I have stated from day one, that simple awareness of what a concussion is and how it should be handled will help with the epidemic and looming issues in all sports. Football is the easy target but concussions come from all walks of life, mainly bike riding and wheeled activities like skateboarding. Awareness is spreading, and along with that there will be changes to the things we enjoy. They should not be taken away, but to prevent someone from doing that proactive steps must be taken.

Mike Cardillo of ctpost.com wrote an article about such culture change in his neck of the woods, Connecticut;

“There’s always been a culture of football about playing through injury,” Coyne said earlier this summer at a concussion awareness night in Westport. “It doesn’t seem like a real injury, like an ACL tear, so it doesn’t seem important.” Across the board, only a few years after Coyne last played a down, attitudes toward concussions and how they pertain to the sport of football have changed, if not revolutionized.

And more changes are needed, if we are to stave of those that want to bubble wrap our kids. The article explained the Pop Warner rule changes with practice, a good first step in my opinion, but there is more to be done without harming the game, as Chris Nowinski stated in the article;

“The way we were playing in the past, a few years ago, I wouldn’t expose any child to where you’re hitting three, four days a week, drills that never should be done with coaches who aren’t trained for concussions. That was the Wild West,” he said. “Now if we truly commit to attacking all the risk factors, which does include assessment and management, then it remains to be seen if it’s safe enough. Then it becomes a personal decision for the parents to make.”

And with that, the injury of concussion is not the elephant in the room, it is how the injury is managed, from the get go. Remember that a concussion is a process where the injury is just the beginning;

The majority of kids do well with concussions when treated,” Lee said. “If you take care of it properly, initially, with rest, I think you’ll get better quickly. The problem is I’m seeing kids with symptoms that last for months because they keep doing things.”

One league in Connecticut seems to have their head on straight when it come to making proactive changes;