By Eric Weinrich

January 25th, 2008

Blethen Maine

I was recently at a highschool game, and I had an interesting conversation with a parent. It was concerning concussions. It has become kind of an epidemic in contact sports in this era. Not only professional sports, but highschool and youth as well.

When I was in highschool, I had a teammate who had suffered a few head injuries and it became such a problem that he had to limit his participation. This was really my first experience seeing an athlete suffer from a concussion. Throughout my collegiate career and early in my professional contests, I saw players and had a few occasions where I was "dinged". At this stage in the game, the medical view on concussion monitering and prevention was not as extensive as it has become.You would sit a shift or two, tell the trainer you were ready to go and you were back in the action. That night you may have had a headache, but it was common. How times have changed.

The amount of documented concussions now is very high and on the rise. Why has it become so wide spread? Are athletes faster, stronger and maybe more reckless? Or maybe the respect or lack of respect for another athlete has gone by and instead become who can make more of a statement with a big hit. Whatever the reason, it is a major issue in the world of sports today.

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