I don’t know about you, but I find this report showing that Georgia has had more confirmed cases of CTE reported than any other program in the country but one disturbing. I don’t mean that in the sense that there’s something specifically bad going on in Athens that’s the cause for that, but, rather, simply this:
“This information is being released to raise awareness that CTE is not just an issue for professional football players,” said Chris Nowinski, co-founder and CEO of the Concussion Legacy Foundation. “The data should not be interpreted to say that players from these schools are at greater risk than other college players. Instead, the data shows the widespread reach of this disease, and the commitment by the alumni and their families of these schools to support CTE research by participating in brain donation.”
Courson is one of the best in the biz at what he does. Whatever sins you might want to lob in Mark Richt’s direction, not caring about his players’ health wasn’t one of them. Yet here we are. That’s both a little sad and a little scary.
As I read your opening remark, the first thought that came to me was that Georgia likely looks for it and reports it more comprehensively than most other schools. I haven’t even read the linked info yet, and obviously, I hope they are both actively researching the condition as well as reaching out to the conference so that they’re not alone in the pandora box opening.
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This. I know Ron. If it happened he is reporting it. It’s called integrity.
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I don’t know Ron except through reports, but this is surely more a matter of reporting and care than neglect and lack of concern.
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Interesting timing: there’s still a little murkiness that UT knowingly played Hurd vs UGA with a concussion.
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If they want to correlate CTE and college football, wouldn’t they have to exclude players who played pro football? Or at least played substantial amounts of pro football?
I recognized lots of pro players in the table at the linked article.
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I want to hope that this has something to do with the rate at which we diagnosis being higher than other places and not some activity that we are doing that is creating the issue.
makes that $600k from the other article not seem like enough.
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I’m sure there are a lot more programs that are not forthcoming about CTE. It is self reporting so there is no sense to put your program in a bind by being honest from the point of view of those programs.
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I wish Ron Courson was a football coach or and AD.
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I noticed that some of the players are now wearing the padded helmet covers during practice. Haven’t noticed them until this year. When will the NCAA mandate the use of impact recording devices in the helmets to record cumulative impact. Until this happens both the NFL and the NCAA are only making little effort to change things. The problem is the lineman have impact on every play and like boxers it can scramble your brains over time.
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