Falcons' Norwood straps on new helmet

By Steve Hummer

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Jerious Norwood will buckle up his new helmet Sunday -- the one with the most advanced bubble wrap yet for his brain -- and return to the human crash test that is the NFL.

Recovering from his second concussion in 22 days, Norwood is prepared to hurl himself into a nasty San Francisco defense. Full speed ahead, and damn the potential future consequences.

“Those are things to think about, man, but I’m playing ball now,” Norwood said last week. “I’ll deal with all that when the time comes. I leave it in the hands of the good Lord, say my prayers before a game and whatever happens, happens. It is football, and sometimes we do get hit.”

The concussion discussion is hot now, given college football’s preoccupation with Tim Tebow’s cerebellum and two recent studies that determined NFL players have an increased risk of lasting brain damage because of blows to the head.

Dealing with a concussion is unlike coping with most other injuries. The damage is unseen, the symptoms sometimes elusive. There is no treatment to rush the healing process, which frustrates athletes eager to return to the field.

As Norwood put it, “You can’t treat a brain when you get a concussion. All you can do is rest.”

The subject is further complicated by the ages-old football ethic of playing hurt doesn’t translate well when applied to a brain sprain. In fact, that kind of thinking is at the root of the worst possible concussion scenarios.

Like Norwood, every player who deals with multiple concussions must weigh the same uncertainties:

When is it safe to come back and play?

How likely is it that I’ll suffer another one?

What am I doing to myself long-term?

When Falcons fullback Bob Christian couldn’t answer those questions to anyone’s satisfaction, he knew it was time to bid adieu to a game he dearly loved. As he sat in the back of an ambulance on the way to Piedmont Hospital in 2002, collecting his wits after being knocked unconscious, he saw the end of a career through the fog.

“One of the first thoughts I had was: That’s it. I’ve done all I can do in this game. In a way, it was a blessing. It made it easier for me to quit, knowing I had done all I could do,” Christian said. He soon thereafter retired, at the age of 33.

In his Wikipedia entry, Christian is said to have suffered 45 concussions over the course his football playing days. He disputes the number, although he doesn’t know the total for sure.

He does give some graphic testimony to the effects of plowing into ever bigger and faster defenders for a living.

Throughout his 11-year NFL career, Christian was a ferocious blocking back, a 5-foot-11, 232-pound battering ram completely unconcerned with personal safety.

‘Don’t remember’ a thing

There was a game in 1999, against Minnesota, when he absorbed a blow to the head in the first quarter and went essentially blank until halftime. “I don’t know how I functioned,” Christian said. “I kept playing but don’t remember any of it. It’s like I woke up in the middle of that game.”

While at Northwestern, he was knocked into what he describes as a dream state against Illinois. “I kept playing,” he said.

The last play of Christian’s career was the second time he had been knocked unconscious during the 2002 season. It wasn’t even that remarkable a blow, a linebacker’s glancing forearm to the side of Christian’s head after he had collected a screen pass. But he was knocked out in an instant and fell limp, his head bouncing roughly off the Georgia Dome’s artificial turf.

Today, with his brother, Christian operates a busy strength and speed training facility in the Chicago area. He says he is a little forgetful, but hopes that is just a natural consequence of aging. And he is more susceptible to motion sickness than before. But, otherwise, he hasn’t yet shown any more serious symptoms from his high-risk career.

As for what lies ahead: “I anticipate at some point, I’m going to have some physical problems, possibly be a little bit of a burden on my wife,” Christian said matter-of-factly. “I just hope for the best.”

The news coming in from the sidelines is not encouraging. The more science looks into the toll of head trauma in football, the scarier it seems.

A recent study by the University of Michigan’s Institute for Social Research, commissioned by the NFL, found that retired players were confronting degenerative diseases of the brain at a much higher rate than the general public.

About 6 percent of the more than 1,000 players sampled said they had been diagnosed with “dementia, Alzheimer’s disease or other memory-related disease” – about five times the national average. The rate for players between the ages of 30 and 49 was 1.9 percent, about 19 times greater than average.

As of the beginning of 2009, another ongoing study by Boston University’s Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy (CSTE) had examined the brains of six former players who had died between the ages of 25 and 50. All six showed signs of traumatic encephalopathy, the degenerative brain disease first attributed to “punch drunk” boxers.

“It is a particularly bad degenerative condition because it leads to depression, dementia and irrational emotional behavior, especially a lack of impulse control,” said Dr. Robert Cantu, a leading concussion expert and co-director of the CSTE. “Many of the brains had been studied because the (players) had taken their lives or had high risk behaviors that caused them to lose their lives.”

What makes it worse

In a concussion, “the brain is violently shaken inside the skull,” Cantu said. If allowed proper time to heal, there can be a complete recovery, with little risk of lingering problems, he said.

“But,” Cantu added, “if the brain is subjected to additional trauma before it is recovered, that’s when you can set up not only prolonged post concussion syndrome but also brain damage. It is particularly important that the brain, as well as the spinal chord, is treated differently than any other part of the body. You can not safely participate hurt; you have to completely recover before it’s safe to go back.”

Cantu said multiple concussions don’t make a player more prone to them. Certain players, he contends, likely get them more often because of their aggressive style of play.

But you can’t tell a running back to be safe, to remove himself from all risk. That’s no quilting bee on Sunday.

“With me playing running back, I’m going to have to be able to take licks,” Norwood said. “If I can, I try to dodge a lot of the big licks, try not to have head-to-head licks – I’ll do the best I can. Other than that, I just go out and play ball. I don’t really think about it.”

Where science leaves off and personal experience begins, Christian tells the next generation Falcons running back to trust his heart as much as any new helmet design or improved medical protocols.

Prayer is not an official part of the concussion medical guidelines, but Christian agrees with Norwood that it can help treat the uncertainties.

“Jerious has to have peace. God will let him know if it’s time, like he let me know when it was time,” he said.

“For the most part, you have to believe, ‘I’m a warrior, I’m willing to sacrifice for the team and for what I’m paid to do.’ It’s a rough game. It’s supposed to be rough.”

What other choice is there but to meet football head on?

Concussions by the numbers

● Concussions account for about 1 in 10 sports injuries, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

● There were approximately 130,000 concussions suffered by high school athletes last year, according to a study by the Center for Injury Research and Policy.

The same study contended that 40 percent of the high school athletes who suffer concussions return to play too soon. Among football players, 16 percent returned to play on the same day they lost consciousness.

● The 2007 Journal of Athletic Training reported that girls were much more likely to suffer head trauma than boys in comparable sports. In soccer, for instance, girls reported head trauma at a rate 68 percent greater than boys.

Post concussion symptoms

Headache

Dizziness

Irritability

Depression

Nausea

Poor balance

Drowsiness

Ringing in the ears