Former Harvard football player and pro wrestler Chris Nowinski ( âª@ChrisNowinski1) and Sylvia Mackey, the widow of NFL Hall Of Famer John Mackey, talked about concussions in the NFL and the threat of the brain injury to your kids.
Nowinski explained that the young brain is more susceptible to brain injury. The longer you play and the younger you start, the more at risk you are for CTE, or chronic traumatic encephalopahty, he said. The brain never evolved to take the amount of blows football players take in a lifetime. Nowinski said that there is no way kids before high school should be playing tackle football. Let the data drive the decisions, he said.
John Mackey's brain was donated to the BU CTE study, where it was confirmed that he had CTE. Sylvia Mackey described her husband's dementia and decline. She said that his strange behavior clued her into the fact that something was wrong. She said his diagnosis with dementia came as a relief, from knowing that there was something wrong with him. She said to see him deteriorate like that was so heartbreaking.
While Mackey said that she still loves football, but the game needs improve player safety. She said that there is some danger in everything. Mackey said that her husband would have supported her decision to donate his brain to the BU study.
