team was ready, Noll said, “I don’t know, but Joe Gordon is.

League of Denial: The NFL Quotes Concussions and the Battle for Truth Quotes

Loud noises, bright lights, the motion of a passing car, all made him swoon.

League of Denial: The NFL Quotes Concussions and the Battle for Truth Quotes

Finally, the Steelers were backed up near their own goal line when Brister called for a draw play. He handed off to Hoge, who found himself staring into a human wall. It consisted not only of Seth Joyner but also of Jerome Brown, a defensive tackle, and Reggie White, one of the most feared defensive ends in the history of the NFL. Hoge thought: I’m gonna fuck them up. I’m gonna hit them as hard as they’ve ever been hit in their life. He plunged headfirst into the wall. “When I hit, I felt like my internal organs just went out my ass,” he said. “It was like poof!

League of Denial: The NFL Quotes Concussions and the Battle for Truth Quotes

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