CONCUSSIONS ARE ALWAYS ON A PRO FOOTBALL PLAYER’S MIND
Bo Levi Mitchell is tired of playing prevent defence when it comes to stereotypes about his chosen profession.
Yes, football is a violent game, and, yes, concussions are a fact of life when grown men tackle one another at full speed, but Mitchell, the CFL’s most outstanding player in 2016, believes the danger is blown out of proportion given the modern rules of the game.
And, as he points out, life itself is a high-risk sport.
“As men and guys who are getting paid, we know what we signed up for,” says Mitchell, the starting quarterback for the Calgary Stampeders. “And at some point, you have to understand that you might have to hang up your career as an athlete to protect yourself and protect your life and your future. But as a kid, you can get concussions doing anything. … My wife is a cheerleading coach, and there’s probably more concussions in cheerleading than there are in football.”
Mitchell thinks his sport is under siege, especially since the 2015 release of the Hollywood blockbuster Concussion. In the film, Will Smith plays Dr. Bennet Omalu, the Nigerian neuropathologist who discovered chronic traumatic encephalopathy in football players. Omalu studied the brains of troubled NFL greats like Pittsburgh Steelers centre Mike Webster, a four-time Super Bowl champion who ended up sleeping in bus stations before dying at 50.
“I saw the movie with Will Smith, and it made me mad,” Mitchell says. “It’s not something to joke about, but at the same time, a lot of the things they’re doing on the Steelers from back in the heyday — the helmets were terrible. I mean, it was a piece of plastic with a little pillow on the inside, and they banged heads back then.”
These days, helmet-to-helmet hits are rare, as both the CFL and NFL have tightened rules in hopes of preventing concussions and taking better care of players who suffer them. In the CFL, concussed players must follow a strict protocol before returning to action and can request a second opinion from an independent doctor instead of relying on the team medical staff alone. An injury spotter monitors the game via video feed to watch for players in medical distress.
But helmet-to-helmet collisions — and concussions — inevitably happen. In Calgary, since 2014, tailback Jon Cornish, guard Dimitri Tsoumpas and tackle Brander Craighead retired due to lingering concussion issues.
At some point, every CFL player is faced with the question, sometimes from a spouse, sometimes from strangers, sometimes from their own parents or children: Why keep playing given the documented hazards?
“I do wonder down the road,” Edmonton Eskimos quarterback Mike Reilly says of the health of his brain. “It’s not enough to make me stop playing. I’m blessed to play the game. I’ve been playing since I was six. I’m lucky that I can provide for my family by playing this game. So it’s a risk that I’m willing to take, but I think if you’re playing the game of football and you don’t know in the back of your mind that it’s something you could deal with down the road, you’re fooling yourself.”
Fellow quarterback Kevin Glenn says he sometimes wonders how his body and brain will react in the long term to taking so many hits over the years.
“There are instances where I can tell you that it’s about to rain because my knees, the joints start to ache,” says Glenn, a CFL nomad now plying his trade in Saskatchewan. “I wonder like, ‘Man, am I going to be able to hold my kids or stand up straight when I hit 60?’ So I do worry about it, but not to a point where it’s like I’m not going to play.”
Emmanuel Arceneaux incorporated a neck harness into his strength-training regimen this winter in hopes of avoiding a repeat of a concussion that knocked him out cold in Winnipeg in 2016.
“I play a physical game,” says Arceneaux, a receiver with the B.C. Lions. “I’m in the trenches. I’m locked in, running underneath and trying to run through people, so it’s important for me and my style of play to make sure I’m equipped to go to war all game.”
Like Mitchell, Arceneaux says concussions are a risk in all sports.
“Football can be dangerous,” he says. “Baseball can be dangerous. Basketball can be dangerous. … You look at soccer, and rugby and lacrosse. … Any time there’s contact, it can be dangerous. People who are doing the balance beam can go out there and break their leg and do anything, but it goes under the radar.”
Unlike in the NHL, CFL contracts are not guaranteed. That means young players especially might feel like they have limited shots to prove themselves to the coaches. A concussion in training camp can prove disastrous to the career prospects of a player on the bubble.
“What we do, especially as a players’ union, is educating guys,” Toronto Argonauts middle linebacker Bear Woods says. “Not trying to scare guys, nothing like that, just the education process. Your long-term health is more important than right now.”
But Woods realizes the call on whether to disclose a concussion is ultimately a personal one.
“Speaking to a red-blooded American, I go straight to liberty,” he says. “No one is forcing anyone to make a decision like that.”
Trevor Harris understands why some players might be tempted to play through a concussion, but he urges them to look at the big picture.
“Don’t give up what you want the most for the thing you want at the moment,” the Ottawa Redblacks quarterback says. “Down the road, I want to be able to throw a football with my kids. When I’m 45, 50 years old, I want to be able to coach my kids’ peewee team and watch my kids’ kids grow up. Is that worth playing in a single game of football?”
Former U.S. president Barack Obama made headlines in 2014 by saying if he had a son, he wouldn’t let him play pro football. But in an informal survey in March of more than 20 players from across the CFL, 100 per cent told Postmedia they would encourage their children to suit up if they expressed an interest.
“I can’t wait until my son plays football,” Woods says. “Everybody is such candy-tails now.
“Football has done so much for me. I’m able to go into a work environment where I’m in a locker-room with people from all over North America with different backgrounds and different cultures. We learn to work together. Isn’t that what society is trying to do all together?”
I want to be able to coach my kids’ peewee team and watch my kids’ kids grow up. Is that worth playing in a single game of football?