The Impact of ‘Concussion’

concussionby Ivan Cole

Sometimes the essential message of a film can be condensed into one scene. There is such a moment in the latter moments of the movie Concussion.

Dr. Bennet Omalu (Will Smith) is in a ballroom addressing a crowd of the family members of NFL players that have succumbed to the effects of CTE, including the widow of former Pittsburgh Steeler Justin Strezelczyk. In one of those strokes of artistic license, Mike Webster (heartbreakingly channeled by David Morse) is in the audience as well.

“I don’t hate football. My wife has started watching it. I see the grace, the drama.

I once said I wished I had never met Mike Webster. I was wrong. He was committed, a captain, a warrior, quiet in his pain. He has given us a gift. The gift of knowing.

In the place I come from, we take care of our warriors, give respect to those with the power to heal them.

These men are not machines. Not commodity. Not video game figure. We loved them when they were heroes.

By dying they speak for the living. And I speak for them. That is all I do.

Forgive them. Forgive yourselves. Be at peace.”

He would also say that men come to professional football knowing they risk their long term physical health by doing so. We also now know the chances are high they may lose their minds and all that implies as well. And they need to know of that risk as well.

Thus Concussion more or less successfully straddles the line between both celebration and condemnation of professional football. Unless you have completely buried your head in the sand on this issue, something I would find hard to believe in this community, then the revelations will not be shattering. The viewer will be required to see head on that which one might prefer to peek at out the corner of the eye, metaphorically speaking.

To be sure, it is an indictment of the game of football, particularly at its highest level. “Football killed Mike Webster,” Omalu says. But it is a circumstance neither driven by malice or negligence. Like the connections between smoking and cancer or coal mining and black lung, it has been an unknown danger and consequence of playing the game. The unsettling question is, now that we do know, what do we do about it? The alibis of ignorance or innocence will no longer do.

If there is a villain in this piece, it would be the corporate mindset that is often biased against human values in favor of whatever is profitable to a small number of people. The NFL (embodied by our good friend Roger Goodell) has clearly succumbed to this value system and is, probably rightfully so, compared to Big Tobacco in its actions. Cover ups, denial, smears, character assassinations and worse, all for the sake of ‘protecting the Shield’ is the standard procedure here, with the unintended consequence of producing the outcome they have sought to prevent.

 

This will likely be a particularly difficult movie for Steelers fans. Though mention is made of players from other teams such as Dave Duerson, Andre Waters and Junior Seau, the action is largely centered in Pittsburgh, where Omalu worked as a medical examiner in the coroner’s office under Cyril Wecht. The tragic final acts of the lives of Webster, Strezelczyk and Terry Long is on center stage.

And for any member of Steelers Nation old enough to have been following the team when these players were part of the fold, it cannot be easy to watch. In fact, one of the dramatic arcs of the movie is the reaction to Omalu, who is Nigerian and not a fan of American football, by Steelers fans, including co-workers, to what they see as the desecration of Webster. The combination of this animosity, along with league efforts to discredit him, leads to Omalu basically being run out of town.

Interestingly, besides the league office and certain team doctors, notably Joseph Maroon in Pittsburgh, team ownership and staffs come away clean. And the reaction to the movie in certain circles has been anything but defensive.

Antonio Brown took the WPIAL Champion Clairton High School football team to see the movie. Jimmy Jones, who played for the George Allen Washington teams in the seventies, told me on Tuesday that the league had made provisions for former players to see the movie for free, and that he was planning on getting together with Charlie Taylor and other Redskins alums to take it in.

As for me? My football playing days were cut short in part by shoulder and knee injuries. At the time I thought it was bad luck. Today I feel I was under the protection of angels.

3 comments

  • Great piece, Ivan. I have not yet seen “Concussion”. I want to, and I don’t.

    I’m currently reading “League of Denial” which covers much of the same territory as the movie. It’s riveting material. I, like many fans, am finally gaining an understanding of concussions their dangers. My conflicting emotions are rooted in the belief that the game we all love is changing and will change more, as it must. Yet, despite an intellectual understanding that change is necessary to protect the players we love, changing the beautiful violence of the game embraced by players and fans alike, will be difficult.

    Once you know the details about Mike Webster, Dave Duerson, Andre Waters and the other victims of football induced brain damage, you know the change must come. But there is be a sense of loss. Knowing what needs to happen will not make it easier for fans and players and continued resistance from the corporate titans of the NFL is probable.

    Ivan’s recognition that his football injuries were a curse but was actually a blessing pretty much says it all.

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  • Movie probably shouldn’t have come out when Star Wars did, though.

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  • Concussions I thought was a good movie aND really well done. I came away with my jaw hanging open by the character portrayal of Dr. Bennet Omalu by Will Smith. A person of rare qualities, but I have found abundant in African countries. This country and football in particular are fortunate that this person crossed our pathes. It’s sad that it takes a non citizen to have the insight and gift to speak evident human truths so clearly and passionately such that you can not deny that they are true. He saved lives and foitball.

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