This "mirror" blog is no longer being maintained. The hub of my web presence, including my blog, is now the website "Concussion Inc. ... Author Irvin Muchnick":
http://concussioninc.net
Monday, July 25, 2011
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
WWE Drug Testing Again Reveals Its Transparent Opacity
[posted 7/18/11 at http://concussionhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifinc.net]http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
World Wrestling Entertainment’s Luis Ignascio Urive Alvride, the masked Mexican who performs as “Sin Cara” and was known in his native country as “Mistico,” has been suspended by WWE for flunking a drug test.
David Bixenspan of Cageside Seats cites sources reporting that the drug was steroids and adding that the test results were known as early as June 20: http://www.cagesideseats.com/2011/7/18/2281249/sin-cara-failed-steroid-test-in-june-wwe-waited-weeks-to-suspend-him.
After the 2007 Signature Pharmacy debacle, WWE amended its “Wellness Policy” and began announcing disciplinary actions for violations. But they waited with Sin Cara for weeks, first using him on last night’s pay-per-view show to get him written out of the storyline with an “injury.” Stop the presses.
Irv Muchnick
World Wrestling Entertainment’s Luis Ignascio Urive Alvride, the masked Mexican who performs as “Sin Cara” and was known in his native country as “Mistico,” has been suspended by WWE for flunking a drug test.
David Bixenspan of Cageside Seats cites sources reporting that the drug was steroids and adding that the test results were known as early as June 20: http://www.cagesideseats.com/2011/7/18/2281249/sin-cara-failed-steroid-test-in-june-wwe-waited-weeks-to-suspend-him.
After the 2007 Signature Pharmacy debacle, WWE amended its “Wellness Policy” and began announcing disciplinary actions for violations. But they waited with Sin Cara for weeks, first using him on last night’s pay-per-view show to get him written out of the storyline with an “injury.” Stop the presses.
Irv Muchnick
Monday, July 18, 2011
‘NFL’s “Legacy Fund” For Disabled Retirees Just a Down Payment on National Concussion Costs’ ... today at Beyond Chron
[originally posted 7/18/11 at http://concussioninc.net]http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
According to reliable reports, National Football League owners and players are very close to a deal that will save the 2011 season. One of the last hang-ups of a lockout-averting agreement is a provision being referred to as the “Legacy Fund” – a negotiated siphoning off of a portion of the NFL’s $9 billion in annual revenues to cover more fully the disability claims of retired players who suffer from crippling orthopedic injuries or brain trauma. Let’s focus on the latter. The category going by the useful shorthand “concussions” not only shortens quantity and maims quality of life, but also defines the problem in terms over and above the interests of management, players, and even professional retirees.
Bully for Hall of Famer Carl Eller and the other named plaintiffs in a class-action lawsuit if they have been able to gain a seat at the collective-bargaining table alongside the NFL and the temporarily decertified NFL Players Association – or at least created pressure for more comprehensive benefits to offset the nearly bottomless pit of sob stories that are the fallout of mass entertainment.
But I also say: Who’s speaking for the rest of us? These include kids who should not have been playing tackle football at all in peewee and high school proghttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.giframs before their informed consent could be secured and their risks of lifelong disability from concussions and repetitive subconcussive head blows could be properly processed.
On the larger canvas, they also include a society that, when all is said is done, will have manifested lower academic achievement and workforce productivity, and increased violent crime, all as a consequence of America’s brilliantly marketed football obsession.
http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
CONTINUED TODAY AT BEYOND CHRON, THE SAN FRANCISCO ONLINE NEWSPAPER:http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
http://www.beyondchron.org/articles/NFL_s_Legacy_Fund_For_Disabled_Retirees_Just_a_Down_Payment_on_National_Concussion_Costs_9349.html
SEE ALSO:
Introducing ‘Concussion Inc. ... Author Irvin Muchnick’
What They’re Saying About Irvin Muchnick
According to reliable reports, National Football League owners and players are very close to a deal that will save the 2011 season. One of the last hang-ups of a lockout-averting agreement is a provision being referred to as the “Legacy Fund” – a negotiated siphoning off of a portion of the NFL’s $9 billion in annual revenues to cover more fully the disability claims of retired players who suffer from crippling orthopedic injuries or brain trauma. Let’s focus on the latter. The category going by the useful shorthand “concussions” not only shortens quantity and maims quality of life, but also defines the problem in terms over and above the interests of management, players, and even professional retirees.
Bully for Hall of Famer Carl Eller and the other named plaintiffs in a class-action lawsuit if they have been able to gain a seat at the collective-bargaining table alongside the NFL and the temporarily decertified NFL Players Association – or at least created pressure for more comprehensive benefits to offset the nearly bottomless pit of sob stories that are the fallout of mass entertainment.
But I also say: Who’s speaking for the rest of us? These include kids who should not have been playing tackle football at all in peewee and high school proghttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.giframs before their informed consent could be secured and their risks of lifelong disability from concussions and repetitive subconcussive head blows could be properly processed.
On the larger canvas, they also include a society that, when all is said is done, will have manifested lower academic achievement and workforce productivity, and increased violent crime, all as a consequence of America’s brilliantly marketed football obsession.
http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
CONTINUED TODAY AT BEYOND CHRON, THE SAN FRANCISCO ONLINE NEWSPAPER:http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
http://www.beyondchron.org/articles/NFL_s_Legacy_Fund_For_Disabled_Retirees_Just_a_Down_Payment_on_National_Concussion_Costs_9349.html
SEE ALSO:
Introducing ‘Concussion Inc. ... Author Irvin Muchnick’
What They’re Saying About Irvin Muchnick
What They’re Saying About Irvin Muchnick
[originally posted 7/15/11 at http://concussioninc.net]http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
On WRESTLING BABYLON: Piledriving Tales of Drugs, Sex, Death., and Scandal (2007):
“Irv Muchnick knows wrestling likes Anna Wintour knows fashion.”
Frank Deford
author, Sports Illustrated writer, National Public Radio commentator
“The wrestling version of ALICE IN WONDERLAND: you fall into the hole and you discover a world you never dreamed of. But Muchnick didn’t dream this stuff up, he dug it up.”
Scott Ostler
columnist, San Francisco Chronicle
“In a world of timid, formulaic scrivenings on sports and entertainment and sports entertainment, WRESTLING BABYLON is a sock on the jaw.”
Bert Randolph Sugar
boxing historian and author
***
On CHRIS & NANCY: The True Story of the Benoit Murder-Suicide and Pro Wrestling’s Cocktail of Death (2009):
“Muchnick is still throwing facts into the fire, still connecting the dots between the sacred cows of respectable society and the WrestleWorld they collude with.”
Phil Mushnick
columnist, New York Post
“Should be called ZEN AND THE ART OF SCANDAL MAINTENANCE. An instant cult classic.”
Larry Matysik
wrestling promoter and author
***
On Irv Muchnick’s investigations of sports concussions:
“[You characterize] the Times coverage as ‘carefully adumbrated’ — which, I’m assuming for now that you know, means presented somewhat incompletely in an effort to be vague or misleading. As far as I know your concern with the coverage stems only from your Maroon-connection-to-Riddell-study issue. Even if that were an issue, which I know it is not for reasons of which you are totally unaware, you have some nerve casting the entire work that way.”
Alan Schwarz
reporter, The New York Times, May 27, 2011, email
“the NYT has led that story for three years. what are you talking about?”
George Vecsey
columnist, The New York Times, June 17, 2011, email
http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
***
on IRV MUCHNICK:
“He’s a vicious man.”
WWE attorney Jerry McDevitt, The American Lawyer, February 2011
http://muchnick.net/americanlawyer.pdf
On WRESTLING BABYLON: Piledriving Tales of Drugs, Sex, Death., and Scandal (2007):
“Irv Muchnick knows wrestling likes Anna Wintour knows fashion.”
Frank Deford
author, Sports Illustrated writer, National Public Radio commentator
“The wrestling version of ALICE IN WONDERLAND: you fall into the hole and you discover a world you never dreamed of. But Muchnick didn’t dream this stuff up, he dug it up.”
Scott Ostler
columnist, San Francisco Chronicle
“In a world of timid, formulaic scrivenings on sports and entertainment and sports entertainment, WRESTLING BABYLON is a sock on the jaw.”
Bert Randolph Sugar
boxing historian and author
***
On CHRIS & NANCY: The True Story of the Benoit Murder-Suicide and Pro Wrestling’s Cocktail of Death (2009):
“Muchnick is still throwing facts into the fire, still connecting the dots between the sacred cows of respectable society and the WrestleWorld they collude with.”
Phil Mushnick
columnist, New York Post
“Should be called ZEN AND THE ART OF SCANDAL MAINTENANCE. An instant cult classic.”
Larry Matysik
wrestling promoter and author
***
On Irv Muchnick’s investigations of sports concussions:
“[You characterize] the Times coverage as ‘carefully adumbrated’ — which, I’m assuming for now that you know, means presented somewhat incompletely in an effort to be vague or misleading. As far as I know your concern with the coverage stems only from your Maroon-connection-to-Riddell-study issue. Even if that were an issue, which I know it is not for reasons of which you are totally unaware, you have some nerve casting the entire work that way.”
Alan Schwarz
reporter, The New York Times, May 27, 2011, email
“the NYT has led that story for three years. what are you talking about?”
George Vecsey
columnist, The New York Times, June 17, 2011, email
http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
***
on IRV MUCHNICK:
“He’s a vicious man.”
WWE attorney Jerry McDevitt, The American Lawyer, February 2011
http://muchnick.net/americanlawyer.pdf
Introducing ‘Concussion Inc. ... Author Irvin Muchnick’
[originally posted 7/15/11 at http://concussioninc.net]http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifhttp://www.http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifblogger.com/img/blank.gif
Welcome to the new look of my blog, which has been renamed “Concussion Inc.” and transformed into the hub of my web presence. You can get here via either http://concussioninc.net or the old address, http://wrestlingbabylon.wordpress.com.
Concussion Inc. continues to archive posts related to my previous books, WRESTLING BABYLON and CHRIS & NANCY. As has been the case for a while, the reporting here is now directed more toward my next book, with familiar common themes.
General theme: The world of pro wrestling and the world at large are considerably more alike than different. This is evident even, and perhaps especially, in the blood sport of politics. (Think of the scene in The Godfather in which the Diane Keaton character, upon noticing pillars of the community mingling socially with Mafiosi, expresses revulsion. The Al Pacino character says back to her, “Now who’s being naïve?”)
Specific theme: The nearly $10-billion-a-year global pro football industry is being shaken all the way down to its three-point stance by awareness that the sport at all levels involves a previously covered up toll of long-term brain trauma. This has turned into a national public health crisis, as well as a hiccup for the National Football League, one of American culture’s iconic brands. What you have is an athletic echo of the tobacco industry scandal – and, once more, one with a wrestling provenance. The sensational 2007 double murder/suicide of World Wrestling Entertainment star Chris Benoit helped put chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) on the map. WWE’s medical director, Dr. Joseph Maroon, is a central figure in the long contemporary history of CTE through his ties with the NFL and the Pittsburgh Steelers, and through his development and marketing of the most popular product in sports-medicine concussion management.
Investigative journalism is not “peer-reviewed scientific literature.” It is a contact sport. My version of it favors transparent and interactive relationships with readers and sources. I also recognize that back stories and their interpretation are organic; I strive for what is, at best, the second dhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifraft of history. Finally, readers will find that I am far more willing than conventional sportswriters to steer the narrative toward personalities, institutions, and questions with which others are disinclined to wrestle (so to speak).
I invite you all along for the ride.
Irv Muchnick
see also: WHAT THEY’RE SAYING ABOUT IRVIN MUCHNICK
Welcome to the new look of my blog, which has been renamed “Concussion Inc.” and transformed into the hub of my web presence. You can get here via either http://concussioninc.net or the old address, http://wrestlingbabylon.wordpress.com.
Concussion Inc. continues to archive posts related to my previous books, WRESTLING BABYLON and CHRIS & NANCY. As has been the case for a while, the reporting here is now directed more toward my next book, with familiar common themes.
General theme: The world of pro wrestling and the world at large are considerably more alike than different. This is evident even, and perhaps especially, in the blood sport of politics. (Think of the scene in The Godfather in which the Diane Keaton character, upon noticing pillars of the community mingling socially with Mafiosi, expresses revulsion. The Al Pacino character says back to her, “Now who’s being naïve?”)
Specific theme: The nearly $10-billion-a-year global pro football industry is being shaken all the way down to its three-point stance by awareness that the sport at all levels involves a previously covered up toll of long-term brain trauma. This has turned into a national public health crisis, as well as a hiccup for the National Football League, one of American culture’s iconic brands. What you have is an athletic echo of the tobacco industry scandal – and, once more, one with a wrestling provenance. The sensational 2007 double murder/suicide of World Wrestling Entertainment star Chris Benoit helped put chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) on the map. WWE’s medical director, Dr. Joseph Maroon, is a central figure in the long contemporary history of CTE through his ties with the NFL and the Pittsburgh Steelers, and through his development and marketing of the most popular product in sports-medicine concussion management.
Investigative journalism is not “peer-reviewed scientific literature.” It is a contact sport. My version of it favors transparent and interactive relationships with readers and sources. I also recognize that back stories and their interpretation are organic; I strive for what is, at best, the second dhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifraft of history. Finally, readers will find that I am far more willing than conventional sportswriters to steer the narrative toward personalities, institutions, and questions with which others are disinclined to wrestle (so to speak).
I invite you all along for the ride.
Irv Muchnick
see also: WHAT THEY’RE SAYING ABOUT IRVIN MUCHNICK
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
Timeline of Eller Lawsuit and NFL Lockout Developments
Retired players’ activist Dave Pear’s blog has an informative timeline of the Carl Eller lawsuit and efforts to get a seat at the table in the National Fohttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifotball League lockout talks: http://davepear.com/blog/2011/07/retired-players-benefits-pensions-lawsuit/.
Incidentally, to correct what this blog stated earlier, Irv Cross, the former defensive back and CBS commentator, is not a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame. However, in 2009, the Hall awarded Cross the Pete Rozelle Radio-Television Award to honor his career in television.
Irv Muchnick
Incidentally, to correct what this blog stated earlier, Irv Cross, the former defensive back and CBS commentator, is not a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame. However, in 2009, the Hall awarded Cross the Pete Rozelle Radio-Television Award to honor his career in television.
Irv Muchnick
Sunday, July 10, 2011
Columnist: NFL Retired Players’ Negotiations the ’800-Pound Gorilla’ of Lockout
San Francisco Chronicle sports columnist Gwen Knapp today has a good analysis of the pro football labor talks headlined “For NFL, retiree care is the tougher battle.” (Chronicle columnist content is kept offline for non-subscribers for 48 hours, so no link.)
Knapp mildly disparages the Carl Eller group’s lawsuit as a piece of public relations leverage. This is an unfortunate, though standard, trope of hard-boiled rhetoric by sports pundits who get mileage out of playing the parts of cynics on TV. But Knapp does go on to call the Eller manuevers for a seat at the collective bargaining table “a giraffe and an 800-pound gorilla circling the perimeter of the room.”
Knapp also chooses not to zero in on brain trauma, which is where former football players’ disabilities intersect with the public’s interest, not just the fans’ in expeditiously ending the lockout. She strikes the right note, however, in observing that John Mackey’s death following a long battle with dementia “served as a reminder of the negligence that once ruled treatment of former pro football players, by both their former employers and the union allegedly representing their interests.”
Irv Muchnick
Knapp mildly disparages the Carl Eller group’s lawsuit as a piece of public relations leverage. This is an unfortunate, though standard, trope of hard-boiled rhetoric by sports pundits who get mileage out of playing the parts of cynics on TV. But Knapp does go on to call the Eller manuevers for a seat at the collective bargaining table “a giraffe and an 800-pound gorilla circling the perimeter of the room.”
Knapp also chooses not to zero in on brain trauma, which is where former football players’ disabilities intersect with the public’s interest, not just the fans’ in expeditiously ending the lockout. She strikes the right note, however, in observing that John Mackey’s death following a long battle with dementia “served as a reminder of the negligence that once ruled treatment of former pro football players, by both their former employers and the union allegedly representing their interests.”
Irv Muchnick
Friday, July 8, 2011
No Lockout or Offseason for the NFL’s Pitt Med Center Docs Who Also Work for WWE
National Football League training camps are shuttered this month, pending resolution of the owners’ lockout of players. But for clinicians at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, who have cushy consultancies not just with the NFL’s Steelers but also with other sports and entertainment entities, there are no idle hands.
At World Wrestling Entertainment – home of a performer early-death rate that makes pro football look like a counselor gig at a boys’ club – UPMC’s Dr. Joseph Maroon still holds down the fort as medical director, a post he has held since 2008. He is joined on the WWE medical team, the company website continues to confirm, by his colleague Dr. Mark Lovell. Both Maroon and Lovell are founders and partners of the for-profit ImPACT concussion management system, whose marketing inroads have been so helped along by the new “concussion awareness” – even though many intelligent observers question whether neurocognitive testing software is anything more than a PR band-aid for the sports brain-trauma pandemic.
In addition to practicing dubiously rigorous medicine for WWE, Maroon plays the team doctor in grunt-and-groan storylines. Twice in the last year-plus, the company’s No. 1 star, John Cena, has used his Twitter feed to invoke his post-beatdown ImPACT tests as part of concussion “angles.” Much more questionable are WWE practices when the head injuries are indisputably real. Recently, Randy Orton was knocked unconscious in a choreography mishap at a show in Spain. Orton said this was his sixth known concussion. ImPACT “testing” nonetheless cleared Orton to work the main event of a pay-per-view event exactly seven days later.
To date, no mainstream journalist has picked up on this blog’s background of Maroon’s WWE work. Worse, no one has examined why Maroon survives at all as a front-and-center NFL concussion spokesman, after his years of involvement in tainted research downplaying evidence of chronic traumatic encephelopathy. In January, The New Yorker quoted Maroon in a major article – and specifically quoted him extolling the reporting of The New York Times’ Alan Schwarz. The Times, for its part, has not gotten around to examining the controversy over ImPACT. (The Chicago Tribune has done so, however.)
And never mind Maroon’s icky relationship with WWE. That’s just the circus, you know; it doesn’t count. Tell that to the voters of Connecticut, who next year may very well be asked to assess the second “self-funded” U.S. Senate candidacy of WWE co-founder Linda (Mrs. Vince) McMahon.
For the edification of new readers, I have pasted below links to some of my reports on the NFL/UPMC/WWE/ImPACT/ Dr. Joseph Maroon nexus.
Irv Muchnick
http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.ghttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifif
EXCLUSIVE: Linda McMahon’s WWE Medical Director Met With Chris Benoit Brain Experts in 2008
http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
Pitt Med Center Doctors’ Supplement Company and WWE Ties Skirt Ethics Policy
Timeline of Dr. Joseph Maroon’s Work As WWE Medical Director
Pittsburgh Steelers’ Physician Joseph Maroon Key Figure in Sports Concussion Probe
Subpoena Cena: Does WWE Medical Director Joseph Maroon’s ImPACT System Manage Concussions – Or Merely ‘Manage’ ‘Concussions’?
Cageside Seats: Dr. Maroon’s ImPACT Clearance of Randy Orton for Tomorrow’s WWE Pay-Per-View ‘Questionable at Best’
At World Wrestling Entertainment – home of a performer early-death rate that makes pro football look like a counselor gig at a boys’ club – UPMC’s Dr. Joseph Maroon still holds down the fort as medical director, a post he has held since 2008. He is joined on the WWE medical team, the company website continues to confirm, by his colleague Dr. Mark Lovell. Both Maroon and Lovell are founders and partners of the for-profit ImPACT concussion management system, whose marketing inroads have been so helped along by the new “concussion awareness” – even though many intelligent observers question whether neurocognitive testing software is anything more than a PR band-aid for the sports brain-trauma pandemic.
In addition to practicing dubiously rigorous medicine for WWE, Maroon plays the team doctor in grunt-and-groan storylines. Twice in the last year-plus, the company’s No. 1 star, John Cena, has used his Twitter feed to invoke his post-beatdown ImPACT tests as part of concussion “angles.” Much more questionable are WWE practices when the head injuries are indisputably real. Recently, Randy Orton was knocked unconscious in a choreography mishap at a show in Spain. Orton said this was his sixth known concussion. ImPACT “testing” nonetheless cleared Orton to work the main event of a pay-per-view event exactly seven days later.
To date, no mainstream journalist has picked up on this blog’s background of Maroon’s WWE work. Worse, no one has examined why Maroon survives at all as a front-and-center NFL concussion spokesman, after his years of involvement in tainted research downplaying evidence of chronic traumatic encephelopathy. In January, The New Yorker quoted Maroon in a major article – and specifically quoted him extolling the reporting of The New York Times’ Alan Schwarz. The Times, for its part, has not gotten around to examining the controversy over ImPACT. (The Chicago Tribune has done so, however.)
And never mind Maroon’s icky relationship with WWE. That’s just the circus, you know; it doesn’t count. Tell that to the voters of Connecticut, who next year may very well be asked to assess the second “self-funded” U.S. Senate candidacy of WWE co-founder Linda (Mrs. Vince) McMahon.
For the edification of new readers, I have pasted below links to some of my reports on the NFL/UPMC/WWE/ImPACT/ Dr. Joseph Maroon nexus.
Irv Muchnick
http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.ghttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifif
EXCLUSIVE: Linda McMahon’s WWE Medical Director Met With Chris Benoit Brain Experts in 2008
http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
Pitt Med Center Doctors’ Supplement Company and WWE Ties Skirt Ethics Policy
Timeline of Dr. Joseph Maroon’s Work As WWE Medical Director
Pittsburgh Steelers’ Physician Joseph Maroon Key Figure in Sports Concussion Probe
Subpoena Cena: Does WWE Medical Director Joseph Maroon’s ImPACT System Manage Concussions – Or Merely ‘Manage’ ‘Concussions’?
Cageside Seats: Dr. Maroon’s ImPACT Clearance of Randy Orton for Tomorrow’s WWE Pay-Per-View ‘Questionable at Best’
NFL Legend John Mackey, Inspiration for Mental Disability ’88 Plan,’ Dies at 69
John Mackey, the Hall of Fame tight end for the old Baltimore Colts and later a National Football League Players Association pioneer, has died at age 69 after battling dementia for more than a decade.
In recent years NFL Player Care enacted a plan to reimburse retirees up to $88,000 a year for acute-care expenses in connection with mental disability claims. The “88 Plan” was named in honor of Mackey, who wore uniform number 88.
Inexcusably, the main obituary on Mackey at The Baltimore Sun does not even make reference to the 88 Plan. The story does note his dementia and that his “off-the-field exploits were as important as his accomplishments on it.” See http://www.baltimoresun.com/sports/ravhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifens/bal-john-mackey-dies,0,5908899.story.
Irv Muchnick
In recent years NFL Player Care enacted a plan to reimburse retirees up to $88,000 a year for acute-care expenses in connection with mental disability claims. The “88 Plan” was named in honor of Mackey, who wore uniform number 88.
Inexcusably, the main obituary on Mackey at The Baltimore Sun does not even make reference to the 88 Plan. The story does note his dementia and that his “off-the-field exploits were as important as his accomplishments on it.” See http://www.baltimoresun.com/sports/ravhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifens/bal-john-mackey-dies,0,5908899.story.
Irv Muchnick
Tuesday, July 5, 2011
Connecticut Governmental and Political Dysfunction a Recipe for Linda McMahonism – And Vice Versa
Look, gentle readers, I don’t believe the Connecticut Labor Department’s audit of World Wrestling Entertainment independent contractor misclassification practices is more urgent than public employee union concessions – which Governor Dan Malloy either did or did not negotiate, and which in turn either are or are not meaningful for the resolution of the state’s current budget mess.
I’m not that stupid.
Still, I can’t help reiterating that Linda McMahon, co-founder and ex-CEO of WWE, was the Republican nominee for one of Connecticut’s U.S. Senate seats last year, and by some accounts she is the presumptive nominee for the other Senate seat next year. And from my critical distance – a commodity obviously in short supply among the Nutmeg State chattering classes – I happen to think that the Government and Politics 101 fumbling of the state WWE investigation is a useful microcosm of general dysfunction.
People in the state that exported the WWE franchise across the globe are showing us, to a fare-thee-well, how WWE values rule that world, as well as theirs. They were shocked, shocked, by the tawdriness of the campaigns waged in 2010, both by McMahon and against her. Then the victors, to whom go the spoils and, with great reluctance, the responsibilities, proceeded to do absolutely nothing of substance about the most meaningful policy issue exposed by the McMahon family’s entry in the electoral arena.
Now all of them – Governor Malloy (former mayor of Stamford, hometown of WWE); Senator Richard Blumenthal (who squashed McMahon by double digits in last year’s election, evidently for the privilege of bringing Google Maps to its knees); Labor Commissioner Glenn Marshall (who supports misclassification crackdowns except when they’re real rather than theoretical); and whomever the Democratic establishment will put up for retiring Senator Joe Lieberman’s seat – are ready to do it all over against Linda McMahon in 2012.
I suspect they like it that way: the easy win on Election Day, the lack of results afterward, and above all the smug sense that the joke about wrestling is on everyone except them.
Irv Muchnick
I’m not that stupid.
Still, I can’t help reiterating that Linda McMahon, co-founder and ex-CEO of WWE, was the Republican nominee for one of Connecticut’s U.S. Senate seats last year, and by some accounts she is the presumptive nominee for the other Senate seat next year. And from my critical distance – a commodity obviously in short supply among the Nutmeg State chattering classes – I happen to think that the Government and Politics 101 fumbling of the state WWE investigation is a useful microcosm of general dysfunction.
People in the state that exported the WWE franchise across the globe are showing us, to a fare-thee-well, how WWE values rule that world, as well as theirs. They were shocked, shocked, by the tawdriness of the campaigns waged in 2010, both by McMahon and against her. Then the victors, to whom go the spoils and, with great reluctance, the responsibilities, proceeded to do absolutely nothing of substance about the most meaningful policy issue exposed by the McMahon family’s entry in the electoral arena.
Now all of them – Governor Malloy (former mayor of Stamford, hometown of WWE); Senator Richard Blumenthal (who squashed McMahon by double digits in last year’s election, evidently for the privilege of bringing Google Maps to its knees); Labor Commissioner Glenn Marshall (who supports misclassification crackdowns except when they’re real rather than theoretical); and whomever the Democratic establishment will put up for retiring Senator Joe Lieberman’s seat – are ready to do it all over against Linda McMahon in 2012.
I suspect they like it that way: the easy win on Election Day, the lack of results afterward, and above all the smug sense that the joke about wrestling is on everyone except them.
Irv Muchnick
Honor Roll: Current NFL Players Brendon Ayanbadejo and Will Witherspoon Support the Carl Eller Retirees’ Lawsuit
In my June 26 post, “View the Dissident NFL Retirees’ Washington Press Conference at Dave Pear’s Blog,” http://wrestlingbabylon.wordpress.com/2011/06/26/view-the-dissident-nfl-retirees%E2%80%99-washington-press-conference-at-dave-pear%E2%80%99s-blog/, I promised a shout-out to the active players who appeared at the Washington Press Club news conference in support of Carl Eller’s class-action lawsuit making the anti-anti-lockout case of abandoned former players.
The list first given to me was hyped. There were eight names on it, but six of them were marginal ex-players, three of whom played as recently as 2006 or 2007 but perhaps still harbor hopes of resuming National Football League careers.
I have immense respect for Brendon Ayanbadejo (linebacker, Baltimore Ravens) and Will Witherspoon (linebacker, Tennessee Titans), who risked their current positions by bucking both the league and its players’ union. Both were at the Washington event, and Ayanbadejo spoke at it.
Irv Muchnick
The list first given to me was hyped. There were eight names on it, but six of them were marginal ex-players, three of whom played as recently as 2006 or 2007 but perhaps still harbor hopes of resuming National Football League careers.
I have immense respect for Brendon Ayanbadejo (linebacker, Baltimore Ravens) and Will Witherspoon (linebacker, Tennessee Titans), who risked their current positions by bucking both the league and its players’ union. Both were at the Washington event, and Ayanbadejo spoke at it.
Irv Muchnick
Slouching Toward Anti-Maroonism: Some More Gentle Criticism of ImPACT Testing
From Dustin Fink’s Concussion Blog:
http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
http://theconcussionblog.com/2011/07/05/more-research-for-multi-faceted-approach/
http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
http://theconcussionblog.com/2011/07/05/more-research-for-multi-faceted-approach/
Friday, July 1, 2011
San Francisco 49er Eric Heitmann Cracks His Nuts ... And Leg ... And Neck ... And Head?
You don’t have to be an ambulance chaser in order to know which way the sports-head-injury litigation winds are blowing. The San Francisco Chronicle’s football writer, Kevin Lynch, has provided some instructive background on the woes of San Francisco 49ers center Eric Heitmann.
Yesterday Lynch reported that Heitmann, who missed all of last season after injuring his neck and breaking his leg in training camp, will sit out all of 2011, as well, lockout or not, with a ruptured neck disk.
But it was Lynch’s blog post on the Chronicle’s website that told “the rest of the story.” See “Eric Heitmann – victim of the nutcracker,” http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/ninerinsider/detail?entry_id=92054:
Heitmann’s injury is another lasting legacy from Mike Singletary’s infamous nutcracker drill. The exercise in which two players clashed into each other and tried to push the other one back, like a pair of mountain rams, resulted in a series of injuries. None more serious than Heitmann’s; he felt a tweak in his neck after a nutcracker encounter in last summer’s training camp.
According to tackle Joe Staley, Heitmann ignored the injury but was slowed by it. The next day in a team drill, Heitmann broke his leg when he wasn’t quick enough to escape a falling teammate. The shattered fibula might have prevented possible paralysis with his vulnerable neck. While recovering from the leg injury, numbness and shooting pain persisted from his neck. When the symptoms refused to abate, Heitmann underwent surgery last month.
Those of you who follow football already know that in his two-plus years as the 49ers’ head coach, Singletary convincingly established that he was one of the 25 or so National Football League field generals who have no idea what they’re doing, rather than one of the seven or so who have a clue. The Heitmann anecdote adds another dimension to the sensitive-assassin shtick that Singletary (a teammate of Dave Duerson on the defense of the Chicago Bears’ 1986 Super Bowl champions) parlayed into a career on the Christian motivational-speaker circuit and then in the NFL coaching ranks.
As for Singletary’s employer and league – it is not exactly reassuring to hear that the much-ballyhooed concussion-awareness culture shift of 2010 did nothing to prevent this men-among-men barbarism, which not only damaged Heitmann’s neck but also, I strongly suspect, resulted in long-term brain trauma, diagnosed or otherwise.
Irv Muchnick
Yesterday Lynch reported that Heitmann, who missed all of last season after injuring his neck and breaking his leg in training camp, will sit out all of 2011, as well, lockout or not, with a ruptured neck disk.
But it was Lynch’s blog post on the Chronicle’s website that told “the rest of the story.” See “Eric Heitmann – victim of the nutcracker,” http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/ninerinsider/detail?entry_id=92054:
Heitmann’s injury is another lasting legacy from Mike Singletary’s infamous nutcracker drill. The exercise in which two players clashed into each other and tried to push the other one back, like a pair of mountain rams, resulted in a series of injuries. None more serious than Heitmann’s; he felt a tweak in his neck after a nutcracker encounter in last summer’s training camp.
According to tackle Joe Staley, Heitmann ignored the injury but was slowed by it. The next day in a team drill, Heitmann broke his leg when he wasn’t quick enough to escape a falling teammate. The shattered fibula might have prevented possible paralysis with his vulnerable neck. While recovering from the leg injury, numbness and shooting pain persisted from his neck. When the symptoms refused to abate, Heitmann underwent surgery last month.
Those of you who follow football already know that in his two-plus years as the 49ers’ head coach, Singletary convincingly established that he was one of the 25 or so National Football League field generals who have no idea what they’re doing, rather than one of the seven or so who have a clue. The Heitmann anecdote adds another dimension to the sensitive-assassin shtick that Singletary (a teammate of Dave Duerson on the defense of the Chicago Bears’ 1986 Super Bowl champions) parlayed into a career on the Christian motivational-speaker circuit and then in the NFL coaching ranks.
As for Singletary’s employer and league – it is not exactly reassuring to hear that the much-ballyhooed concussion-awareness culture shift of 2010 did nothing to prevent this men-among-men barbarism, which not only damaged Heitmann’s neck but also, I strongly suspect, resulted in long-term brain trauma, diagnosed or otherwise.
Irv Muchnick
Randy Orton Interview About 2006 Drug Overdose Taken Down From Official Website
[posted 6/30/11 to http://wrestlingbabylon.wordpress.com]http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.ghttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifif
Randy Orton, with or without WWE’s input, has concluded that he took the hype of his upcoming DVD documentary too far by discussing his 2006 drug overdose in an Arizona radio interview two days ago. Either that or the interview tease has already served its purpose.
In any case, you can no longer find the audio at Orton’s official site. I’m told that you can access it at http://podcasting.fia.net/6005/4788152.mp3.
Irv Muchnick
Randy Orton, with or without WWE’s input, has concluded that he took the hype of his upcoming DVD documentary too far by discussing his 2006 drug overdose in an Arizona radio interview two days ago. Either that or the interview tease has already served its purpose.
In any case, you can no longer find the audio at Orton’s official site. I’m told that you can access it at http://podcasting.fia.net/6005/4788152.mp3.
Irv Muchnick
While WWE Star Randy Orton Overdosed on Drugs, Wrestling Media and Fans Underdosed on Reality
[posted 6/30/11 to http://wrestlingbabylon.wordpress.com]http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.ghttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifif
Breaking his years-long silence on the subject, Randy Orton has acknowledged in an Arizona radio interview that in 2006 he indeed overdosed on an unspecified drug, was rushed by his then-fiancee to a suburban St. Louis hospital (DePaul Health Center, I can now report), and nearly died.http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
This verifies the account first published on this blog a year after the incident. The most comprehensive retrospective here – in January 2010 during the U.S. Senate campaign in Connecticut – was “The Suicide Attempt (Part 2 – Randy Orton, Poster Boy for Linda McMahon’s WWE ‘Wellness Policy’),” http://wrestlingbabylon.wordpress.com/2010/01/13/the-suicide-attempt-part-2-randy-orton-poster-boy-for-linda-mcmahon%E2%80%99s-wwe-%E2%80%98wellness-policy%E2%80%99/.
The audio of Orton’s KUPD-Tempe interview is up on his own site at http://randy-orton.com/2011/06/randy-talks-with-98-kupd-arizonas-real-rock/.
Cageside Seats’ S. Bruce was the first wrestling journalist to report Orton’s admission, at http://www.cagesideseats.com/2011/6/29/2250462/outrageous-randy-orton-interview. Bruce notes that this confirms, “in part, Irv Muchnick’s story in 2007 that Orton had overdosed, although Irv initially claimed it was a suicide attempt, which is clearly not the case.”
At the Pro Wrestling Torch site, James Caldwell goes minimalist and cryptic: “Orton talked candidly about past drug abuse issues, including a documented incident five years ago when he ‘stopped breathing’ and his wife called an ambulance to save his life.”
Wrestling Observer’s Dave Meltzer makes the important marketing tie-in to Orton’s disclosure: “He admitted to overdosing, stopped breathing and being rushed to the hospital in 2006 (this story had been reported by Irv Muchnick shortly after it happened) but he also admits to that on a new documentary DVD the company is putting out.”
When I broke the story, Brian Stull of KFNS radio in St. Louis had me on his “Stranglehold” show to talk about it. Beforehand, Stull spoke off the air with Orton’s father, Bob Orton Jr., who denied all. But Cowboy Bob later vaguely confirmed the episode in a KFNS documentary series on local sports heroes.
At the time, I did no favors to my opportunity to focus wrestling fans on the key issues when my early reports included easy-to-nitpick errors about the time frame of Orton’s OD and the background of his “legend killer” gimmick. So, yes, I wish I had rolled out the story more effectively.
I doubt, however, that perfection – as opposed to an overall sound scoop – would have made any difference. Just a few months after the Chris Benoit murder-suicide gripped mainstream media the world over, the news that a bankable WWE star had already gone through a hushed-up near-death experience would have resonated if fans, and the media pandering to them, wanted it that way. But they were eager to crawl back into their shells of denial. Not even the additional information that Randy Orton mysteriously dodged a suspension in the contemporaneous Signature Pharmacy scandal could shake the deniers out of their complacency.
As for the assertion by Bruce of Cageside Seats that there “clearly” was no suicide attempt ... I’m not so sure. The slope of agency in drug overdoses can be slippery, and the bottom line of mortality doesn’t account for intent. (In 2008 Sean Waltman would be vehement that his own OD had been accidental, but later would change his tune.)
Anyway, it would be nice if the moral of this story were more than the parsing of gossipy details or the inevitable speculation that Orton’s new “candid” interview was just a self-congratulating work-shoot-work-shoot ploy to boost the sales of Randy Orton: Evolution of a Predator (of course it was). Orton is also, by his count, a six-concussion survivor – an issue which, like drug abuse, transcends both wrestling and its vastly larger cousin entertainment, pro football. The measurements of the ingredients of the “cocktail of death” are debatable – but not the conclusion that it’s a serious public health problem.
Irv Muchnick
Breaking his years-long silence on the subject, Randy Orton has acknowledged in an Arizona radio interview that in 2006 he indeed overdosed on an unspecified drug, was rushed by his then-fiancee to a suburban St. Louis hospital (DePaul Health Center, I can now report), and nearly died.http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
This verifies the account first published on this blog a year after the incident. The most comprehensive retrospective here – in January 2010 during the U.S. Senate campaign in Connecticut – was “The Suicide Attempt (Part 2 – Randy Orton, Poster Boy for Linda McMahon’s WWE ‘Wellness Policy’),” http://wrestlingbabylon.wordpress.com/2010/01/13/the-suicide-attempt-part-2-randy-orton-poster-boy-for-linda-mcmahon%E2%80%99s-wwe-%E2%80%98wellness-policy%E2%80%99/.
The audio of Orton’s KUPD-Tempe interview is up on his own site at http://randy-orton.com/2011/06/randy-talks-with-98-kupd-arizonas-real-rock/.
Cageside Seats’ S. Bruce was the first wrestling journalist to report Orton’s admission, at http://www.cagesideseats.com/2011/6/29/2250462/outrageous-randy-orton-interview. Bruce notes that this confirms, “in part, Irv Muchnick’s story in 2007 that Orton had overdosed, although Irv initially claimed it was a suicide attempt, which is clearly not the case.”
At the Pro Wrestling Torch site, James Caldwell goes minimalist and cryptic: “Orton talked candidly about past drug abuse issues, including a documented incident five years ago when he ‘stopped breathing’ and his wife called an ambulance to save his life.”
Wrestling Observer’s Dave Meltzer makes the important marketing tie-in to Orton’s disclosure: “He admitted to overdosing, stopped breathing and being rushed to the hospital in 2006 (this story had been reported by Irv Muchnick shortly after it happened) but he also admits to that on a new documentary DVD the company is putting out.”
When I broke the story, Brian Stull of KFNS radio in St. Louis had me on his “Stranglehold” show to talk about it. Beforehand, Stull spoke off the air with Orton’s father, Bob Orton Jr., who denied all. But Cowboy Bob later vaguely confirmed the episode in a KFNS documentary series on local sports heroes.
At the time, I did no favors to my opportunity to focus wrestling fans on the key issues when my early reports included easy-to-nitpick errors about the time frame of Orton’s OD and the background of his “legend killer” gimmick. So, yes, I wish I had rolled out the story more effectively.
I doubt, however, that perfection – as opposed to an overall sound scoop – would have made any difference. Just a few months after the Chris Benoit murder-suicide gripped mainstream media the world over, the news that a bankable WWE star had already gone through a hushed-up near-death experience would have resonated if fans, and the media pandering to them, wanted it that way. But they were eager to crawl back into their shells of denial. Not even the additional information that Randy Orton mysteriously dodged a suspension in the contemporaneous Signature Pharmacy scandal could shake the deniers out of their complacency.
As for the assertion by Bruce of Cageside Seats that there “clearly” was no suicide attempt ... I’m not so sure. The slope of agency in drug overdoses can be slippery, and the bottom line of mortality doesn’t account for intent. (In 2008 Sean Waltman would be vehement that his own OD had been accidental, but later would change his tune.)
Anyway, it would be nice if the moral of this story were more than the parsing of gossipy details or the inevitable speculation that Orton’s new “candid” interview was just a self-congratulating work-shoot-work-shoot ploy to boost the sales of Randy Orton: Evolution of a Predator (of course it was). Orton is also, by his count, a six-concussion survivor – an issue which, like drug abuse, transcends both wrestling and its vastly larger cousin entertainment, pro football. The measurements of the ingredients of the “cocktail of death” are debatable – but not the conclusion that it’s a serious public health problem.
Irv Muchnick
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
And the NFL Band Played On: Concussion Crisis Destined To Become Sports World Counterpart of AIDS Saga (full text)
[originally published 6/24 at http://www.beyondchron.org/articles/And_the_NFL_Band_Played_On_Concussion_Crisis_Destined_To_Become_Sports_World_Counterpart_of_AIDS_Saga_9292.html]
by Irvin Muchnick
The absolute power of the National Football League has corrupted our sports culture absolutely. In his recent intemperate email to me, The New York Times’ concussion reporter, Alan Schwarz, complained that I have failed to credit him with uncovering a “conspiracy” in the marketing of flawed helmets to youth football players. But, as I see the larger arc of the story, there was no conspiracy. Rather, I see how Schwarz’s choice of a safely domestic investigative target exposes the diminished ambition behind institutional journalism’s insincerely overheated rhetoric.
Since at the very latest 1994, the NFL has been served ample forensic notice that the sport it markets was growing out of human and medical control. These are not ACL’s and torn shoulder capsules we’re talking about, people; they are the brains of frighteningly large numbers of American males who have participated, in organized fashion and from very early ages, in an activity that is a staple of adult approval and social status.
And what did the league, its fawning media, its co-profiting sponsors, and its frat-pack fans do about it? As little as they could get away with.
As this multi-generational saga takes sharper shape with the rush of new discovered cases of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) and with the sentimentally airbrushed back story of NFL player “advocate” Dave Duerson’s suicide, I find “conspiracy” to be a very tepid term, indeed, for the pervasive self-delusion that has gripped all of us for years, for decades. The title of one of historian Barbara Tuchman’s books says it better: The March of Folly. The title of Randy Shilts’ chronicle of the AIDS epidemic says it better still: And the Band Played On.
To be very clear here, we continue to have no evidence – none – that the league leadership grasps this problem at a level more profound than public relations. The new co-chairs of the NFL’s concussion policy committee, Dr. H. Hunt Batjer and Dr. Richard Ellenbogen, were supposed to be making a complete break with the conflicted and unsavory work of their predecessors when they were appointed last year. Don’t make me laugh – it might snap a synapse in my own still barely functioning noodle.
Batjer and Ellenbogen have done nothing at all to squelch the influence of the Pittsburgh Steelers’ University of Pittsburgh Medical Center team, including Joseph Maroon, whose many commercial hats also include the role of a doctor on Twitter for World Wrestling Entertainment. Batjer and Ellenbogen have continued on the NFL’s merry path of “Zackery Lystedt legislation,” in Washington and other states, to raise “concussion awareness” and to codify the purchase and use by public school districts of the Maroon team’s highly dubious for-profit “concussion management software.”
“I defer to the guys who are the experts at football: the competition committee, people like John Madden who actually know the game,” Dr. Ellenbogen said last month.
Once the owners’ lockout of players is out of the way, Commissioner Roger Goodell can get on with the task of loading up the NFL season with more games and more gambling opportunities while he touts the league’s total $20 million investment – taxicab money for a $9-billion-a-year industry – in scandalously dependent and controlling research on brain trauma. Before you know it, he’ll be as comfortable in retirement as his predecessor, Paul Tagliabue, and it’ll be the next regime’s turn for “catch me if you can.”
In December 2009 a Cincinnati Bengals wide receiver named Chris Henry was killed when he fell out of the back of a truck while stalking his fiancée. Henry was one of the circle of bad boys out of West Virginia University and his five-year NFL career was marred by legal scrapes. In June 2010 an autopsy by the West Virginia Brain Injury Research Institute found that Henry had the accumulations of tau protein associated with CTE.
Here is what Ellenbogen told Schwarz for a Times “news analysis”: “I’m really worried that we’re going to get to where if you have a challenging personality, it must be CTE — that’s really a dangerous way of going.We really need to be careful to parse out the underlying personality issues from the underlying injuries. This is probably just one factor among many that can put someone over the edge.”
Really on a roll here, analyst Schwarz clucked, “[I]f concussions turned every player felonious, Troy Aikman and Steve Young would be broadcasting games from C-block. Many players later found with CTE managed not to commit crimeshttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif.” The Timesman concluded: “To be truly valuable moving forward, the legacy of the Chris Henry finding will not be to look back and assign blame for players’ past acts, but to look ahead at how future behavior among players at all levels will derive from a cocktail of factors — psychological, neurological, societal, genetic, or sometimes, just being a jerk.”
And thus the disclaimer, which could have been tossed off with a phrase, becomes the centerpiece of the analysis.
At least football participants have the excuse of brain tissue deadened by tau proteins. What is the excuse for all us spectators?
Irvin Muchnick (http://muchnick.net) is author of CHRIS & NANCY: The True Story of the Benoit Murder-Suicide and Pro Wrestling’s Cocktail of Death.
by Irvin Muchnick
The absolute power of the National Football League has corrupted our sports culture absolutely. In his recent intemperate email to me, The New York Times’ concussion reporter, Alan Schwarz, complained that I have failed to credit him with uncovering a “conspiracy” in the marketing of flawed helmets to youth football players. But, as I see the larger arc of the story, there was no conspiracy. Rather, I see how Schwarz’s choice of a safely domestic investigative target exposes the diminished ambition behind institutional journalism’s insincerely overheated rhetoric.
Since at the very latest 1994, the NFL has been served ample forensic notice that the sport it markets was growing out of human and medical control. These are not ACL’s and torn shoulder capsules we’re talking about, people; they are the brains of frighteningly large numbers of American males who have participated, in organized fashion and from very early ages, in an activity that is a staple of adult approval and social status.
And what did the league, its fawning media, its co-profiting sponsors, and its frat-pack fans do about it? As little as they could get away with.
As this multi-generational saga takes sharper shape with the rush of new discovered cases of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) and with the sentimentally airbrushed back story of NFL player “advocate” Dave Duerson’s suicide, I find “conspiracy” to be a very tepid term, indeed, for the pervasive self-delusion that has gripped all of us for years, for decades. The title of one of historian Barbara Tuchman’s books says it better: The March of Folly. The title of Randy Shilts’ chronicle of the AIDS epidemic says it better still: And the Band Played On.
To be very clear here, we continue to have no evidence – none – that the league leadership grasps this problem at a level more profound than public relations. The new co-chairs of the NFL’s concussion policy committee, Dr. H. Hunt Batjer and Dr. Richard Ellenbogen, were supposed to be making a complete break with the conflicted and unsavory work of their predecessors when they were appointed last year. Don’t make me laugh – it might snap a synapse in my own still barely functioning noodle.
Batjer and Ellenbogen have done nothing at all to squelch the influence of the Pittsburgh Steelers’ University of Pittsburgh Medical Center team, including Joseph Maroon, whose many commercial hats also include the role of a doctor on Twitter for World Wrestling Entertainment. Batjer and Ellenbogen have continued on the NFL’s merry path of “Zackery Lystedt legislation,” in Washington and other states, to raise “concussion awareness” and to codify the purchase and use by public school districts of the Maroon team’s highly dubious for-profit “concussion management software.”
“I defer to the guys who are the experts at football: the competition committee, people like John Madden who actually know the game,” Dr. Ellenbogen said last month.
Once the owners’ lockout of players is out of the way, Commissioner Roger Goodell can get on with the task of loading up the NFL season with more games and more gambling opportunities while he touts the league’s total $20 million investment – taxicab money for a $9-billion-a-year industry – in scandalously dependent and controlling research on brain trauma. Before you know it, he’ll be as comfortable in retirement as his predecessor, Paul Tagliabue, and it’ll be the next regime’s turn for “catch me if you can.”
In December 2009 a Cincinnati Bengals wide receiver named Chris Henry was killed when he fell out of the back of a truck while stalking his fiancée. Henry was one of the circle of bad boys out of West Virginia University and his five-year NFL career was marred by legal scrapes. In June 2010 an autopsy by the West Virginia Brain Injury Research Institute found that Henry had the accumulations of tau protein associated with CTE.
Here is what Ellenbogen told Schwarz for a Times “news analysis”: “I’m really worried that we’re going to get to where if you have a challenging personality, it must be CTE — that’s really a dangerous way of going.We really need to be careful to parse out the underlying personality issues from the underlying injuries. This is probably just one factor among many that can put someone over the edge.”
Really on a roll here, analyst Schwarz clucked, “[I]f concussions turned every player felonious, Troy Aikman and Steve Young would be broadcasting games from C-block. Many players later found with CTE managed not to commit crimeshttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif.” The Timesman concluded: “To be truly valuable moving forward, the legacy of the Chris Henry finding will not be to look back and assign blame for players’ past acts, but to look ahead at how future behavior among players at all levels will derive from a cocktail of factors — psychological, neurological, societal, genetic, or sometimes, just being a jerk.”
And thus the disclaimer, which could have been tossed off with a phrase, becomes the centerpiece of the analysis.
At least football participants have the excuse of brain tissue deadened by tau proteins. What is the excuse for all us spectators?
Irvin Muchnick (http://muchnick.net) is author of CHRIS & NANCY: The True Story of the Benoit Murder-Suicide and Pro Wrestling’s Cocktail of Death.
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
WWE Releases Chris Benoit Story Figure Chavo Guerrero
[posted 6/26/11 at http://wrestlingbabylon.wordpress.com]http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.ghttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifif
As they did referee Scott Armstrong before bringing him back this year, WWE has parted company with wrestler Chavo Guerrero. Like Armstrong, Guerrero had received Chris Benoit’s final text messages during the horrific double murder/suicide incident that took place, coincidentally, four years ago this weekend.
David Bixenspan of Cageside Seats reviews some of this history at http://www.cagesideseats.com/2011/6/25/2243946/wwe-releases-chavo-guerrero-who-claims-that-he-quit.
Bixenspan doesn’t mention here something else about Guerrero: the time he got knocked unconscious on live television and was attended to by, among others, Stephanie McMahon Levesque – who later would tell Congressional investigators the bald-faced lie that she had never been aware of a single occupational concussion at WWE. See the July 2010 item about Guerrero’s 2004 concussion by Cageside Seats’ Keith Harris at http://www.cagesideseats.com/2010/7/7/1557283/did-wwe-downplay-the-severity-of.
Irv Muchnick
As they did referee Scott Armstrong before bringing him back this year, WWE has parted company with wrestler Chavo Guerrero. Like Armstrong, Guerrero had received Chris Benoit’s final text messages during the horrific double murder/suicide incident that took place, coincidentally, four years ago this weekend.
David Bixenspan of Cageside Seats reviews some of this history at http://www.cagesideseats.com/2011/6/25/2243946/wwe-releases-chavo-guerrero-who-claims-that-he-quit.
Bixenspan doesn’t mention here something else about Guerrero: the time he got knocked unconscious on live television and was attended to by, among others, Stephanie McMahon Levesque – who later would tell Congressional investigators the bald-faced lie that she had never been aware of a single occupational concussion at WWE. See the July 2010 item about Guerrero’s 2004 concussion by Cageside Seats’ Keith Harris at http://www.cagesideseats.com/2010/7/7/1557283/did-wwe-downplay-the-severity-of.
Irv Muchnick
View the Dissident NFL Retirees’ Washington Press Conference at Dave Pear’s Blog
[posted 6/26/11 at http://wrestlingbabylon.wordpress.com]http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gihttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.giff
Two days ago I posted comments by one-time San Francisco 49er Super Bowler George Visger, who has lived for nearly three decades with a crippling head injury. Visger was part of the delegation speaking on June 20 at the National Press Club in Washington in support of the lawsuit led by ex-Minnesota Viking great Carl Eller. Dave Pear, who heads the best-organized group of National Football League retirees lobbying for better pension and disability benefits, has posted the video at http://davepear.com/blog/2011/06/retired-football-players-june-20th-press-conference/.
A few notes from here:
* The mix of faces at this event included not only Eller but also other African Americans in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, such as Lem Barney and Irv Cross (who moderated the conference). This thoroughly refutes the whisper campaign by NFL Players Association leadership that criticism of it is racially based.
* A number of current NFL players showed up to support the Eller group. I will list all their names in a separate post. While Tom Brady and the Manning brothers sue the league to end the lockout over their inalienable right to hoard $90 million a year each, or whatever the traffic will bear for their services, it is heartening to see that a contingent of their contemporaries maintains a broader perspective.
* Though the general abandonment of retired players is a legitimate economic and moral issue, I am not going to belabor all of their grievances. From a public health standpoint, there is a crucial difference between orthopedic injuries and brain trauma. What has brought us to a national tipping point, in my view, is the league’s denial of a generation of evidence with respect to the latter.
Irv Muchnick
Two days ago I posted comments by one-time San Francisco 49er Super Bowler George Visger, who has lived for nearly three decades with a crippling head injury. Visger was part of the delegation speaking on June 20 at the National Press Club in Washington in support of the lawsuit led by ex-Minnesota Viking great Carl Eller. Dave Pear, who heads the best-organized group of National Football League retirees lobbying for better pension and disability benefits, has posted the video at http://davepear.com/blog/2011/06/retired-football-players-june-20th-press-conference/.
A few notes from here:
* The mix of faces at this event included not only Eller but also other African Americans in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, such as Lem Barney and Irv Cross (who moderated the conference). This thoroughly refutes the whisper campaign by NFL Players Association leadership that criticism of it is racially based.
* A number of current NFL players showed up to support the Eller group. I will list all their names in a separate post. While Tom Brady and the Manning brothers sue the league to end the lockout over their inalienable right to hoard $90 million a year each, or whatever the traffic will bear for their services, it is heartening to see that a contingent of their contemporaries maintains a broader perspective.
* Though the general abandonment of retired players is a legitimate economic and moral issue, I am not going to belabor all of their grievances. From a public health standpoint, there is a crucial difference between orthopedic injuries and brain trauma. What has brought us to a national tipping point, in my view, is the league’s denial of a generation of evidence with respect to the latter.
Irv Muchnick
Chicago Tribune: ‘Doubts Cast on Concussion Remedies’
[posted 6/25/11 at http://wrestlingbabylon.wordpress.com]http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.ghttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifif
Health reporter Julie Deardorff has an excellent piece today at http://www.chicagotribune.com/health/ct-met-concussion-products-health-20110625,0,761365,full.story. Some highlights:
* “Though parents routinely ask for a ‘concussion-proof’ helmet, there is no way to prevent a brain injury … short of not participating in the sport.”
* “[I]nstead of seeking out products, ... parents should put their energy into familiarizing themselves with the often subtle symptoms of concussion and asking coaches about teams’ plans for addressing possible concussions on the field.”
* “Critics say the [neurocognitive] computer programs are unreliable and may actually increase risks because they likely have a high ‘false negative’ rate, meaning they may show an athlete has recovered when he or she is still cognitively impaired.”
Irv Muchnick
Health reporter Julie Deardorff has an excellent piece today at http://www.chicagotribune.com/health/ct-met-concussion-products-health-20110625,0,761365,full.story. Some highlights:
* “Though parents routinely ask for a ‘concussion-proof’ helmet, there is no way to prevent a brain injury … short of not participating in the sport.”
* “[I]nstead of seeking out products, ... parents should put their energy into familiarizing themselves with the often subtle symptoms of concussion and asking coaches about teams’ plans for addressing possible concussions on the field.”
* “Critics say the [neurocognitive] computer programs are unreliable and may actually increase risks because they likely have a high ‘false negative’ rate, meaning they may show an athlete has recovered when he or she is still cognitively impaired.”
Irv Muchnick
Former San Francisco 49er George Visger Comments on Today’s Article at Beyond Chron
[posted 6/24/11 at http://wrestlingbabylon.wordpress.com]http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
This was just posted as a comment to the previous item on the blog. But it warrants its own headline and posting.
Irvin
I agree with you, but think Ellenbogen is trying to do the right thing. I played DT for the 49ers in 80 & 81 when I developed hydrocephalus from numerous concussions, and underwent emergency VP Shunt brain surgery at age 22. My shunt failed (in Mexico fishing) just 4 months after we won Super Bowl XVI and my brother brought me home in a coma. I under went 2 more brain surgeries 10 hours apart and was given last rites. I was also given the hospital bills, and had creditors on me for nearly 5 years till I successfully sued the 49ers for WORKERS COMP! I am now on brain surgery # 9, multiple gran mal seizures and currently taking my 6th different seizure med since starting on them over 25 years ago. The side effects have been catastrophic on my everyday life.
Ellenbogen called me ~ 1 1/2 years ago when I called him out on Dave Pear’s blog immediately after he was hired. He and I correspond regularly now. He asked I submit suggested rule changes which he would present to the NFL Rules Committee. Many of my suggestions have been implemented today (much to the chagrin of players). Only difference I had was I wanted all fines for head to head hits levied at the owners not the players.
I was one of 4 ex players and 5 NFL Hall of Fame players asked to speak at a press conference in Washington DC last Monday, prior to the Carl Eller vs NFL lawsuit.
We need more folks like you not afraid to air the NFL’s dirty laundry.
George Visger
SF 49ers 80 & 81
Survivor of 9 NFL Caused Emergency VP Shunt Brain Surgeries
Benefactor of ZERO NFL Benefits
This was just posted as a comment to the previous item on the blog. But it warrants its own headline and posting.
Irvin
I agree with you, but think Ellenbogen is trying to do the right thing. I played DT for the 49ers in 80 & 81 when I developed hydrocephalus from numerous concussions, and underwent emergency VP Shunt brain surgery at age 22. My shunt failed (in Mexico fishing) just 4 months after we won Super Bowl XVI and my brother brought me home in a coma. I under went 2 more brain surgeries 10 hours apart and was given last rites. I was also given the hospital bills, and had creditors on me for nearly 5 years till I successfully sued the 49ers for WORKERS COMP! I am now on brain surgery # 9, multiple gran mal seizures and currently taking my 6th different seizure med since starting on them over 25 years ago. The side effects have been catastrophic on my everyday life.
Ellenbogen called me ~ 1 1/2 years ago when I called him out on Dave Pear’s blog immediately after he was hired. He and I correspond regularly now. He asked I submit suggested rule changes which he would present to the NFL Rules Committee. Many of my suggestions have been implemented today (much to the chagrin of players). Only difference I had was I wanted all fines for head to head hits levied at the owners not the players.
I was one of 4 ex players and 5 NFL Hall of Fame players asked to speak at a press conference in Washington DC last Monday, prior to the Carl Eller vs NFL lawsuit.
We need more folks like you not afraid to air the NFL’s dirty laundry.
George Visger
SF 49ers 80 & 81
Survivor of 9 NFL Caused Emergency VP Shunt Brain Surgeries
Benefactor of ZERO NFL Benefits
Sunday, June 26, 2011
‘And the NFL Band Played On’ ... today at Beyond Chron
[posted 6/24/11 at http://wrestlingbabylon.wordpress.com]http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
And the NFL Band Played On: Concussion Crisis Destined to Become Sports World Counterpart of AIDS Saga
by Irvin Muchnick
The absolute power of the National Football League has corrupted our sports culture absolutely. In his recent intemperate email to me, The New York Times’ concussion reporter, Alan Schwarz, complained that I have failed to credit him with uncovering a “conspiracy” in the marketing of flawed helmets to youth football players. But, as I see the larger arc of the story, there was no conspiracy. Rather, I see how Schwarz’s choice of a safely domestic investigative target exposes the diminished ambition behind institutional journalism’s insincerely overheated rhetoric.
Since at the very latest 1994, the NFL has been served ample forensic nohttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.giftice that the sport it markets was growing out of human and medical control. These are not ACL’s and torn shoulder capsules we’re talking about, people; they are the brains of frighteningly large numbers of American males who have participated, in organized fashion and from very early ages, in an activity that is a staple of adult approval and social status.
And what did the league, its fawning media, its co-profiting sponsors, and its frat-pack fans do about it? As little as they could get away with.
CONTINUED TODAY AT BEYOND CHRON, THE SAN FRANCISCO ONLINE NEWSPAPER:
http://www.beyondchron.org/articles/And_the_NFL_Band_Played_On_Concussion_Crisis_Destined_To_Become_Sports_World_Counterpart_of_AIDS_Saga_9292.html
And the NFL Band Played On: Concussion Crisis Destined to Become Sports World Counterpart of AIDS Saga
by Irvin Muchnick
The absolute power of the National Football League has corrupted our sports culture absolutely. In his recent intemperate email to me, The New York Times’ concussion reporter, Alan Schwarz, complained that I have failed to credit him with uncovering a “conspiracy” in the marketing of flawed helmets to youth football players. But, as I see the larger arc of the story, there was no conspiracy. Rather, I see how Schwarz’s choice of a safely domestic investigative target exposes the diminished ambition behind institutional journalism’s insincerely overheated rhetoric.
Since at the very latest 1994, the NFL has been served ample forensic nohttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.giftice that the sport it markets was growing out of human and medical control. These are not ACL’s and torn shoulder capsules we’re talking about, people; they are the brains of frighteningly large numbers of American males who have participated, in organized fashion and from very early ages, in an activity that is a staple of adult approval and social status.
And what did the league, its fawning media, its co-profiting sponsors, and its frat-pack fans do about it? As little as they could get away with.
CONTINUED TODAY AT BEYOND CHRON, THE SAN FRANCISCO ONLINE NEWSPAPER:
http://www.beyondchron.org/articles/And_the_NFL_Band_Played_On_Concussion_Crisis_Destined_To_Become_Sports_World_Counterpart_of_AIDS_Saga_9292.html
More From Matt Chaney: ‘Research of NFL Brain Trauma Sputters Along’
[posted 6/23/11 at http://wrestlingbabylon.wordpress.com]http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.ghttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifif
Research of NFL Brain Sputters Along; Epidemiologic Study Nowhere in Sight for Afflicted Players
http://blog.4wallspublishing.com/2011/06/23/research-for-nfl-brain-trauma-sputters-along.aspx
Money quote:
Critics of autopsy-based NFL research contend large-scale epidemiological study of living players is urgently needed, valid random clinical trial conducted by a multidisciplinary team of experts and preferably free from influence by the likely funding sources of football. Large control groups must be assembled and quickly, among challenges, say observers such as epidemiologist Charles E. Yesalis, ScD, professor emeritus of Penn State University.
...
No party among the NFL, the NFLPA and NCAA has yet to support such ambitious, costly research while the government has expressed no interest, and other potential sponsors aren’t forthcoming at moment.
Smaller studies are underway, nevertheless, and findings and expert opinion increasingly suggest epidemic parameters for cognitive impairment in players of pro football, if not those of collegiate, school and youth levels.
Research of NFL Brain Sputters Along; Epidemiologic Study Nowhere in Sight for Afflicted Players
http://blog.4wallspublishing.com/2011/06/23/research-for-nfl-brain-trauma-sputters-along.aspx
Money quote:
Critics of autopsy-based NFL research contend large-scale epidemiological study of living players is urgently needed, valid random clinical trial conducted by a multidisciplinary team of experts and preferably free from influence by the likely funding sources of football. Large control groups must be assembled and quickly, among challenges, say observers such as epidemiologist Charles E. Yesalis, ScD, professor emeritus of Penn State University.
...
No party among the NFL, the NFLPA and NCAA has yet to support such ambitious, costly research while the government has expressed no interest, and other potential sponsors aren’t forthcoming at moment.
Smaller studies are underway, nevertheless, and findings and expert opinion increasingly suggest epidemic parameters for cognitive impairment in players of pro football, if not those of collegiate, school and youth levels.
‘And the NFL Band Played On: Concussion Crisis Destined to Become Sports World Counterpart of AIDS Saga’ …
[posted 6/23/11 at http://wrestlingbabylon.wordpress.com]http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
... headline of new piece tomorrow at Beyond Chron.
... headline of new piece tomorrow at Beyond Chron.
Saturday, June 25, 2011
Meet the New NFL Concussion Czars ... Same As the Old NFL Concussion Czars
[posted 6/22/11 at http://wrestlingbabylon.wordpress.com]http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
We all know what happened to Congressman Anthony Weiner of New York. Last year, before the Democrats lost control of the House of Representatives and he lost his own seat in a personal scandal, Weiner was the second most effective member of the Judiciary Committee putting heat on the National Football League for its unforgivable suppression and denial of research on chronic traumatic encephalopathy.
(The most effective committee member was Linda Sanchez of California, who in 2009 committee hearings drew the analogy between the NFL and the tobacco industry.)
In March 2010 the NFL’s concussion policy panel, called the Mild Traumatic Brain Injury Committee, got a new name and new co-chairs. Now known as the Head, Neck and Spine Medical Committee, it is jointly chaired by Dr. H. Hunt Batjer, of Northwestern Memorial Hospital outside Chicago, and Dr. Richard Ellenbogen, of Harborview Medical Center in Seattle. Batjer and Ellenbogen replaced the disgraced Dr. Ira Casson and Dr. David Viano, who in turn had replaced the disgraced Dr. Elliot Pellman.
Though Batjer and Ellenbogen promised to sweep out the Augean stable of league head injury custodians, they have done nothing of the sort. For example, Dr. Joseph Maroon, whose corrupt involvement in this sordid history has been extensively documented by me, remains on the committee.
And in July the two new co-chairs reversed a commitment not to release an ambiguously worded NFL helmet safety study with limited or no value for the broader universe of amateur helmet consumers. In the good coverage of this narrow issue by The New York Times’ Alan Schwarz, Ellenbogen explained that he decided the study was OK “as long as statements were phrased very carefully.” Congressman Weiner blasted this “disturbing step backwards.”
Meanwhile, Batjer and Ellenbogen – who are supposed to be independent but whose public statements get screened by the NFL office – forged ahead with mom-and-apple-pie projects, such as the toughening up of language in posters warning players of the risk of brain injury.http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
Last month Ellenbogen told The Wall Street Journal: “I defer to the guys who are the experts at football: the competition committee, people like John Madden who actually know the game.” (The money-grubbing Madden knows the game so well that the new edition of his bestselling video game bows to the new “concussion awareness.”) For a good analysis of Ellenbogen’s flawed stance, see “For the NFL, Is More Protection Really the Answer to Its Concussion Quandary?” by Mike Seely of Seattle Weekly, http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/dailyweekly/2011/05/for_the_nfl_is_more_protection.php.
Irv Muchnick
We all know what happened to Congressman Anthony Weiner of New York. Last year, before the Democrats lost control of the House of Representatives and he lost his own seat in a personal scandal, Weiner was the second most effective member of the Judiciary Committee putting heat on the National Football League for its unforgivable suppression and denial of research on chronic traumatic encephalopathy.
(The most effective committee member was Linda Sanchez of California, who in 2009 committee hearings drew the analogy between the NFL and the tobacco industry.)
In March 2010 the NFL’s concussion policy panel, called the Mild Traumatic Brain Injury Committee, got a new name and new co-chairs. Now known as the Head, Neck and Spine Medical Committee, it is jointly chaired by Dr. H. Hunt Batjer, of Northwestern Memorial Hospital outside Chicago, and Dr. Richard Ellenbogen, of Harborview Medical Center in Seattle. Batjer and Ellenbogen replaced the disgraced Dr. Ira Casson and Dr. David Viano, who in turn had replaced the disgraced Dr. Elliot Pellman.
Though Batjer and Ellenbogen promised to sweep out the Augean stable of league head injury custodians, they have done nothing of the sort. For example, Dr. Joseph Maroon, whose corrupt involvement in this sordid history has been extensively documented by me, remains on the committee.
And in July the two new co-chairs reversed a commitment not to release an ambiguously worded NFL helmet safety study with limited or no value for the broader universe of amateur helmet consumers. In the good coverage of this narrow issue by The New York Times’ Alan Schwarz, Ellenbogen explained that he decided the study was OK “as long as statements were phrased very carefully.” Congressman Weiner blasted this “disturbing step backwards.”
Meanwhile, Batjer and Ellenbogen – who are supposed to be independent but whose public statements get screened by the NFL office – forged ahead with mom-and-apple-pie projects, such as the toughening up of language in posters warning players of the risk of brain injury.http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
Last month Ellenbogen told The Wall Street Journal: “I defer to the guys who are the experts at football: the competition committee, people like John Madden who actually know the game.” (The money-grubbing Madden knows the game so well that the new edition of his bestselling video game bows to the new “concussion awareness.”) For a good analysis of Ellenbogen’s flawed stance, see “For the NFL, Is More Protection Really the Answer to Its Concussion Quandary?” by Mike Seely of Seattle Weekly, http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/dailyweekly/2011/05/for_the_nfl_is_more_protection.php.
Irv Muchnick
‘America’s Game: NFL Poised to Win Labor Battle and Lose Public-Health Fight’ (full text)
[originally published 6/16 at http://www.beyondchron.org/articles/America_s_Game_NFL_Poised_to_Win_Labor_Battle_and_Lose_Public_Health_Fight_9269.html]
by Irvin Muchnick
Those who think the bargaining and legal skirmishes surrounding the National Football League and its players are in sudden death overtime have fallen for the oldest play-action fake in the book. The NFL lockout likely will resolve itself, perhaps even very soon and essentially in the owners’ favor. But the abject failure of both sides to accept accountability for the mental health of a generation of athletes – putting American youth in harm’s way in service of an industry bursting at the seams with greed – is a story that hasn’t even reached the two-minute warning of the first half.
The eyes of the sports-legal world are on Tom Brady v. NFL, the lawsuit by some of football’s richest stars to end the lockout. Not a single major newspaper or radio/television outlet has picked up the decision last month, in U.S. District Court in Maryland, in Brent V. Boyd v. Bert Bell/Pete Rozelle NFL Player Retirement Plan.
In a miscarriage of justice no less profound for not being shocking, Judge J. Frederick Motz granted summary judgment to the league’s retirement plan in a suit brought by Boyd, a Minnesota Viking offensive lineman in the 1980s, whose diagnosis of chronic traumatic encephalopathy was all but confirmed by a recent “virtual biopsy.” Boyd’s case and countless parallel ones, over a period of many years, will bring the human and societal toll of football home to the American public long after the beer and guacamole have been taken out of ice for this fall’s tailgate parties.
Outrageously, Judge Motz ruled that Boyd had not established “changed circumstances” in reapplying for NFL Player Care mental health benefits – this despite a decade of fresh, smoking-gun research on CTE, which league-affiliated doctors did their damndest to downplay. To the everlasting shame of the NFL Players Association, which appoints three of the six members of the disability plan review board, one of them was Dave Duerson, who loudly minimized multiple-concussion syndrome in 2007 Congressional testimony before killing himself this February – whereupon he was found to have had CTE himself.
According to the court, the newly published research and the Duerson scenario don’t matter; Brent Boyd did not have “changed circumstances,” for he was just as depressed and non-functional in 2000, when he first applied for mental disability benefits, as he remains in 2011.
Thanks for cutting to the heart of the matter, Your Honor.
Let’s see if the federal government now can be persuaded to take time out from its grandstanding investigation of the Bowl Championship Series, and have the Labor Department audit the Bell/Rozelle Plan. Underfunded and riddled with conflicts of interest, it makes a mockery of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act.
But regardless, disabled players’ litigation, Boyd’s and others, will proceed. At this point in the evolution of these cases, the plaintiffs’ attorneys, working on contingency fees, are outgunned by cost-plus-billing corporate law firms representing the NFL, which have the resources to make craven, sideline-tiptoeing arguments while they try to run out the clock. But eventually the cases will be joined, in spirit or in explicit class actions, as the magnitude of the slow destruction of millionaire professionals’ lives becomes evident and is connected to the stark and undercovered hazards of high school and peewee football. (One of the most intriguing pending cases, the first to touch the hot button of worker’s compensation, is by Dr. Eleanor Perfetto, wife of Ralph Wentzel, an NFL lineman in the sixties and seventies.)
After that, and as in the tobacco industry narrative, an enterprising state attorney general or two will step forward to frame lawsuits as public health system recoveries and to steer the fees to friendly and powerful plaintiffs’ firms. By then, outlets like The New York Times – which today seems to think we can all lean a little harder on football helmet manufacturers and call it a day – will have completed the process of measuring out their front-page crusades in coffee spoons.
Before that can happen, the nation must crab-walk through an interlude of the new half-assed “awareness,” which is little more than sophisticated and profit-enabling denial. This will include – you can all but set your watch by it – a second-concussion death of a teenage football player in a program that had been scared into buying the nearly useless neurocognitive testing system marketed by NFhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifL doctors (one of whom, Joseph Maroon, also shills for that charming death mill at World Wrestling Entertainment).
So far just one prominent CTE researcher is saying with clarity that only grown men should be playing tackle football. That is Dr. Bennet Omalu, who discovered this discrete pathology in 2002 and commenced shouting about it from rooftops – for which he got himself drummed out of the NFL establishment.
But who cares? Hank Williams Jr. is warming up his vocal chords. Meanwhile, the biggest scandal in sports history plays out in the shadows.
Irvin Muchnick, author of CHRIS & NANCY: The True Story of the Benoit Murder-Suicide and Pro Wrestling’s Cocktail of Death, blogs at http://wrestlingbabylon.wordpress.com and is “@irvmuch” on Twitter.
by Irvin Muchnick
Those who think the bargaining and legal skirmishes surrounding the National Football League and its players are in sudden death overtime have fallen for the oldest play-action fake in the book. The NFL lockout likely will resolve itself, perhaps even very soon and essentially in the owners’ favor. But the abject failure of both sides to accept accountability for the mental health of a generation of athletes – putting American youth in harm’s way in service of an industry bursting at the seams with greed – is a story that hasn’t even reached the two-minute warning of the first half.
The eyes of the sports-legal world are on Tom Brady v. NFL, the lawsuit by some of football’s richest stars to end the lockout. Not a single major newspaper or radio/television outlet has picked up the decision last month, in U.S. District Court in Maryland, in Brent V. Boyd v. Bert Bell/Pete Rozelle NFL Player Retirement Plan.
In a miscarriage of justice no less profound for not being shocking, Judge J. Frederick Motz granted summary judgment to the league’s retirement plan in a suit brought by Boyd, a Minnesota Viking offensive lineman in the 1980s, whose diagnosis of chronic traumatic encephalopathy was all but confirmed by a recent “virtual biopsy.” Boyd’s case and countless parallel ones, over a period of many years, will bring the human and societal toll of football home to the American public long after the beer and guacamole have been taken out of ice for this fall’s tailgate parties.
Outrageously, Judge Motz ruled that Boyd had not established “changed circumstances” in reapplying for NFL Player Care mental health benefits – this despite a decade of fresh, smoking-gun research on CTE, which league-affiliated doctors did their damndest to downplay. To the everlasting shame of the NFL Players Association, which appoints three of the six members of the disability plan review board, one of them was Dave Duerson, who loudly minimized multiple-concussion syndrome in 2007 Congressional testimony before killing himself this February – whereupon he was found to have had CTE himself.
According to the court, the newly published research and the Duerson scenario don’t matter; Brent Boyd did not have “changed circumstances,” for he was just as depressed and non-functional in 2000, when he first applied for mental disability benefits, as he remains in 2011.
Thanks for cutting to the heart of the matter, Your Honor.
Let’s see if the federal government now can be persuaded to take time out from its grandstanding investigation of the Bowl Championship Series, and have the Labor Department audit the Bell/Rozelle Plan. Underfunded and riddled with conflicts of interest, it makes a mockery of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act.
But regardless, disabled players’ litigation, Boyd’s and others, will proceed. At this point in the evolution of these cases, the plaintiffs’ attorneys, working on contingency fees, are outgunned by cost-plus-billing corporate law firms representing the NFL, which have the resources to make craven, sideline-tiptoeing arguments while they try to run out the clock. But eventually the cases will be joined, in spirit or in explicit class actions, as the magnitude of the slow destruction of millionaire professionals’ lives becomes evident and is connected to the stark and undercovered hazards of high school and peewee football. (One of the most intriguing pending cases, the first to touch the hot button of worker’s compensation, is by Dr. Eleanor Perfetto, wife of Ralph Wentzel, an NFL lineman in the sixties and seventies.)
After that, and as in the tobacco industry narrative, an enterprising state attorney general or two will step forward to frame lawsuits as public health system recoveries and to steer the fees to friendly and powerful plaintiffs’ firms. By then, outlets like The New York Times – which today seems to think we can all lean a little harder on football helmet manufacturers and call it a day – will have completed the process of measuring out their front-page crusades in coffee spoons.
Before that can happen, the nation must crab-walk through an interlude of the new half-assed “awareness,” which is little more than sophisticated and profit-enabling denial. This will include – you can all but set your watch by it – a second-concussion death of a teenage football player in a program that had been scared into buying the nearly useless neurocognitive testing system marketed by NFhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifL doctors (one of whom, Joseph Maroon, also shills for that charming death mill at World Wrestling Entertainment).
So far just one prominent CTE researcher is saying with clarity that only grown men should be playing tackle football. That is Dr. Bennet Omalu, who discovered this discrete pathology in 2002 and commenced shouting about it from rooftops – for which he got himself drummed out of the NFL establishment.
But who cares? Hank Williams Jr. is warming up his vocal chords. Meanwhile, the biggest scandal in sports history plays out in the shadows.
Irvin Muchnick, author of CHRIS & NANCY: The True Story of the Benoit Murder-Suicide and Pro Wrestling’s Cocktail of Death, blogs at http://wrestlingbabylon.wordpress.com and is “@irvmuch” on Twitter.
Must Read: FoxSports’ Alex Marvez on Strength Coach Legend Kim Wood’s Neck Symposium
[posted 6/20/11 at http://wrestlingbabylon.wordpress.com]http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
“NFL must help prevent head trauma”
Alex Marvez, foxsports.com
http://msn.foxsports.com/nfl/story/NFL-must-become-more-proactive-to-prevent-head-trauma-061911
“NFL must help prevent head trauma”
Alex Marvez, foxsports.com
http://msn.foxsports.com/nfl/story/NFL-must-become-more-proactive-to-prevent-head-trauma-061911
Thursday, June 23, 2011
Comedy Central: NFL’s PR Video of Dr. Joseph Maroon Conducting the Perfect Neurological Exam
[posted 6/20/11 at httphttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif://wrestlingbabylon.wordpress.com]http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
The National Football League’s new PR website, nflhealthandsafety.com, has a video demonstrating how Dr. Joseph Maroon, team neurosurgeon for the Pittsburgh Steelers, might examine a player who has been concussed. The clip, which Maroon describes as a kind of “two-minute drill” showing how a trained professional can check out a player “efficiently and expeditiously,” is unintentionally comical.
See http://nflhealthandsafety.com/2011/01/20/performing-a-neurological-exam/.
The obvious flaw here is that the person Maroon is examining passes all his markers perfectly. Is the NFL representing this as a typical outcome?
A companion piece might be a skit with the cast of Saturday Night Live reenacting the anecdote about the player who, the coach is told, doesn’t know his name. “Well, tell him his name and get him back out there!” the coach says.
Irv Muchnick
The National Football League’s new PR website, nflhealthandsafety.com, has a video demonstrating how Dr. Joseph Maroon, team neurosurgeon for the Pittsburgh Steelers, might examine a player who has been concussed. The clip, which Maroon describes as a kind of “two-minute drill” showing how a trained professional can check out a player “efficiently and expeditiously,” is unintentionally comical.
See http://nflhealthandsafety.com/2011/01/20/performing-a-neurological-exam/.
The obvious flaw here is that the person Maroon is examining passes all his markers perfectly. Is the NFL representing this as a typical outcome?
A companion piece might be a skit with the cast of Saturday Night Live reenacting the anecdote about the player who, the coach is told, doesn’t know his name. “Well, tell him his name and get him back out there!” the coach says.
Irv Muchnick
In Praise of Alan Schwarz and The New York Times … And On to the Work of the NFL Concussion Committee’s New Co-Chairs
[posted 6/19/11 at http://wrestlingbabylon.wordpress.com]http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.ghttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifif
Let’s move beyond my criticism of Alan Schwarz and The New York Times. I want to impress upon everyone not just that the Gray Lady recently has fumbled the ball in the red zone, but also how to regain the lost momentum of its generally excellent coverage of the concussion crisis prior to this year.
The Times website’s March 13, 2010, interactive timeline, “The N.F.L.’s Embattled Concussions Panel,” with references dating back to 1994, remains a great historical resource. I urge everyone to read it and follow the linked articles, at http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/03/17/sports/football/20100317_CONCUSSION_TIMELINE.html?ref=football.
Several things have gone wrong since then, in my view, beginning with the subtle co-optation of Schwarz, an inexperienced investigative reporter, which has paralleled that of his friend Chris Nowinski. It is hard to hear people nominating you for a Pulitzer Prize in Schwarz’s case, or to find yourself brokering a $1 million National Football League grant in Nowinski’s case, and retain your outsider’s edge. Someone whom The New Yorker quotes corrupt NFL doctor Joseph Maroon calling “the Socratic gadfly” of concussion discussion is receiving accolades with strings: he also is being unofficially appointed the amanuensis of the ruling class.
Add to all this last fall’s loss of Democratic control of the House of Representatives, whose Judiciary Committee had conducted the most penetrating public hearings drawing the parallel between the NFL and the tobacco industry, and you have a recipe for tepid and hyped measures like helmet reform, along with acquiescence in spurious and cost-shifting post-concussion “management.”
I am not the only observer who, in his own mind, damns The Times with such faint praise. I am just one of the few doing so out loud.
Coincident with The Times’ squishy coverage of the last year has been the NFL’s appointment of new co-chairs of its concussion policy committee. What have Dr. H. Hunt Batjer and Dr. Richard Ellenbogen accomplished so far? I’ll discuss that in upcoming posts.
Irv Muchnick
Let’s move beyond my criticism of Alan Schwarz and The New York Times. I want to impress upon everyone not just that the Gray Lady recently has fumbled the ball in the red zone, but also how to regain the lost momentum of its generally excellent coverage of the concussion crisis prior to this year.
The Times website’s March 13, 2010, interactive timeline, “The N.F.L.’s Embattled Concussions Panel,” with references dating back to 1994, remains a great historical resource. I urge everyone to read it and follow the linked articles, at http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/03/17/sports/football/20100317_CONCUSSION_TIMELINE.html?ref=football.
Several things have gone wrong since then, in my view, beginning with the subtle co-optation of Schwarz, an inexperienced investigative reporter, which has paralleled that of his friend Chris Nowinski. It is hard to hear people nominating you for a Pulitzer Prize in Schwarz’s case, or to find yourself brokering a $1 million National Football League grant in Nowinski’s case, and retain your outsider’s edge. Someone whom The New Yorker quotes corrupt NFL doctor Joseph Maroon calling “the Socratic gadfly” of concussion discussion is receiving accolades with strings: he also is being unofficially appointed the amanuensis of the ruling class.
Add to all this last fall’s loss of Democratic control of the House of Representatives, whose Judiciary Committee had conducted the most penetrating public hearings drawing the parallel between the NFL and the tobacco industry, and you have a recipe for tepid and hyped measures like helmet reform, along with acquiescence in spurious and cost-shifting post-concussion “management.”
I am not the only observer who, in his own mind, damns The Times with such faint praise. I am just one of the few doing so out loud.
Coincident with The Times’ squishy coverage of the last year has been the NFL’s appointment of new co-chairs of its concussion policy committee. What have Dr. H. Hunt Batjer and Dr. Richard Ellenbogen accomplished so far? I’ll discuss that in upcoming posts.
Irv Muchnick
Cageside Seats: Dr. Maroon’s ImPACT Clearance of Randy Orton for Tomorrow’s WWE Pay-Per-View ‘Questionable at Best’
[posted 6/18/11 to http://wrestlingbabylon.wordpress.com]http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.ghttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifif
“Randy Orton has been medically cleared for WWE Capitol Punishment”
by David Bixenspan of Cageside Seats:
http://www.cagesideseats.com/2011/6/18/2230917/randy-orton-has-been-medically-cleared-for-wwe-capitol-punishment
“Randy Orton has been medically cleared for WWE Capitol Punishment”
by David Bixenspan of Cageside Seats:
http://www.cagesideseats.com/2011/6/18/2230917/randy-orton-has-been-medically-cleared-for-wwe-capitol-punishment
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
New York Times Blacks Out Concussion Research Pioneer Bennet Omalu – While Coddling NFL / WWE Charlatan Joseph Maroon
[posted 6/17/11 at http://wrestlingbabylon.wordpress.com]http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
New York Times reporter Alan Schwarz, May 27: “As far as I know your concern with the coverage stems only from your Maroon-connection-to-Riddell-study issue. [I know that is not an issue] for reasons of which you are totally unaware …”
New York Times columnist George Vecsey, June 14: “the NYT has led that story for three years. what are you talking about?”
=====
We all realize that The New York Times is the worldwide leader in worldwide leadering. But on the story of the pandemic of traumatic brain injuries in sports and entertainment, exactly where is The Times trying to lead us?
An examination of the Newspaper of Record’s coverage over the last six months suggests that the answer is it is leading us to a world made safe for the National Football League and its $9-plus billion in annual revenues.
Pay plenty of lip service to the alleged mental health toll for the thousands upon thousands of professional and amateur athletes employed by the NFL or in its orbit – but also make sure all the opinion-making honor and commercial benefits are reaped by the very league-connected doctors whose corrupt research and false public statements brought us to this pass.
Last December 8 The Times led a story headlined “N.F.L. Invites Helmet Safety Ideas” with these words: “With the federal government, state legislatures and football helmets’ regulatory body already focusing on concussions and head protection, perhaps the most influential group of all — the N.F.L. — convened its own summit of experts Wednesday to discuss possible reforms.”
Try to imagine a Times story in the 1960s, subsequent to the surgeon general’s report on the dangers of cigarettes, with a lead characterizing the Tobacco Institute as “perhaps the most influential group of all.”
One of the NFL’s “summit of experts” – quoted in paragraph 3 of the Times account with the searing insight “there’s still more questions than answers” – was Dr. Joseph Maroon of the Pittsburgh Steelers medical team and the league’s concussion policy committee, as well as World Wrestling Entertainment. (The WWE line in Maroon’s resume is scrubbed in Times coverage.)
There are already plenty of answers about Maroon himself, one of the root liars of the concussion saga. The first cases of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) in football players, discovered by a then little-known deputy medical examiner in Pittsburgh named Bennet Omalu, were in Steelers players, including Terry Long. As this blog (citing Chris Nowinski’s book Head Games), has reported, Maroon attacked the “fallacious reasoning” of Omalu’s research and added, “I was the team neurosurgeon during Long’s entire tenure with the Steelers, and I still am. I re-checked my records; there was not one cerebral concussion documented in him during those entire seven years.”
But there was such documentation: a letter by Maroon himself.
Yet The Times continues to inflict unfiltered Maroon on the concussion education of its readers. Most recently, Maroon, who says he welcomes the federal investigation of his NFL-funded safety study of Riddell football helmets, has been given Times news real estate for the lame explanation that he studied good but Riddell promoted bad.
As for Dr. Omalu, he has not appeared even one time this year in print editions of The Times. On February 26, The Times did run a blog item by Toni Monkovic, which allowed that Omalu once upon a time “figured prominently” in a breakthrough finding of brain damage in NFL players. Monkovic also quoted author-blogger Matt Chaney’s report on Omalu’s call to sideline all concussed athletes for three months.
In lieu of conducting this threshold debate in print, however, The Times has chosen to go yawn and on about football helmets and neurocognitive testing. The latter is a field that Maroon and his University of Pittsburgh Medical Center colleagues, with their NFL affiliation, dominate via their for-profit concussion management software, ImPACT, which is making new inroads at the high school level thanks to state football safety legislation. This despite a substantial body of research – also unreported in The Times – arguing that neurocognitive testing in general, and ImPACT in particular, are at best ineffective.
And it’s not as if Omalu hasn’t been heard from lately in the CTE field: After several years of effective exile from the pages of the NFL-doctor-controlled journal Neurosurgery, he returned there under new management with a recent major article.
There’s no new management at the National Football League itself. For The New York Times and reporter Alan Schwarz (whom The New Yorker quotes the corrupt Dr. Maroon praising), that seems to be what counts most.
Irv Muchnick
New York Times reporter Alan Schwarz, May 27: “As far as I know your concern with the coverage stems only from your Maroon-connection-to-Riddell-study issue. [I know that is not an issue] for reasons of which you are totally unaware …”
New York Times columnist George Vecsey, June 14: “the NYT has led that story for three years. what are you talking about?”
=====
We all realize that The New York Times is the worldwide leader in worldwide leadering. But on the story of the pandemic of traumatic brain injuries in sports and entertainment, exactly where is The Times trying to lead us?
An examination of the Newspaper of Record’s coverage over the last six months suggests that the answer is it is leading us to a world made safe for the National Football League and its $9-plus billion in annual revenues.
Pay plenty of lip service to the alleged mental health toll for the thousands upon thousands of professional and amateur athletes employed by the NFL or in its orbit – but also make sure all the opinion-making honor and commercial benefits are reaped by the very league-connected doctors whose corrupt research and false public statements brought us to this pass.
Last December 8 The Times led a story headlined “N.F.L. Invites Helmet Safety Ideas” with these words: “With the federal government, state legislatures and football helmets’ regulatory body already focusing on concussions and head protection, perhaps the most influential group of all — the N.F.L. — convened its own summit of experts Wednesday to discuss possible reforms.”
Try to imagine a Times story in the 1960s, subsequent to the surgeon general’s report on the dangers of cigarettes, with a lead characterizing the Tobacco Institute as “perhaps the most influential group of all.”
One of the NFL’s “summit of experts” – quoted in paragraph 3 of the Times account with the searing insight “there’s still more questions than answers” – was Dr. Joseph Maroon of the Pittsburgh Steelers medical team and the league’s concussion policy committee, as well as World Wrestling Entertainment. (The WWE line in Maroon’s resume is scrubbed in Times coverage.)
There are already plenty of answers about Maroon himself, one of the root liars of the concussion saga. The first cases of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) in football players, discovered by a then little-known deputy medical examiner in Pittsburgh named Bennet Omalu, were in Steelers players, including Terry Long. As this blog (citing Chris Nowinski’s book Head Games), has reported, Maroon attacked the “fallacious reasoning” of Omalu’s research and added, “I was the team neurosurgeon during Long’s entire tenure with the Steelers, and I still am. I re-checked my records; there was not one cerebral concussion documented in him during those entire seven years.”
But there was such documentation: a letter by Maroon himself.
Yet The Times continues to inflict unfiltered Maroon on the concussion education of its readers. Most recently, Maroon, who says he welcomes the federal investigation of his NFL-funded safety study of Riddell football helmets, has been given Times news real estate for the lame explanation that he studied good but Riddell promoted bad.
As for Dr. Omalu, he has not appeared even one time this year in print editions of The Times. On February 26, The Times did run a blog item by Toni Monkovic, which allowed that Omalu once upon a time “figured prominently” in a breakthrough finding of brain damage in NFL players. Monkovic also quoted author-blogger Matt Chaney’s report on Omalu’s call to sideline all concussed athletes for three months.
In lieu of conducting this threshold debate in print, however, The Times has chosen to go yawn and on about football helmets and neurocognitive testing. The latter is a field that Maroon and his University of Pittsburgh Medical Center colleagues, with their NFL affiliation, dominate via their for-profit concussion management software, ImPACT, which is making new inroads at the high school level thanks to state football safety legislation. This despite a substantial body of research – also unreported in The Times – arguing that neurocognitive testing in general, and ImPACT in particular, are at best ineffective.
And it’s not as if Omalu hasn’t been heard from lately in the CTE field: After several years of effective exile from the pages of the NFL-doctor-controlled journal Neurosurgery, he returned there under new management with a recent major article.
There’s no new management at the National Football League itself. For The New York Times and reporter Alan Schwarz (whom The New Yorker quotes the corrupt Dr. Maroon praising), that seems to be what counts most.
Irv Muchnick
Wrestling Observer’s Dave Meltzer on Randy Orton’s Concussion and the Research of Dr. Bennet Omalu
[posted 6/16/11 at http://wrestlingbabylon.wordpress.com]http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifgif
From the June 20 issue of Dave Meltzer’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter. Reprinted with permission. For subscription information, go to http://www.f4wonline.com/.
Randy Orton suffered a legitimate concussion on the 6/12 show in Madrid, Spain, doing a three-way with Sheamus and Christian. That’s why he couldn’t wrestle on either Raw or Smackdown the next two days. On both shows, they acknowledged the concussion, but they were pushing on both shows that he would be wrestling Christian on the PPV. For the old wrestling business pre-2007, that would be a given, and he’d probably have wrestled on TV as well. But if he got a concussion on 6/12, the idea that he’d be fine to do a match on 6/19 is very questionable. Company policy is that with a legit concussion, you have to pass Dr. Joseph Maroon’s Impact testing to determine whether you are fit to go back out. It’s hard to believe that they would violate their own system and allow Orton to do anything where he’d have to take a bump until he was cleared. But it’s also operating very shady to the public to still be pushing his match for the PPV on Sunday. That in itself is a controversial subject, as the entire concussion diagnosis issue is filled with politics and agendas and contradictory viewpoints. There are a number of leaders in the field who dislike each other and run down the beliefs of the other. But what’s bad here is with a legitimate concussion, how can they possibly know the next day when taping Raw after Orton flew from Madrid directly to New York that Orton would be fine to wrestle six days later? If he passed the testing the day after a concussion, then all a sudden you have to wonder about the testing. If he didn’t, then WWE had no business pushing him wrestling for Sunday past saying he’s questionable and they would update later in the week. And if he can’t, given that Orton vs. Christian on paper is the No. 2 match on the show, but many consider it the No. 1 match on the show, they should at least on Raw and Smackdown push that there is a question regarding if this match can take place. It comes off really shady for a company that has worked hard to cleanse what has been a very negative image, particularly since it has to do with misleading its most loyal 2% of its audience.
In the ever-evolving science of concussion research and understanding, Dr. Bennett Omalu, who is, within the medical world considered the No. 1 authority on concussions, believes that any athlete who suffers a concussion should be kept out of action for 90 days. His reasoning is a concussion often involves head rotation, not limited to a blow to the skull, and that can cause tearing of brain tissue and can take 90 days for brain fluid to return to normal. The NFL and WWE, for instance, use Maroon’s system to determine whether a competitor has recovered enough to return. Among players, there has been talk that taking Ritalin can help you perform better in that testing and get you back on the field. It’s not like in MMA and boxing, if you are diagnosed with a concussion in a fight, you have a time frame when you can’t spar (although that is not always adhered to) and can’t fight. The time frames in major sports, as well as pro wrestling, are not usually as lengthy.
From the June 20 issue of Dave Meltzer’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter. Reprinted with permission. For subscription information, go to http://www.f4wonline.com/.
Randy Orton suffered a legitimate concussion on the 6/12 show in Madrid, Spain, doing a three-way with Sheamus and Christian. That’s why he couldn’t wrestle on either Raw or Smackdown the next two days. On both shows, they acknowledged the concussion, but they were pushing on both shows that he would be wrestling Christian on the PPV. For the old wrestling business pre-2007, that would be a given, and he’d probably have wrestled on TV as well. But if he got a concussion on 6/12, the idea that he’d be fine to do a match on 6/19 is very questionable. Company policy is that with a legit concussion, you have to pass Dr. Joseph Maroon’s Impact testing to determine whether you are fit to go back out. It’s hard to believe that they would violate their own system and allow Orton to do anything where he’d have to take a bump until he was cleared. But it’s also operating very shady to the public to still be pushing his match for the PPV on Sunday. That in itself is a controversial subject, as the entire concussion diagnosis issue is filled with politics and agendas and contradictory viewpoints. There are a number of leaders in the field who dislike each other and run down the beliefs of the other. But what’s bad here is with a legitimate concussion, how can they possibly know the next day when taping Raw after Orton flew from Madrid directly to New York that Orton would be fine to wrestle six days later? If he passed the testing the day after a concussion, then all a sudden you have to wonder about the testing. If he didn’t, then WWE had no business pushing him wrestling for Sunday past saying he’s questionable and they would update later in the week. And if he can’t, given that Orton vs. Christian on paper is the No. 2 match on the show, but many consider it the No. 1 match on the show, they should at least on Raw and Smackdown push that there is a question regarding if this match can take place. It comes off really shady for a company that has worked hard to cleanse what has been a very negative image, particularly since it has to do with misleading its most loyal 2% of its audience.
In the ever-evolving science of concussion research and understanding, Dr. Bennett Omalu, who is, within the medical world considered the No. 1 authority on concussions, believes that any athlete who suffers a concussion should be kept out of action for 90 days. His reasoning is a concussion often involves head rotation, not limited to a blow to the skull, and that can cause tearing of brain tissue and can take 90 days for brain fluid to return to normal. The NFL and WWE, for instance, use Maroon’s system to determine whether a competitor has recovered enough to return. Among players, there has been talk that taking Ritalin can help you perform better in that testing and get you back on the field. It’s not like in MMA and boxing, if you are diagnosed with a concussion in a fight, you have a time frame when you can’t spar (although that is not always adhered to) and can’t fight. The time frames in major sports, as well as pro wrestling, are not usually as lengthy.
‘America’s Game: NFL Poised to Win Labor Battle and Lose Public-Health Fight’ ... today at Beyond Chron
[posted 6/16/11 at http://wrestlingbabylon.wordpress.com]http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
Those who think the bargaining and legal skirmishes surrounding the National Football League and its players are in sudden death overtime have fallen for the oldest play-action fake in the book. The NFL lockout likely will resolve itself, perhaps even very soon and essentially in the owners’ favor. But the abject failure of both sides to accept accountability for the mental health of a generation of athletes – putting American youth in harm’s way in service of an industry bursting at the seams with greed – is a story that hasn’t even reached the two-minute warning of the first half.
The eyes of the sports-legal world are on Tom Brady v. NFL, the lawsuit by some of football’s richest stars to end the lockout. Not a single major newspaper or radio/television outlet has picked up the decision last month, in U.S. District Court in Maryland, in Brent V. Boyd v. Bert Bell/Pete Rozelle NFL Player Retirement Plan.
http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
In a miscarriage of justice no less profound for not being shocking, Judge J. Frederick Motz granted summary judgment to the league’s retirement plan in a suit brought by Boyd, a Minnesota Viking offensive lineman in the 1980s, whose diagnosis of chronic traumatic encephalopathy was all but confirmed by a recent “virtual biopsy.” Boyd’s case and countless parallel ones, over a period of many years, will bring the human and societal toll of football home to the American public long after the beer and guacamole have been taken out of ice for this fall’s tailgate parties.
CONTINUED TODAY AT BEYOND CHRON, THE SAN FRANCISCO ONLINE NEWSPAPER:
http://www.beyondchron.org/articles/America_s_Game_NFL_Poised_to_Win_Labor_Battle_and_Lose_Public_Health_Fight_9269.html
Those who think the bargaining and legal skirmishes surrounding the National Football League and its players are in sudden death overtime have fallen for the oldest play-action fake in the book. The NFL lockout likely will resolve itself, perhaps even very soon and essentially in the owners’ favor. But the abject failure of both sides to accept accountability for the mental health of a generation of athletes – putting American youth in harm’s way in service of an industry bursting at the seams with greed – is a story that hasn’t even reached the two-minute warning of the first half.
The eyes of the sports-legal world are on Tom Brady v. NFL, the lawsuit by some of football’s richest stars to end the lockout. Not a single major newspaper or radio/television outlet has picked up the decision last month, in U.S. District Court in Maryland, in Brent V. Boyd v. Bert Bell/Pete Rozelle NFL Player Retirement Plan.
http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
In a miscarriage of justice no less profound for not being shocking, Judge J. Frederick Motz granted summary judgment to the league’s retirement plan in a suit brought by Boyd, a Minnesota Viking offensive lineman in the 1980s, whose diagnosis of chronic traumatic encephalopathy was all but confirmed by a recent “virtual biopsy.” Boyd’s case and countless parallel ones, over a period of many years, will bring the human and societal toll of football home to the American public long after the beer and guacamole have been taken out of ice for this fall’s tailgate parties.
CONTINUED TODAY AT BEYOND CHRON, THE SAN FRANCISCO ONLINE NEWSPAPER:
http://www.beyondchron.org/articles/America_s_Game_NFL_Poised_to_Win_Labor_Battle_and_Lose_Public_Health_Fight_9269.html
FLASHBACK: How The New York Times Is Fumbling the National Sports Concussion Scandal
[posted 6/15/11 to http://wrestlingbabylon.wordpress.com]http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
New York Times reporter Alan Schwarz, May 27: “As far as I know your concern with the coverage stems only from your Maroon-connection-to-Riddell-study issue. [I know that is not an issue] for reasons of which you are totally unaware …”http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
New York Times columnist George Vecsey, June 14: “the NYT has led that story for three years. what are you talking about?”
=====
[originally published 6/3/11 at http://www.beyondchron.org/articles/How_the_New_York_Times_Is_Fumbling_the_National_Sports_Concussion_Scandal_9229.html]
How The New York Times Is Fumbling the National Sports Concussion Scandal
by Irvin Muchnick
In a January New Yorker article on the concussion crisis in football, writer Ben McGrath quoted Pittsburgh neurosurgeon Joseph Maroon speaking admiringly of Alan Schwarz, the New York Times reporter who created this beat and more recently was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. Schwarz, said Dr. Maroon, is “the Socratic gadfly in this whole mix.”
Unlike Socrates, however, Schwarz asks questions that are carefully and corporately adumbrated. The resultant national spirit of cautious inquiry into a stunningly broad public health story is being driven by our Newspaper of Record. This process has the effect of protecting powerful and moneyed interests.
As the game is currently being played, the final score will be some combination of Ivy League-style reforms of football safety and rules, in a sequel to President Teddy Roosevelt’s campaign in the early 20th century, along with federal investigations scapegoating helmet manufacturers – all while letting the $9-billion-a-year National Football League off the hook for a scandal of near-tobacco industry proportions.
I don’t think anyone from the Riddell helmet company is going to jail http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifafter Congress, the Consumer Product Safety Commission, and the Federal Trade Commission are finished probing how the company ran hard and fast with ambiguous data from a safety study underwritten by the NFL. Nor do I think anyone should, based on what we so far know, despite the Purple Heart that Schwarz awarded himself last week in a bush league email complaint about my blog’s coverage: “I kill myself for six months to expose a serious safety problem – and even conspiracy – in youth football, cause sweeping changes (some about to be announced) and investigations by the CPSC and the FTC …”
(For my full exchange with Schwarz, go to http://wrestlingbabylon.wordpress.com.)
Schwarz, who used to write books analyzing baseball stats, is in his element when he verbally slaps around the leadership of the National Operating Committee on Standards for Athletic Equipment. He is obviously less comfortable confronting figures like Dr. Maroon, a team physician for the Pittsburgh Steelers who remains, inexplicably, a quotable authority even though he is facemask-deep in the concussion scandal. For years, Maroon has conducted book-cooking, NFL-friendly, “peer-reviewed” research boosting the for-profit ImPACT concussion management software system developed by his team at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.
Maroon is also the medical director of World Wrestling Entertainment, a huckster for at least two supplement companies, and a serial liar in the concussion narrative. In 2005, after Dr. Bennet Omalu discovered the second Steelers case of chronic traumatic encephalopathy in his autopsy of Terry Long, who had committed suicide, Maroon stated categorically that there was no record of Long’s ever having had a concussion while with the team. Omalu soon produced a 1987 letter by Maroon proving the contrary.
It would behoove the most celebrated concussion reporter in American journalism to press Maroon for better answers. Instead, Schwarz has allowed Maroon to distance himself from the NFL’s Riddell helmet study, which the doctor co-authored with, among others, the company’s chief engineer, and which Riddell then exploited in its promotion.
Ah, but Maroon is not an issue, Schwarz asserted to me – “for reasons of which you are totally unaware.” If that’s true, then this titan of communications needs to do some more communicating.
One upshot of Schwarz’s incomplete coverage is that ImPACT has been purchased by an estimated 10 to 15 percent of high school football programs across the country, often under the mandates of new state “safety” legislation. I believe that, rather than shifting the NFL’s public-health tab to already financially beleaguered school districts, we should be talking seriously, not as a throwaway line, about whether high school football is medically, legally, and educationally sustainable.
Somehow The Times has not seen fit to print the devastating critique of ImPACT by Christopher Randolph, a neurology professor at Loyola University Chicago’s Stritch School of Medicine, in the journal Current Sports Medicine Reports. (Credit for first publicizing Randolph’s work goes to blogger Matt Chaney, author of the excellent but little-known book Spiral of Denial: Muscle Doping in American Football.)
Randolph wrote: “There is no evidence to suggest that the use of baseline testing alters any risk from sport-related concussion, nor is there even a good rationale as to how such tests might influence outcome.” He added that independent studies of ImPACT show a level of reliability “far too low to be useful for individual decision making.” In sum, youth sports programs using it are investing in a false sense of security.
And what, I ask Alan Schwarz and The New York Times, would Socrates have to say about that?
Irvin Muchnick, author of CHRIS & NANCY: The True Story of the Benoit Murder-Suicide and Pro Wrestling’s Cocktail of Death, is working on a book about concussions.
New York Times reporter Alan Schwarz, May 27: “As far as I know your concern with the coverage stems only from your Maroon-connection-to-Riddell-study issue. [I know that is not an issue] for reasons of which you are totally unaware …”http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
New York Times columnist George Vecsey, June 14: “the NYT has led that story for three years. what are you talking about?”
=====
[originally published 6/3/11 at http://www.beyondchron.org/articles/How_the_New_York_Times_Is_Fumbling_the_National_Sports_Concussion_Scandal_9229.html]
How The New York Times Is Fumbling the National Sports Concussion Scandal
by Irvin Muchnick
In a January New Yorker article on the concussion crisis in football, writer Ben McGrath quoted Pittsburgh neurosurgeon Joseph Maroon speaking admiringly of Alan Schwarz, the New York Times reporter who created this beat and more recently was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. Schwarz, said Dr. Maroon, is “the Socratic gadfly in this whole mix.”
Unlike Socrates, however, Schwarz asks questions that are carefully and corporately adumbrated. The resultant national spirit of cautious inquiry into a stunningly broad public health story is being driven by our Newspaper of Record. This process has the effect of protecting powerful and moneyed interests.
As the game is currently being played, the final score will be some combination of Ivy League-style reforms of football safety and rules, in a sequel to President Teddy Roosevelt’s campaign in the early 20th century, along with federal investigations scapegoating helmet manufacturers – all while letting the $9-billion-a-year National Football League off the hook for a scandal of near-tobacco industry proportions.
I don’t think anyone from the Riddell helmet company is going to jail http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifafter Congress, the Consumer Product Safety Commission, and the Federal Trade Commission are finished probing how the company ran hard and fast with ambiguous data from a safety study underwritten by the NFL. Nor do I think anyone should, based on what we so far know, despite the Purple Heart that Schwarz awarded himself last week in a bush league email complaint about my blog’s coverage: “I kill myself for six months to expose a serious safety problem – and even conspiracy – in youth football, cause sweeping changes (some about to be announced) and investigations by the CPSC and the FTC …”
(For my full exchange with Schwarz, go to http://wrestlingbabylon.wordpress.com.)
Schwarz, who used to write books analyzing baseball stats, is in his element when he verbally slaps around the leadership of the National Operating Committee on Standards for Athletic Equipment. He is obviously less comfortable confronting figures like Dr. Maroon, a team physician for the Pittsburgh Steelers who remains, inexplicably, a quotable authority even though he is facemask-deep in the concussion scandal. For years, Maroon has conducted book-cooking, NFL-friendly, “peer-reviewed” research boosting the for-profit ImPACT concussion management software system developed by his team at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.
Maroon is also the medical director of World Wrestling Entertainment, a huckster for at least two supplement companies, and a serial liar in the concussion narrative. In 2005, after Dr. Bennet Omalu discovered the second Steelers case of chronic traumatic encephalopathy in his autopsy of Terry Long, who had committed suicide, Maroon stated categorically that there was no record of Long’s ever having had a concussion while with the team. Omalu soon produced a 1987 letter by Maroon proving the contrary.
It would behoove the most celebrated concussion reporter in American journalism to press Maroon for better answers. Instead, Schwarz has allowed Maroon to distance himself from the NFL’s Riddell helmet study, which the doctor co-authored with, among others, the company’s chief engineer, and which Riddell then exploited in its promotion.
Ah, but Maroon is not an issue, Schwarz asserted to me – “for reasons of which you are totally unaware.” If that’s true, then this titan of communications needs to do some more communicating.
One upshot of Schwarz’s incomplete coverage is that ImPACT has been purchased by an estimated 10 to 15 percent of high school football programs across the country, often under the mandates of new state “safety” legislation. I believe that, rather than shifting the NFL’s public-health tab to already financially beleaguered school districts, we should be talking seriously, not as a throwaway line, about whether high school football is medically, legally, and educationally sustainable.
Somehow The Times has not seen fit to print the devastating critique of ImPACT by Christopher Randolph, a neurology professor at Loyola University Chicago’s Stritch School of Medicine, in the journal Current Sports Medicine Reports. (Credit for first publicizing Randolph’s work goes to blogger Matt Chaney, author of the excellent but little-known book Spiral of Denial: Muscle Doping in American Football.)
Randolph wrote: “There is no evidence to suggest that the use of baseline testing alters any risk from sport-related concussion, nor is there even a good rationale as to how such tests might influence outcome.” He added that independent studies of ImPACT show a level of reliability “far too low to be useful for individual decision making.” In sum, youth sports programs using it are investing in a false sense of security.
And what, I ask Alan Schwarz and The New York Times, would Socrates have to say about that?
Irvin Muchnick, author of CHRIS & NANCY: The True Story of the Benoit Murder-Suicide and Pro Wrestling’s Cocktail of Death, is working on a book about concussions.
Columnist George Vecsey Defends New York Times Concussion Scandal Coverage: ‘What Are You Talking About?’
[posted 6/15/11 to http://wrestlingbabylon.wordpress.com]http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
From: George Vecsey
Subject: RE: New York Times fumbles national sports concussion scandal
To: Irvin Muchnick
Date: Tuesday, June 14, 2011, 5:09 PM
the NYT has led that story for three years.
what are you talking about?
GV
**********
From: Irvin Muchnick
Subject: RE: New York Times fumbles national sports concussion scandal
To: George Vecsey
Date: Tuesday, June 14, 2011, 5:30 PM
I’m talking about how appearances are deceiving. In my writings I have given NYT plenty of credit for their leadership in the past. But the current pushing of neurocognitive testing and whitewashing of NFL / WWE doc Maroon are appalling. Ask a more specific question and I’ll try to answer it for you.
From: George Vecsey
Subject: RE: New York Times fumbles national sports concussion scandal
To: Irvin Muchnick
Date: Tuesday, June 14, 2011, 5:09 PM
the NYT has led that story for three years.
what are you talking about?
GV
**********
From: Irvin Muchnick
Subject: RE: New York Times fumbles national sports concussion scandal
To: George Vecsey
Date: Tuesday, June 14, 2011, 5:30 PM
I’m talking about how appearances are deceiving. In my writings I have given NYT plenty of credit for their leadership in the past. But the current pushing of neurocognitive testing and whitewashing of NFL / WWE doc Maroon are appalling. Ask a more specific question and I’ll try to answer it for you.
Dave Meggyesy Challenges Sam Huff’s NFL Players Union Bona Fides
[posted 6/14/11 at http://wrestlingbabylon.wordpress.com]
In the story here about the late Dave Duerson’s loud altercation with Sam Huff and Bernie Parrish in a Congressional committee hearing room in 2007, I have characterized both Huff and Parrish as historic builders of the National Football League Players Association who became disenchanted with the NFLPA’s advocacy on behalf of disabled retired players.
In an email to me, Dave Meggyesy objected to what he called “revisionist history” with respect to Huff. “Sam Huff was not a union supporter or a union leader. He was and is a management guy,” Meggyesy wrote. “Sam claims union affiliation and sentiment through his father, mine workers I believe. This apple fell far from the tree. The Marriott hotel chain is and has been non-union, Sam has been a spokesman for them for years.”
I respect Meggyesy, who played linebacker for the old St. Louis football Cardinals from 1963 through 1969 before retiring and writing the book Out of Their League, a breakthrough critical look at the football industry. He later served many years as the NFLPA’s western regional director.
Regarding the case of Brent Boyd – the proximate cause of Duerson’s outburst during criticism of his role on the NFL Player Care review board, which rejected Boyd’s application for mental disability benefits – Meggyesy said, “Duerson shows the impact of CTE, nothing more. Boyd’s case should stand on its own, and no doubt be reevaluated.”
Unfortunately, I disagree with Meggyesy on that point. Duerson, and by extension the NFLPA, have been wrong, loud wrong, on the issue of football brain injuries and on taking the most aggressive and best steps to protect the community of retired players. The Brent Boyd case emphatically does not stand “on its own”; it must be viewed in the context of years of league-friendly, suppressed, and incomplete research on chronic traumatic encephalopathy.
Irv Muchnick
In the story here about the late Dave Duerson’s loud altercation with Sam Huff and Bernie Parrish in a Congressional committee hearing room in 2007, I have characterized both Huff and Parrish as historic builders of the National Football League Players Association who became disenchanted with the NFLPA’s advocacy on behalf of disabled retired players.
In an email to me, Dave Meggyesy objected to what he called “revisionist history” with respect to Huff. “Sam Huff was not a union supporter or a union leader. He was and is a management guy,” Meggyesy wrote. “Sam claims union affiliation and sentiment through his father, mine workers I believe. This apple fell far from the tree. The Marriott hotel chain is and has been non-union, Sam has been a spokesman for them for years.”
I respect Meggyesy, who played linebacker for the old St. Louis football Cardinals from 1963 through 1969 before retiring and writing the book Out of Their League, a breakthrough critical look at the football industry. He later served many years as the NFLPA’s western regional director.
Regarding the case of Brent Boyd – the proximate cause of Duerson’s outburst during criticism of his role on the NFL Player Care review board, which rejected Boyd’s application for mental disability benefits – Meggyesy said, “Duerson shows the impact of CTE, nothing more. Boyd’s case should stand on its own, and no doubt be reevaluated.”
Unfortunately, I disagree with Meggyesy on that point. Duerson, and by extension the NFLPA, have been wrong, loud wrong, on the issue of football brain injuries and on taking the most aggressive and best steps to protect the community of retired players. The Brent Boyd case emphatically does not stand “on its own”; it must be viewed in the context of years of league-friendly, suppressed, and incomplete research on chronic traumatic encephalopathy.
Irv Muchnick
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
‘NFL Too Big to Fail — That’s Our Real National Concussion Problem’ (full text from Beyond Chron)
[originally published 6/10 at http://www.beyondchron.org/articles/NFL_Too_Big_to_Fail_That_s_Our_Real_National_Concussion_Problem_9249.html]
by Irvin Muchnick
In sports, as in everything, we love our scandals served on a tabloid plate: the jock DUI’s, the strippers taunted with $100 bills, the sexting, the dog-fighting rings, and most recently, the “amateur” football players for whom the National Collegiate Athletic Association prohibition against “extra benefits” turns out to cover not just cars but also tattoos.
http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
What we don’t enjoy so much is contemplating life and death. That is why the sports-industrial complex can succeed in feeding the public appetite for the concussion pandemic by substituting pablum for information. Most of us just want this thing to go away, and the National Football League and its circle of friendly media have devised an easy way out: state legislation making youth football “safer” – with the assistance of a “solution” that, it just so happens, was packaged and sold by NFL doctors.
Back in 2003 I wrote an article in the Los Angeles Times Magazine, “Welcome to Plantation Football,” about the injustice of not paying the performers who do the dirty work of a multibillion-dollar industry carrying the brand names of America’s institutions of higher education. That piece can be viewed at http://articles.latimes.com/2003/aug/31/magazine/tm-athletes35.
But today, no matter how noble the sentiment behind ending the central hypocrisy of the NCAA, our No. 1 national sports issue is not whether and how much to pay college football and basketball players. It is not President Obama’s populist-pandering threat to lower the antitrust boom on the Bowl Championship Series. And, Lord knows, it is not the crusade by Senator Tom Udall – egged on by The New York Times – to strike fear in the hearts of football helmet manufacturers.
The No. 1 issue in sports is the set of willfully ignored corollaries of the groundbreaking work of Dr. Bennet Omalu, now the chief medical examiner of San Joaquin County, California. Over the last decade, Omalu has been the researcher most responsible for identifying and defining the post-concussion syndrome known as chronic traumatic encephalopathy. That such a disease, long associated with boxers, also was widespread among athletes in other contact sports (primarily football) had remained a secret hidden in plain sight for more than half a century.
Now Omalu is espousing a position totally at odds with the pushers of neurocognitive testing to help determine when concussed athletes can return to play. Omalu says anyone who suffers a concussion should sit for three months, period. The reason is that a concussion, often involving violent head rotation, rather than (or in addition to) a blow to the skull, can cause tearing of brain tissue all the way down to the brain stem, and it can take 90 days for brain fluid to return to normal.
Omalu, along with others, also comes very close to calling for an out-and-out ban on youth football. Growing brains should not be subjected to a diet of concussive and subconcussive blows, any more than growing arms should throw baseball curveballs – and the stakes of the former activity are a lot higher. As awareness and reporting improve, I am convinced we are going to see ramifications of traumatic brain injury in American youth going to the root of indexes of academic performance, workplace productivity, and criminal behavior.
This leads to a problem no easier to solve than the ingrained and corrupt ways of Wall Street. There was a time when a heavyweight boxing championship fight could galvanize the land, not just with a million pay-per-view buys but as a truly unifying cultural experience. That day passed, and we became more aware of “punch-drunk syndrome” – the forerunner to CTE – and boxing dipped in spectatorship and influence.
In the America of 2011, only football’s Super Bowl is a comparable national hearth, blending hard-core, soft-core, and kitsch. Except that now we are learning that football, especially in the steroid era and with the sophistication of industrial training and the might of global marketing, literally involves armies of athletes daily and systematically inflicting CTE on each other. But we’re stuck. The NFL has become too big to fail. I am hoping that the enforced interlude of a pro football lockout could help bring us to our senses, but the likelihood is that not even that would turn the trick.
For if we were to eliminate football under, say, age 18 (and is that really what Chris Nowinski of the Sports Legacy Institute means when he talks about “changing how football is played”?), what will happen to the high school and youth leagues that develop skills and grease recruitment to college and the pros? Who will hire the coaches? Dress the cheerleaders? Market the lines of pint-sized blocking sleds and shoulder pads? In Miracle on 34th Street, the political adviser to the judge, who was trying to decide whether to declare Kris Kringle insane, ticked off all the categories of Christmas-related constituents who would be up in arms. But Santa Claus is a kindly myth http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif– football is head-delivered death.http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
And without that intergenerational thread, how will the NFL carnival, with its sexually predatory quarterbacks, its diva wide receivers, its human-missile defensive secondary personnel, remain a national obsession? Especially when the legal bills start piling up. Wrongful death goes for seven figures. As the late Senator Everett Dirksen once observed, a million here and a million there, and pretty soon you’re talking about real money.
Such is the crisis of our football economy, whether anyone out there wants to talk about it seriously or not.
Irvin Muchnick (http://muchnick.net; http://wrestlingbabylon.wordpress.com; http://twitter.com/irvmuch) is a regular Beyond Chron contributor.
by Irvin Muchnick
In sports, as in everything, we love our scandals served on a tabloid plate: the jock DUI’s, the strippers taunted with $100 bills, the sexting, the dog-fighting rings, and most recently, the “amateur” football players for whom the National Collegiate Athletic Association prohibition against “extra benefits” turns out to cover not just cars but also tattoos.
http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
What we don’t enjoy so much is contemplating life and death. That is why the sports-industrial complex can succeed in feeding the public appetite for the concussion pandemic by substituting pablum for information. Most of us just want this thing to go away, and the National Football League and its circle of friendly media have devised an easy way out: state legislation making youth football “safer” – with the assistance of a “solution” that, it just so happens, was packaged and sold by NFL doctors.
Back in 2003 I wrote an article in the Los Angeles Times Magazine, “Welcome to Plantation Football,” about the injustice of not paying the performers who do the dirty work of a multibillion-dollar industry carrying the brand names of America’s institutions of higher education. That piece can be viewed at http://articles.latimes.com/2003/aug/31/magazine/tm-athletes35.
But today, no matter how noble the sentiment behind ending the central hypocrisy of the NCAA, our No. 1 national sports issue is not whether and how much to pay college football and basketball players. It is not President Obama’s populist-pandering threat to lower the antitrust boom on the Bowl Championship Series. And, Lord knows, it is not the crusade by Senator Tom Udall – egged on by The New York Times – to strike fear in the hearts of football helmet manufacturers.
The No. 1 issue in sports is the set of willfully ignored corollaries of the groundbreaking work of Dr. Bennet Omalu, now the chief medical examiner of San Joaquin County, California. Over the last decade, Omalu has been the researcher most responsible for identifying and defining the post-concussion syndrome known as chronic traumatic encephalopathy. That such a disease, long associated with boxers, also was widespread among athletes in other contact sports (primarily football) had remained a secret hidden in plain sight for more than half a century.
Now Omalu is espousing a position totally at odds with the pushers of neurocognitive testing to help determine when concussed athletes can return to play. Omalu says anyone who suffers a concussion should sit for three months, period. The reason is that a concussion, often involving violent head rotation, rather than (or in addition to) a blow to the skull, can cause tearing of brain tissue all the way down to the brain stem, and it can take 90 days for brain fluid to return to normal.
Omalu, along with others, also comes very close to calling for an out-and-out ban on youth football. Growing brains should not be subjected to a diet of concussive and subconcussive blows, any more than growing arms should throw baseball curveballs – and the stakes of the former activity are a lot higher. As awareness and reporting improve, I am convinced we are going to see ramifications of traumatic brain injury in American youth going to the root of indexes of academic performance, workplace productivity, and criminal behavior.
This leads to a problem no easier to solve than the ingrained and corrupt ways of Wall Street. There was a time when a heavyweight boxing championship fight could galvanize the land, not just with a million pay-per-view buys but as a truly unifying cultural experience. That day passed, and we became more aware of “punch-drunk syndrome” – the forerunner to CTE – and boxing dipped in spectatorship and influence.
In the America of 2011, only football’s Super Bowl is a comparable national hearth, blending hard-core, soft-core, and kitsch. Except that now we are learning that football, especially in the steroid era and with the sophistication of industrial training and the might of global marketing, literally involves armies of athletes daily and systematically inflicting CTE on each other. But we’re stuck. The NFL has become too big to fail. I am hoping that the enforced interlude of a pro football lockout could help bring us to our senses, but the likelihood is that not even that would turn the trick.
For if we were to eliminate football under, say, age 18 (and is that really what Chris Nowinski of the Sports Legacy Institute means when he talks about “changing how football is played”?), what will happen to the high school and youth leagues that develop skills and grease recruitment to college and the pros? Who will hire the coaches? Dress the cheerleaders? Market the lines of pint-sized blocking sleds and shoulder pads? In Miracle on 34th Street, the political adviser to the judge, who was trying to decide whether to declare Kris Kringle insane, ticked off all the categories of Christmas-related constituents who would be up in arms. But Santa Claus is a kindly myth http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif– football is head-delivered death.http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
And without that intergenerational thread, how will the NFL carnival, with its sexually predatory quarterbacks, its diva wide receivers, its human-missile defensive secondary personnel, remain a national obsession? Especially when the legal bills start piling up. Wrongful death goes for seven figures. As the late Senator Everett Dirksen once observed, a million here and a million there, and pretty soon you’re talking about real money.
Such is the crisis of our football economy, whether anyone out there wants to talk about it seriously or not.
Irvin Muchnick (http://muchnick.net; http://wrestlingbabylon.wordpress.com; http://twitter.com/irvmuch) is a regular Beyond Chron contributor.
Retired Wrestler Jeff Farmer: ‘Is This What Is Wrong With Me?’
[posted 6/12/11 to http://wrestlingbabylon.wordpress.com]http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
Blog reader Jeff Farmer, a former pro wrestler, emailed, “Is this what is wrong with me?”
He elaborated: “I have had several concussions over the years, and wonder if I will suffer some adverse effects. To date I think I am OK, but who knows, I do forget things, so would I not forget as many things, etc., had I not sustained the concussions – could I have been a genius, like my brother? I started playing football in the pew-wees and remember getting my bell rung even back then (we were encouraged to use our heads to strike).”
Jeff Farmer, 48, had his most famous wrestling role in Ted Turner’s World Championship Wrestling as the evil alter-ego of Steve “Sting” Borden. He is now the project manager for the genetics exercise and research program at the University of Miami’s Hussman Institute for Human Genomics.
Jeff’s older brother Paul is the world-famous doctor, anthropologist, and activist who founded the public health and justice organization Partners in Health. Paul Farmer, subject of Tracy Kidder’s bestselling biography Mountains Beyond Mountains, is a MacArthur “genius” award recipient and one of these days should win a Nobel Peace Prize.
Irv Muchnick
Blog reader Jeff Farmer, a former pro wrestler, emailed, “Is this what is wrong with me?”
He elaborated: “I have had several concussions over the years, and wonder if I will suffer some adverse effects. To date I think I am OK, but who knows, I do forget things, so would I not forget as many things, etc., had I not sustained the concussions – could I have been a genius, like my brother? I started playing football in the pew-wees and remember getting my bell rung even back then (we were encouraged to use our heads to strike).”
Jeff Farmer, 48, had his most famous wrestling role in Ted Turner’s World Championship Wrestling as the evil alter-ego of Steve “Sting” Borden. He is now the project manager for the genetics exercise and research program at the University of Miami’s Hussman Institute for Human Genomics.
Jeff’s older brother Paul is the world-famous doctor, anthropologist, and activist who founded the public health and justice organization Partners in Health. Paul Farmer, subject of Tracy Kidder’s bestselling biography Mountains Beyond Mountains, is a MacArthur “genius” award recipient and one of these days should win a Nobel Peace Prize.
Irv Muchnick
NFL Defense: Retirement Board Trustee Dave Duerson’s Suicide Not a ‘Changed Circumstance’ For Living Mental Disability Claimants
[posted 6/12/11 to http://wrestlingbabylon.wordpress.com]http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifgif
On May 24 – the very day Judge J. Frederick Motz of U.S. District Court in Maryland dismissed former player Brent Boyd’s appeal of the National Football League retirement plan’s rejection of his mental disability claim – Dave Lopresti of USA Today wrote a touching column headlined “Struggle continues for widow of Dave Duerson,” http://www.usatoday.com/sports/columnist/lopresti/2011-05-23-dave-alicia-duerson-brain-injury-nfl_N.htm.
In the piece, Alicia Duerson called her former husband’s February suicide “the tip of the iceberg” of the NFL’s traumatic brain injury problem. Lopresti recounted the former star defensive back’s domestic violence arrest, personal bankruptcy, and postmortem finding of chronic traumatic encephalopathy.
He was a big man with a shrinking brain, Alicia Duerson said, adding: “His brain had started dying 10 years ago.”
There’s one more small thing USA Today didn’t discuss, and she apparently is not incorporating into the talking points of her CTE public awareness tour: the fact that Dave Duerson served on the review board, consisting of representatives from both the league and the NFL Players Association, which has stonewalled other retired players’ claims for head-injury benefits. In 2007, he even argued the retirement plan’s position on Capitol Hill, and during a break at a Congressional hearing, exploded in abuse at Brent Boyd and old player union leaders Sam Huff and Bernie Parrish.
And without that crucial connection, Dave Duerson’s suicide becomes just one more sob story.
In his travesty of a decision, Judge Motz held that Boyd’s attorneys did not prove “changed circumstances,” “abuse of discretion,” or “conflict of interest.” The Bert Bell/Pete Rozelle NFL Retirement Plan successfully sold the argument that introducing into evidence a decade’s worth of new published findings on CTE, along with the reason for Duerson’s own death by self-inflicted gunshot, was simply a desperation ploy by a rejected disability claimant to get “a second bite of the apple.”
Oh, I see. The Duerson suicide was not a “changed circumstance” for the dozens, scores, or hundreds of retired players still living with depression, still unable to function or support their families or live normal lives, still getting no relief from the $9-billion-a-year NFL. It was only a “changed circumstance” for Alicia Duerson.
Outrageous.
http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
Irv Muchnick
http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
SEE ALSO:http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
Dave Duerson NFL Suicide Story You’ll Read Nowhere Else — In Five Parts
‘Honoring Dave Duerson: Three Things the NFL, Fans, And Sponsors Must Do’ (full text)
Brent Boyd Loses NFL Disability Court Case – It Shouldn’t Be the Last Round
Dave Duerson Is the Pandora’s Box of NFL Mental Disability Cases – But Cowardly U.S. District Court Judge J. Frederick Motz Refused to Open It
On May 24 – the very day Judge J. Frederick Motz of U.S. District Court in Maryland dismissed former player Brent Boyd’s appeal of the National Football League retirement plan’s rejection of his mental disability claim – Dave Lopresti of USA Today wrote a touching column headlined “Struggle continues for widow of Dave Duerson,” http://www.usatoday.com/sports/columnist/lopresti/2011-05-23-dave-alicia-duerson-brain-injury-nfl_N.htm.
In the piece, Alicia Duerson called her former husband’s February suicide “the tip of the iceberg” of the NFL’s traumatic brain injury problem. Lopresti recounted the former star defensive back’s domestic violence arrest, personal bankruptcy, and postmortem finding of chronic traumatic encephalopathy.
He was a big man with a shrinking brain, Alicia Duerson said, adding: “His brain had started dying 10 years ago.”
There’s one more small thing USA Today didn’t discuss, and she apparently is not incorporating into the talking points of her CTE public awareness tour: the fact that Dave Duerson served on the review board, consisting of representatives from both the league and the NFL Players Association, which has stonewalled other retired players’ claims for head-injury benefits. In 2007, he even argued the retirement plan’s position on Capitol Hill, and during a break at a Congressional hearing, exploded in abuse at Brent Boyd and old player union leaders Sam Huff and Bernie Parrish.
And without that crucial connection, Dave Duerson’s suicide becomes just one more sob story.
In his travesty of a decision, Judge Motz held that Boyd’s attorneys did not prove “changed circumstances,” “abuse of discretion,” or “conflict of interest.” The Bert Bell/Pete Rozelle NFL Retirement Plan successfully sold the argument that introducing into evidence a decade’s worth of new published findings on CTE, along with the reason for Duerson’s own death by self-inflicted gunshot, was simply a desperation ploy by a rejected disability claimant to get “a second bite of the apple.”
Oh, I see. The Duerson suicide was not a “changed circumstance” for the dozens, scores, or hundreds of retired players still living with depression, still unable to function or support their families or live normal lives, still getting no relief from the $9-billion-a-year NFL. It was only a “changed circumstance” for Alicia Duerson.
Outrageous.
http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
Irv Muchnick
http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
SEE ALSO:http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
Dave Duerson NFL Suicide Story You’ll Read Nowhere Else — In Five Parts
‘Honoring Dave Duerson: Three Things the NFL, Fans, And Sponsors Must Do’ (full text)
Brent Boyd Loses NFL Disability Court Case – It Shouldn’t Be the Last Round
Dave Duerson Is the Pandora’s Box of NFL Mental Disability Cases – But Cowardly U.S. District Court Judge J. Frederick Motz Refused to Open It
Dave Duerson Is the Pandora’s Box of NFL Mental Disability Cases – But Cowardly U.S. District Court Judge J. Frederick Motz Refused to Open It
[posted 6/10/11 to http://wrestlingbabylon.wordpress.com]
http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
To the best of my knowledge, not a single media outlet except this blog has reported on the May 24 ruling in Baltimore by U.S. District Court Judge J. Frederick Motz, who threw out retired Minnesota Viking lineman Brent Boyd’s case against the Bert Bell/Pete Rozelle NFL Player Retirement Plan. If any readers find otherwise, they should forward the links to me.
http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
My initial story on Judge Motz’s summary judgment for the defendants appeared yesterday under the headline “Brent Boyd Loses NFL Disability Court Case – It Shouldn’t Be the Last Round,” http://wrestlingbabylon.wordpress.com/2011/06/09/brent-boyd-loses-nfl-disability-court-case-%E2%80%93-it-shouldn%E2%80%99t-be-the-last-round/. The judge’s memorandum in support of his order is at http://muchnick.net/boydruling52411.pdf.
Boyd’s attorney, Mark DeBofsky, told me, “We felt we had presented sufficient evidence of changed circumstances and that despite the court’s finding of no conflict of interest, the numbers suggest otherwise. Given the paltry number of claims paid by the NFL disability and retirement plan for head injuries, it appears the plan is biased against such claims out of fear of an avalanche of brain trauma disability claims.”
I described the ruling as a miscarriage of justice, but that didn’t go far enough. Motz was also cowardly. Cut through the legalese and split hairs, and it all comes down to this: The court decided that the retirement plan “did not abuse its discretion” in rejecting Boyd’s reapplications and administrative appeals. There was no showing of “changed circumstances” – even though we have tons more basic information on the legitimacy of Boyd’s claim of traumatic brain injury from football than was known at the time of the original filing some 11 years ago; and even though one of the three National Football League Players Association members of the disability claims board was Dave Duerson, who himself had chronic traumatic encephalopathy when he committed suicide in February.
What extraordinary judicial incuriosity.
Last month John Hogan, the Georgia lawyer who is perhaps the best-known representative of NFL retiree disability claims, told The New York Times that he was considering requesting an audit by the U.S. Department of Labor to see how Duerson had voted on claims. Hogan added: “He had to exercise a high degree of care, skill, prudence and diligence — the CTE findings, coupled with his suicide, certainly raise the question of whether he was capable of properly fulfilling those duties as is required in such an important undertaking. It therefore calls into question the possibility that some or all of the decisions he made when passing on disability claims are suspect, and perhaps invalid.”
Boyd attorney DeBofsky told me that during litigation “we had requested discovery that would essentially have been an audit of the plan and benefits paid for head injuries, but the judge denied our request.”
Judge Motz’s rulings on discovery and on the merits were both farces. They must not stand.
Irv Muchnick
http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
To the best of my knowledge, not a single media outlet except this blog has reported on the May 24 ruling in Baltimore by U.S. District Court Judge J. Frederick Motz, who threw out retired Minnesota Viking lineman Brent Boyd’s case against the Bert Bell/Pete Rozelle NFL Player Retirement Plan. If any readers find otherwise, they should forward the links to me.
http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
My initial story on Judge Motz’s summary judgment for the defendants appeared yesterday under the headline “Brent Boyd Loses NFL Disability Court Case – It Shouldn’t Be the Last Round,” http://wrestlingbabylon.wordpress.com/2011/06/09/brent-boyd-loses-nfl-disability-court-case-%E2%80%93-it-shouldn%E2%80%99t-be-the-last-round/. The judge’s memorandum in support of his order is at http://muchnick.net/boydruling52411.pdf.
Boyd’s attorney, Mark DeBofsky, told me, “We felt we had presented sufficient evidence of changed circumstances and that despite the court’s finding of no conflict of interest, the numbers suggest otherwise. Given the paltry number of claims paid by the NFL disability and retirement plan for head injuries, it appears the plan is biased against such claims out of fear of an avalanche of brain trauma disability claims.”
I described the ruling as a miscarriage of justice, but that didn’t go far enough. Motz was also cowardly. Cut through the legalese and split hairs, and it all comes down to this: The court decided that the retirement plan “did not abuse its discretion” in rejecting Boyd’s reapplications and administrative appeals. There was no showing of “changed circumstances” – even though we have tons more basic information on the legitimacy of Boyd’s claim of traumatic brain injury from football than was known at the time of the original filing some 11 years ago; and even though one of the three National Football League Players Association members of the disability claims board was Dave Duerson, who himself had chronic traumatic encephalopathy when he committed suicide in February.
What extraordinary judicial incuriosity.
Last month John Hogan, the Georgia lawyer who is perhaps the best-known representative of NFL retiree disability claims, told The New York Times that he was considering requesting an audit by the U.S. Department of Labor to see how Duerson had voted on claims. Hogan added: “He had to exercise a high degree of care, skill, prudence and diligence — the CTE findings, coupled with his suicide, certainly raise the question of whether he was capable of properly fulfilling those duties as is required in such an important undertaking. It therefore calls into question the possibility that some or all of the decisions he made when passing on disability claims are suspect, and perhaps invalid.”
Boyd attorney DeBofsky told me that during litigation “we had requested discovery that would essentially have been an audit of the plan and benefits paid for head injuries, but the judge denied our request.”
Judge Motz’s rulings on discovery and on the merits were both farces. They must not stand.
Irv Muchnick
Sunday, June 19, 2011
‘NFL Too Big To Fail – That’s Our Real National Concussion Problem’... today at Beyond Chron
[posted 6/10/11 to http://wrestlingbabylon.wordpress.com]http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
NFL Too Big to Fail – That’s Our Real National Concussion Problem
by Irvin Muchnick
In sports, as in everything, we love our scandals served on a tabloid plate: the jock DUI’s, the strippers taunted with $100 bills, the sexting, the dog-fighting rings, and most recently, the “amateur” football players for whom the National Collegiate Athletic Association prohibition against “extra benefits” turns out to cover not just cars but also tattoos.
What we don’t enjoy so much is contemplating life and death. That is why the sports-industrial complex can succeed in feeding the public appetite for the concussion pandemic by substituting pablum for information. Most of us just want this thing to go away, and the National Football League and its circle of friendly media have devised an easy way out: state legislation making youth football “safer” – with the assistance of a “solution” that, it just so happens, was packaged and sold by NFL doctors.
… [N]o matter how noble the sentiment behind ending the central hypocrisy of the NCAA, our No. 1 national sports issue is … the set of willfully ignored corollaries of the groundbreaking work of Dr. Bennet Omalu[….] Omalu is espousing a position totally at odds with the pushers of neurocognitive testing to help determine when concussed athletes can return to play. Omalu says anyone who suffers a cohttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifncussion should sit for three months, period. The reason is that a concussion, often involving violent head rotation, rather than (or in addition to) a blow to the skull, can cause tearing of brain tissue all the way down to the brain stem, and it can take 90 days for brain fluid to return to normal.
Omalu, along with others, also comes very close to calling for an out-and-out ban on youth football. Growing brains should not be subjected to a diet of concussive and subconcussive blows, any more than growing arms should throw baseball curveballs – and the stakes of the former activity are a lot higher.
FULL TEXT TODAY AT BEYOND CHRON, THE SAN FRANCISCO ONLINE NEWSPAPER:
http://www.beyondchron.org/articles/NFL_Too_Big_to_Fail_That_s_Our_Real_National_Concussion_Problem_9249.html
NFL Too Big to Fail – That’s Our Real National Concussion Problem
by Irvin Muchnick
In sports, as in everything, we love our scandals served on a tabloid plate: the jock DUI’s, the strippers taunted with $100 bills, the sexting, the dog-fighting rings, and most recently, the “amateur” football players for whom the National Collegiate Athletic Association prohibition against “extra benefits” turns out to cover not just cars but also tattoos.
What we don’t enjoy so much is contemplating life and death. That is why the sports-industrial complex can succeed in feeding the public appetite for the concussion pandemic by substituting pablum for information. Most of us just want this thing to go away, and the National Football League and its circle of friendly media have devised an easy way out: state legislation making youth football “safer” – with the assistance of a “solution” that, it just so happens, was packaged and sold by NFL doctors.
… [N]o matter how noble the sentiment behind ending the central hypocrisy of the NCAA, our No. 1 national sports issue is … the set of willfully ignored corollaries of the groundbreaking work of Dr. Bennet Omalu[….] Omalu is espousing a position totally at odds with the pushers of neurocognitive testing to help determine when concussed athletes can return to play. Omalu says anyone who suffers a cohttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifncussion should sit for three months, period. The reason is that a concussion, often involving violent head rotation, rather than (or in addition to) a blow to the skull, can cause tearing of brain tissue all the way down to the brain stem, and it can take 90 days for brain fluid to return to normal.
Omalu, along with others, also comes very close to calling for an out-and-out ban on youth football. Growing brains should not be subjected to a diet of concussive and subconcussive blows, any more than growing arms should throw baseball curveballs – and the stakes of the former activity are a lot higher.
FULL TEXT TODAY AT BEYOND CHRON, THE SAN FRANCISCO ONLINE NEWSPAPER:
http://www.beyondchron.org/articles/NFL_Too_Big_to_Fail_That_s_Our_Real_National_Concussion_Problem_9249.html
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