In the fourth play of Hillsdale’s game against Malone College, junior receiver Brett Miller lined up in the slot. He took off on a deep out route. Before he was 20 yards downfield, senior quarterback Anthony Mifsud dumped the ball off to senior H-back Cam White. Miller retreated back up field, intent on picking up a block. Instead he ran smack into a Malone linebacker.
“It was a clean hit,” Miller said. “It was just incidental contact.”
The head-on collision was the last thing he remembered for the next three hours.
Miller had his “bell rung.” In other words, he had a concussion.
Hillsdale’s head athletic trainer Lynne Neukom defined a concussion as “a brain injury caused by a blow to the body or head that may result in improper brain function.”
A number of Hillsdale players estimated that six to eight players are diagnosed with a concussion each season.
Concussions have always been a common injury for college and professional athletes. Yet as aging athletes come out about sustained brain injuries and after multiple depression-related suicides by retired football and hockey players, head injury is the most controversial issue in sports today.
New research has done more to educate coaches, athletic trainers, and athletes about both the long-term and short-term effects of these jolts to the brain. Even as awareness grows, some are still asking, has the game become too dangerous?
With players continually getting bigger, faster, and stronger, there is a debate whether new rules and safer equipment are enough to keep high school, college, and professional athletes safe.
The seriousness of concussions is not news to Hillsdale’s Neukom. As new research surfaces, however, she has dedicated a great deal of attention to making sure Hillsdale College is at the cutting edge of concussion treatment.
This means strictly following “return to play guidelines,” Neukom said.
Coaches and trainers recognized Miller’s concussion right away, as Miller went limp and became unconscious.
Typical symptoms include headache, fogginess, moodiness, nausea, vomiting, and irritability.
Neukom said she emphasizes developing relationships with athletes, team members, their mothers, and even their girlfriends.
“You need to know how they act normally,” Neukom said.
After being pulled from the game, Miller underwent a 24-hour period in which he could not sleep for more than two hours at a time.
Not only are concussed athletes barred from prolonged periods of sleep but they cannot watch TV, listen to music, or read.
“The brain needs cognitive rest,” Neukom said.
It’s the return cognitive skills that will allow players like Miller to get back on the field. After 24 hours symptom-free and taking a visit to their physicians for a C.T. scan, trainers will begin testing the injured Charger.
Prior to the start of the season the whole team goes through a seminar on concussions. Here they establish baseline scores for tests like the King Devick test; a two-minute test that requires athletes to read single digit numbers displayed on cards or an iPad.
It can take players more than a week to pass simple sequence and pattern tests after a concussion. Hillsdale athletic trainers also issue standardized assessments, symptom checklists, coordination tests, and ImPACT testing.
“I failed for three or four days,” Miller said. “It gets frustrating.”
Meanwhile coaches are having their patience tested.
In a season that lasts only 12 weeks and in which a single game can be the difference between a conference championship and second place, waiting for players to get cleared can be frustrating.
“I have to be more patient if somebody gets hurt,” head coach Keith Otterbein said. “Teaching an old dog new tricks is hard.”
After more than three decades of coaching football, Otterbein said he is still getting used to the “return to play” guidelines.
“The process takes a lot longer,” Otterbein said. “The timing is different. I’ve been coaching 33 years. It used to be ‘lost the symptoms, back in.’”
No matter what, Otterbein said, he defers to the trainers and doctors, a statement Neukom supports.
“Our coaching staff has the best interest of our athletes in mind,” Neukom said.
Miller’s concussion was easily diagnosed. In other instances, concussions can go unnoticed and players are at risk of second impact syndrome, or a compounding concussion that can cause irreversible damage.
“You don’t see every single hit,” Neukom said.
Here lies the player’s responsibility to report serious head injuries, as outlined in pre-season seminars.
Former tight end Matt Patillo ’11 said this is a dilemma for players competing for positions in the midst of an intense and short season.
“The last thing you want to do is come out because you got knocked in the head,” Patillo said. “It’s something I struggled with.”
Patillo said he was diagnosed with two concussions during his career but believes he received upwards of six.
During one of his two diagnosed concussions he blacked-out for a 24-hour period.
Mounting hits to the head are the reason Patillo believes he began having issues with short-term memory loss.
He said he couldn’t remember things that were normally easy to recall.
After college, Patillo enrolled in cognitive training classes.
While he said he benefitted a great deal from the classes, the effects linger.
“I still struggle with that today,” Patillo said.
Despite the injuries, Patillo views college football as an individual choice.
“If you sign up, you know what you’re getting into,” Patillo said.
Concussions were not a national issue early in Patillo’s career, and yet he said treatment at Hillsdale has always been top-notch.
“Even three years ago concussions were just becoming a hot topic,” Patillo said. “I feel that the coaches and the training staff did a great job. There was no middle ground. They had the players’ interests in mind.”
