- “Troy was hit after throwing a touchdown pass and knocked to the ground. Blood came out of his ear. Hits like that occur in every game, if not every quarter. The dazed player moves one part of his body at a time, slowly regaining his senses. That wasn’t the case here. Troy, flat on his back, didn’t move one inch. I was terrified, every fear imaginable racing through my brain. It felt as if Troy were on the ground for an hour. It was perhaps five minutes. I never felt so powerless. I realized that from then on, I would need a pass to gain access to the locker room immediately if another of my players was injured. Troy finally got up, the crowd at Sun Devil Stadium cheering warmly, and the game proceeded, most people, I suspect, not giving the hit a second thought. This is football. Players get hurt. Here comes the next play. I thought about it, for the rest of the day, and longer. Such a severe blow to the head, I assumed, must cause serious damage to a human being’s brain, and what is the damage if there is another blow, and another after that?” The Agent: My 40-Year Career Making Deals and Changing the Game (Steinberg, Leigh; Arkush, Michael)–page 194
- “One night, I visited a client in his darkened hospital room hours after a game. He was alone and looked confused. “Where am I?” he asked. “In the hospital,” I replied. “You had a concussion.” “Did I play today?” he asked. “Yes,” I responded. “Did I play well?” “Yes, you threw three touchdowns,” I said. His face brightened. Five minutes passed as we talked more about the game. He then asked, “Where am I?” and “Did I play today?” and “Did I play well?” I gave the same answers I did the first time. Ten minutes later, it happened once more. I finally wrote a narrative on a piece of paper so he could glance at it whenever he became confused. It was terrifying to witness how delicate the line was between full consciousness and dementia. This was one of my closest clients. At dinner the night before, he had been his usual witty self.” The Agent: My 40-Year Career Making Deals and Changing the Game (Steinberg, Leigh; Arkush, Michael)–page 200
- “From these sessions, I learned a great deal, such as the danger of second concussion syndrome, which is when the first diminishes reaction time and sets the brain up for a second. Thus, an athlete who returns to play too quickly after the first has a higher risk of a second concussion, and two in close proximity can cause even more severe consequences.” The Agent: My 40-Year Career Making Deals and Changing the Game(Steinberg, Leigh; Arkush, Michael)–page 201
- “Dr. Lovell designed a program for baseline testing that checked the cognitive skills in athletes prior to a season. If the athlete was concussed, a second test was given that determined how much damage had occurred. For the first time, there was an objective way for a trainer, doctor, or coach to judge whether a player was asymptomatic at rest, on an exercise bike, and at practice before being cleared to play. Players told me they intentionally answered questions incorrectly when they took the original test so that if they were to suffer a concussion, any similar responses the second time would not raise concerns about their mental state.” The Agent: My 40-Year Career Making Deals and Changing the Game (Steinberg, Leigh; Arkush, Michael)–page 202
- “In another series of conferences held in 2006 and 2007, we learned even more. Doctors concluded that three concussions appeared to be a marker for exponentially higher rates of ALS, Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease, premature senility, dementia, and depression. Their research uncovered a condition called chronic traumatic encephalopathy, which stems from concussions and can lead to depression and suicide. I called these developments “a ticking time bomb” and an “undiagnosed health epidemic” and predicted we would have an outbreak of symptoms that would be unprecedented.” The Agent: My 40-Year Career Making Deals and Changing the Game (Steinberg, Leigh; Arkush, Michael)–page 202
- “I once asked Steve Young how many concussions he had in his career. “You mean official ones?” he responded. “What’s an official one?” I asked. “That’s when you get knocked out and carried off the field. But I have many times every game where I get hit and am woozy for a while. I still knew what plays to call.” On a number of those occasions, Steve would keep his distance from the coach so he couldn’t be pulled from the game.” The Agent: My 40-Year Career Making Deals and Changing the Game(Steinberg, Leigh; Arkush, Michael)–page 203
- “It became clear to me that the phenomenon of subconcussive hits must be endemic to the game. When an offensive lineman hits a defensive lineman, the force of that collision has a stunning effect that alters brain chemistry. No one talks about the damage that occurs play by play, game by game. If a player starts in high school, continues in college, and then practices and plays sixteen games a season in a long NFL career, with an average of 70 offensive snaps a game, it is possible he will leave football with 10,000 subconcussive hits. None of those hits might knock him out, or even be recorded as a concussion, but the cumulative impact must be staggering. More frightening is the fact that this danger exists in any sport that has collisions: hockey, baseball, field hockey, boxing, MMA, cycling, even youth soccer.” The Agent: My 40-Year Career Making Deals and Changing the Game (Steinberg, Leigh; Arkush, Michael)–page 203