Concussions: More than Just a Bump on the Head

On an Autumn Friday night thousands of fans gather to watch the boys of Flint Powers Catholic take on Oxford in a high school football game. All the fans are on the edge of their seats, but they sit in complete and utter silence, watching in horror as the events unfold near midfield.
A 16-year-old boy lie unconscious after taking a vicious hit moments earlier. Worse yet, the boy’s body begins convulsing violently. His hysterical mother runs to his side, pushing her way through concerned teammates and trainers. The horns of an ambulance resound and the injured player is hurried away on a stretcher.
In Michigan, as well as in most areas of the country, football is a major part of many young men’s lives. However, until recently, many players and fans were unaware of the dangers of the game and the precautions that must be taken. Several recent articles in the New York Times, as well as on ESPN.com have discussed the long-term effects of multiple concussions received while playing football. Most of these articles have focused on the former NFL players Andre Waters and Ted Johnson.
Waters, a former Philadelphia Eagle, committed suicide last fall at the age of 44 and Johnson, a former linebacker of the New England Patriots, claimed he saw signs of depression and Alzheimer’s disease. According to an Alan Schwarz article in the Times, repeated concussions had caused Waters’ brain tissue to resemble that of an 80-year-old with Alzheimer’s. And doctors of Johnson said he was exhibiting depression and memory lapses associated with oncoming Alzheimer’s. Johnson’s neurologist told the Times that his symptoms were probably the result of a postconcussive syndrome and that the damage to his brain is thought to be permanent.
While one concussion might seem as harmless as a bump on the head, multiple concussions, especially in a short period of time, can be very dangerous to one’s health.
In Ronald Pfeifer and Brent Mangus’ book, “Concepts of Athletic Training,” the authors cite Dr. Robert Cantu, the same neurologist who is treating Ted Johnson. Cantu’s research says that, “in some concussions there is some level of structural damage and that brain cells not destroyed remain extremely vulnerable to subsequent trauma...”
Pfeifer and Mangus also cite Dr. Cantu when they discuss Second Impact Syndrome, which is something that occurs when an athlete sustains an initial head injury, most often a concussion, then sustains a second head injury shortly after. Second Impact Syndrome is a very serious condition because it involves swelling of the brain which can put pressure on the brain stem, leading to a coma and/or rapid respiratory failure.

For these reasons, Mike Strong, 21, was told by trainers and doctors that it was time to hang up his cleats before his senior football season at Kalamazoo College.
Strong, the player mentioned in the opening of this story, received his first concussion in his junior year while playing running back at Flint Powers Catholic High School. It was a grade three concussion – the most severe.
Strong said he was unconscious for eight minutes before he woke up in the ambulance and he said he definitely felt the effects of the postconcussive syndrome. “I had headaches and nausea for a while afterward,” he said. “I also had vertigo for like a week. I couldn’t participate in any physical activities for six months and I wasn’t allowed to drive. I also only went to school for half a day for a month afterwards.”
Strong returned to play for his senior year and continued his career at Kalamazoo College. He said he had three or four minor concussions between his senior year of high school and junior of college, but didn't think any of them were too serious.
However, more than four years after his first concussion, Strong received his second grade three concussion. “It was at Olivet College,” he remembered. “It was either a trap or a dive. I took the handoff and saw the linebacker overflowing, so I cut back. But I got sandwiched there by the defensive end and the linebacker. My vision flickered in and out like in the beginning of those old movies and then I passed out for a few seconds. They checked me out and told me I had another grade three concussion so I had to sit out the rest of the season.”
Strong tried to return to play for his senior year, but on the first day of hitting he received another concussion and was told his playing days were over. Over the years he had played through at least six concussions and had developed a slight stutter from taking so many hits.
Despite all of the pain he went through Strong enjoyed his football career and is thankful that his symptoms are not any worse than they are. He is also thankful for the careful attention from the trainers and doctors that consulted him through his playing days. If it weren’t for caring and knowledgeable medical staffs, Strong knows he may have ended up in a similar condition to some of the former football players that have been making news as of late.
“I’m sorry that I couldn’t finish up my career, but I know it was what I had to do for my health,” Strong said. “I’m just happy I got to play for as long as I did.”

Sex, Drugs and Updating Your Blog

Above is a link to a Times story that I think would be good to read before working on our final pieces. The author, Clive Thompson, had to do a lot of research and included several sources for the story. The story begins by introducing us to the lifestyle of Jonathon Coulton, a musician who posts his music on his blog and interacts with his fans. Coulton is used by the author as a way to hold the story together. This is a long piece that is addressing a big-picture issue so it's important that we have a common theme to hold it all together. By leading the story with Coultron and repeatedly referring back to him, the author can continue to explore the bigger issues while the reader is able to have something to hang on to - something that shows us what the reader wants us to see. If the author were to just give us his findings of his research, the story would be bland, like a lab report or an essay. The story needs character and character is what holds this story together.
One line particulary grabbed my attention: "Coulton’s fans are also his promotion department, an army of thousands who proselytize for his work worldwide." It's so cool how getting a cult gathering online can propel a career and how fast word can spread with the internet. And that's what this story is getting at. By showing us how Coulton's business works, the author can now address the bigger picture of the story - which is how the internet has changed the way artists of all kinds are trying to get their work to the world.
I think the biggest thing to take from this story is that when your exploring a phenomenon of some sort - which I think is what we're doing for the final piece- it's important not to forget that your story needs something to hold it together and the easy way to do this is by developing good character. Developing good character will make for good reading and drive your story.

Rough Rough Draft

After a few beers, a little conversation and a game of pool Ted Vadella and Scott Makohn’s pipedream started taking shape.

Vadella, 32, was a Western student working at Buffalo Wild Wings when he and his friend, Scott Makohn, came up with the idea of opening their own bar. “We were playing pool after close and I said ‘we should do this ourselves,’” Vadella said. Nearly six years later, Vadella and Makohn opened Shakespeare’s Pub, an increasingly successful bar in downtown Kalamazoo. In Vadella’s words, “The whole thing started over a game of pool.”

After graduating from Western Michigan University, Vadella worked as a financial consultant for a few years until he got a call from Makohn, who worked as a bartender, suggesting they take a shot at opening their own bar like they talked about during their college days. “I didn’t love what I was doing,” Vadella said. I wasn’t happy, so I decided I’d do what I wanted. I like the bar atmosphere – every day is a party.”

The atmosphere that Vadella speaks of though, isn’t that of the typical college-bar environment. At Shakespeare’s it’s unusual to see vomit on the bathroom floor, lines of people pushing their way to the front of the bar or bouncer’s dragging drunken patrons out the door. You don’t even get harassed about how you’re dressed or have to stand in line to pay a cover charge. The bar isn’t meant for an older crowd but isn’t student-dominated either. Vadella puts it best: “We don’t have a demographic here. We’ve got a comfortable setting where people can get together, have a few drinks and talk. It’s a nice little niche – it’s everybody’s place.”

It took a lot of work to get Shakespeare’s to where it is now. The building was constructed in 1897 by Shakespeare Rod and Reel Company – the company that has the first patented fishing reel. According to Vadella, when he and Makohn first looked at the building it was “basically in shambles” and a fire had burnt out the back of the building. Vadella’s financial advising days told him it would be a bad investment but Makohn’s instincts said otherwise. A loan was granted, a whole lot of construction took place and the rest was history.

Travis Willey, a former employee of Shakespeare’s, remembers the enthusiasm of Vadella and Makohn when the bar opened in 2003. “I filled out the first application that they ever handed out and they hired me on the spot,” he said. “They were just excited to get the business started and to have people working for them.”

Vadella and Makohn’s relationship with their employees sets the tone for the family-type atmosphere they like to stress at Shakespeare’s. “If I’m ever in need of a job I know I can come back and work here,” Willey said.

Shakespeare’s turned a profit almost immediately after its opening and continues to grow in reputation. However, the bar’s ever-increasing popularity has become an area of concern for its loyal patrons. In the last couple of years the bar has begun to grow too crowded as lines formed to get in and ordering drinks became difficult.

For this reason, Vadella and Makohn decided to expand. They bought an adjoining portion of the building, knocked out the wall connecting the two sides and started working on a new wing that will more than double the size of the bar.

The new wing, which is being constructed almost entirely by Makohn, will feature eight big-screen televisions, three pool tables, 31 taps and plenty of seating – not to mention the outdoor patio that can hold up to 250 people. “In the summer people will be able to sit on the patio and watch the downtown festivals and hear the music that’s being playing,” Willey said. “The festivals (i.e. Bluesfest, Greekfest and Ribfest) bring people from all over the world to Kalamazoo and now they’ll be able to watch and listen from Shakespeare’s back porch.”

But the upcoming expansion has caused some apprehension among the Shakespeare’s faithful. Rob Gray, a 22-year-old Western student is worried that the bar will become more “mainstream.” “I like coming here because it’s a pretty quiet place where my friends and I can come every week to just sit, talk, drink and chill,” Gray said. “I’m hoping that the addition won’t make this place frat-dominated and stuffy like Wayside or Firehouse or any of the other bigger bars in the area.”

But Vadella encourages the Shakespeare’s faithful not to worry. “We’re not going to change the scheme of things,” he said. “We’ll never charge a cover and we’ll still keep the comfortable quaintness of the place. This will always be a place where anybody can come and hang out in a relaxed atmosphere.”

The new wing of Shakespeare’s was originally scheduled to be opened on New Years. Due to city licensing restrictions the opening-date has been pushed back several times. Vadella said he doesn’t want to make any promises but he is shooting for June.

Whether the wing opens this June or in two years, it’s safe to say Ted Vadella’s pipedream has become a reality.

Franklin: Writing for Story

I first read “Writing for Story” about a year ago and a lot of what Franklin wrote was effective for me. His writing was influential enough for me to reference it in my Comps essay that I turned in a couple of weeks ago. It doesn’t take long to see that Franklin is a good writer. For example, in his acknowledgments he gives a character description of his editor that goes like this: “Vern, the news editor of All Hands magazine, was an expert, acerbic and ancient (perhaps fifty) old man with a bad stomach and a mobile face capable of showing ten thousand different grades of disgust.” Find me a better character introduction and I’ll be impressed. The statement he made that was most influential on me though, was when he wrote, “True revolutionaries, the ones who actually DID change the world, used different instruments. They used words, typewriters, and paper.” This struck home for me, helping me realize the importance of a profession that I’ll probably take up some day. I like “Writing for Story” because, to me, the story is the most important part of a piece of writing. The story is what keeps the reader reading and what makes the reader interesting. Franklin chooses a couple of interesting pieces to include in his book.

Mrs. Kelly’s Monster: I like the tension that the writer creates in this piece. It reminds me of a scary movie with the good guys going into a dark cave where a monster lurks. The pop, pop, pop of the heartbeat does a great job of holding this tension. I also like how the author gets into the lives of both Mrs. Kelly and Dr. Ducker.

The Ballad of Old Man Peters: I like how this story starts from the beginning of Old Man Peters life. It works well with his growing idea of a dream that sometimes fades to a fantasy but starts up again small and continues growing until it’s a reality. The author also does a good job of showing Wilk’s never-ending thirst for knowledge, first by describing his dream of going to college, then by showing how he wants to travel everywhere in the world.

Throughout the rest of his book, Franklin continues to feed us useful information. He knows they’re good because he sets them aside in italics so that they stick in our mind. But there is plenty of other useful advice that might go unnoticed if you don’t read carefully. Just a couple of examples: “Complications and resolution are absolutely necessary to identify and define the story, but beyond this is a good story depends on action.” And, “actions in literature as in life, speak far louder than words.” From the outline to the structure to the polishing Franklin’s advice can help us form a story that will keep the reader reading.

The American Man at Age Ten

Susan Orlean hit this piece right on the nose. She picks the perfect boy to represent a "normal kid" and but it still able to show how unique he is in her writing. The story's lede is meant to take us back so we remember what it was like when we were growing up. Orlean does an awesome job with it. Everything from the OCSCU school to how he loves recycling to how he says "girls aren't very popular," cracks me up. These examples gives us a great idea of what he's like as a ten-year-old person.
This story is another great example of how narrative journalism can turn the mundane into the extraordinary. Orlean finds the most normal kid she can, yet is still able to write a captivating story about him. We're interested in these kinds of stories because they relate so well with some point in our own lives. It gets boring reading about famous/rich/"important" people all the time. Sometimes it's refreshing to read about something more familiar to your own life.
Orlean also does a great job weaving in facts with her introduction of Colin. At just the right times she'll include a paragraph about adolescent development or nintendo statistics. She's also ver good with her use of dialogue. When Japeth and Colin are talking to each other about Street Fighter it is exactly how I would expect two ten-year-old friends to talk.
The question I want to raise about this piece is: what is it about? Is there an underlying message? Or is it just a story about what consumes a kid's life?

My favorite blog

Bill Simmons: Sports Guy Blog

Simmons is good about speaking his mind and he is very interactive with his readers (he puts out a column called "the mailbag" every week where he responds to his readers' e-mails). Although his blog is on ESPN, he goes off topic a lot about recent trends, tv shows and movies. I can't believe this guy can think of so much to say and still keep us reading. If you're ever reading his blog look at the analogies he use. He's the best with them even though they keep getting more and more rediculous. The Sports Guy is a funny guy. Take a look at his blog sometime when you get a chance.

It's Only Natural

By Mike Leifeld

My biggest flaw might be my indecisiveness.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t lose any sleep thinking about what I’ll wear tomorrow or deciding what I’ll do next weekend. It’s the big decisions – like what I want to do for the rest of my life – that trouble me. For the longest time, I blamed my parents.

My mom has worked her way up through the ranks of the newspaper business, which meant a lot of moving for me. She was a writer in California, where I was born. She was a copy-editor in Lansing, Mich., where we moved next. She was an editor in Battle Creek, Mich. and also in Rochester, NY until she was promoted to publisher in Ithaca, New York. We were eventually sent back to Battle Creek, and have since lived in Wisconsin and Tennessee.

I hated my parents with every move because it meant goodbyes to old friends and uncertainties at new schools. It never took more than a couple of months to readjust to the new scene (and forgive my parents), but I was always aware that soon, the next move might come.

Now, as a senior at Kalamazoo College, I know there is another big move pending. As before, I don’t want to move, but now, more than ever, I have control of where I’ll go next. And I’m stumped.

My indecisiveness has plagued me for years: When I was in high school and all of my friends had sent out their applications and were awaiting reply, I was still trying to decide where I wanted to apply. When girlfriends pressured me to become more serious, I broke up with them. When deciding on my major at school, I chose English – not because I particularly like literary theory or poetry or anything that English majors are supposed to like, but because I couldn’t decide on anything else.

I’m sure my indecisiveness has led to some commitment problems that stem from not staying in one place or doing one thing for long periods of time. I think this is the reason why choosing a post-college path has been so difficult for me. For example, I discovered an interest in journalism two summers ago when I worked as a sports reporter in Wisconsin. I continued with the work the next summer in Tennessee and decided to focus my studies for a possible career in journalism. I know that I could get a job as a journalist and, until recently, I was sure that is what I wanted to do.

However, sometime in the last few months, I began having reservations about this career. I knew I would get bored if I always had to write the same kinds of stories (little league stories in Wisconsin) and annoyed of working on deadlines (late-night games in Tennessee). And the job is, after all, in the same business as the one my mom followed. Did I really want to deal with all the moving and instability again? So, recently, I began exploring other options. I looked into everything from law school to business jobs to the Peace Corps. Nothing seemed to jump out at me.

With the last couple months of my college education winding down, I have felt troubled, like most seniors do, about which one of these paths I will take after I graduate. It bothered me a lot until a couple of weeks ago when I stumbled across a surprising revelation. The eye-opener came from the same source that I thought had caused my problems: my parents.

After dinner and a few drinks last month, my parents and I talked about all the places we lived and which places we liked the best. We talked about the time my dad took a water-balloon to the face in Rochester, the baseball field he mowed in our backyard in Ithaca and my first high school football game in Battle Creek. We talked about my sister’s bike-trail in California, our Packers tickets in Wisconsin and the time we met Kenny Chesney in Nashville. We talked about good memories and even some bad – like the time I tried to run away when they told me were moving again.

But that night my mom told me something that changed my outlook on life. When I wondered aloud about what it would have been like if we would’ve stayed in California and never moved she said, “Well, you wouldn’t be the same person you are now.” She pointed out that I probably wouldn’t have met half of the people I know or experienced half of the things that made up what I am made up of.

It was stupid of me to never think of this before, but the words have had a profound impact on me. I realized that no matter what post-college path I choose, I will have experiences, good and bad. Worrying about which decisions I will make when the time comes does me no good. No matter which road I choose, those experiences will shape who I am, along with the ones I have already experienced.

So, even if I still am indecisive or have commitment problems, I should realize that it is only because I am happy where I am at now and I’m scared to lose it. It’s only natural.