. Well, the floodgates are opening wider and wider. Sports Legacy Institute and Boston University held a press conference this past Monday to announce their findings on the late Dave Duerson’s brain examination. To no one’s surprise, they discovered the presence of Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) in his brain. .
Former NFL player Dave Duerson found to have had brain damage
With the growing firestorm from DeMaurice Smith’s recent comments about retired players’ relations, we forgot to mention that the Congressional Judiciary Committee held a Forum this past Monday (May 24th) in New York City on Key Issues Related to the Identification and Prevention of Head Injuries in Football. Among the people speaking were Dr. H. Hunt Batjer and Dr. Richard Elenbogen, the two newly-appointed co-chairs of the NFL’s “Mild” Traumatic Brain Injury Committee – er, wait – they changed it to the NFL Head, Neck and Spine Committee! So what happened to concussions and brain injuries? Did they just magically disappear? We almost miss Dr. No!
Yesterday, I was reading a recent article on Bleacher Report titled Dear NFL: Eight Changes That Need to Be Made Now (click HERE to read their eight changes). It got me thinking again about the real changes that need to be made for retired players:
All we can say is, WOW!The New York Times just published a powerful piece by Deborah Blum yesterday that puts a final nail in the NFL’s Dr. No’s arguments about concussions. This piece says it all.
Congressman John Conyers (D-MI) is holding the second Judiciary Committee Hearing on concussions at the Wayne State School of Medicine Conference Center in Detroit Michigan on Monday Jan. 4, 2010 at 1:00 pm EST. This hearing appears to be much more wide-ranging and the scheduled testimony includes independent doctors and even World Super Welterweight boxing champ Thomas “Hitman” Hearns is testifying, along with Rev. Al Sharpton. Bernie Parrish, Hall of Famer Lem Barney, Kyle Turley and George Martin are the retired players slated to testify this time.
Congresswoman Linda Sanchez took 10 minutes to do a serious beat down of Commissioner Roger Goodell in the Congressional Hearings on brain injuries. You can watch her clip below but first we want to take a moment to introduce the new James Bond Dr. No: Ira Casson (we no longer want to call this idiot ‘Doctor’ as he doesn’t merit the respect of his fellow human beings) heads the NFL MTBI Committee that conducts those endless inconclusive studies on traumatic brain injuries for the NFL. This jerk shall henceforth be known as The New Dr. No. Every answer Casson gives in the following clip from Bernard Goldberg’s interview from last May’s HBO Real Sports is an arrogant, “No!” (with a sneer). And it looks like he was also a NO-show at the Congressional hearings as well, much to the Commissioner’s surprise (!).Here’s to Dr. No!<sneer> AAA
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And here are Rep. Sanchez’ questions and comments: AAA
More good news – and a little fun – to exercise your brain as the end of the year approaches.