What do you do when the thing you love most can kill you? While certainly not applying to everyone worldwide, many workers or professionals around the globe do their jobs because they love them; most doctors enjoy curing patients, teachers love inspiring young citizens to learn and be productive in society.
One thing that seems to be beyond argument, however, is that athletes love what they do. It becomes all too clear when you see their celebrations after having thrown down a vicious windmill dunk, won the gold medal at the Olympics, or scored the winning goal to win the Stanley Cup.
Now, many professionals around the globe embrace that their jobs involve occupational hazards inherent to their job itself: crab fishermen accept that their life is in danger when they go out to sea.
However, one danger that is not inherently clear, but is becoming more and more talked about, is that participating in professional sports can lead to neurological disease and death.
Brain complications from repeated hits to the head and neck have been decently documented in sports like football, where hitting is a fundamental aspect of the game. However new, damning evidence has recently been found that links largely non-contact sports, like soccer, with neurological disease in its players.
While soccer is a largely non-contact sport, with contact often being penalized, it is not void of hits to the body of its players. Players are often knocked to the ground, hit and pushed over and they too receive concussions and knockout blows.
Just recently in the Premier League, Chelsea player Oscar dos Santos Emboaba collided heads with another player and was left the worse for the wear, unable to get up immediately with stiff arms and a dazed look.
He was able to continue and finish the half, but the handling of his injury, which was later confirmed as a concussion, was universally panned by soccer pundits and medical staff.
While concussions and head blows are a problem unto itself, the larger issue becomes prevalent it is examined that playing soccer can lead to a neurogenic disease that will cripple a player and change the whole course of his/her life.
A poster child for this recent research is Patrick Grange, a soccer player who passed away at the age of 29. After his death, scans of his brain revealed Stage 2 Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE), a neurogenic disease that is often associated with repeated head trauma.
While Grange had his fair share of head injuries, as per the New York Times, including falling hard as a kid and being knocked unconscious during a high school soccer game, his parents described his love for the part of the game now coming under criticism: heading.
Dr. Ann McKee, the neurologist that examined Grange’s brain posthumously, stated to the New York Times that the frontal lobe was where she found the most damage in Grange, which becomes evidence when you realize that this area of the head is the area most utilized when heading the ball.
“We can’t say for certain that heading the ball caused his condition in this case, but it is noteworthy that he was a frequent header of the ball, and he did develop this disease,” McKee said.
CTE, which thus far can only be diagnosed posthumously, shows symptoms of mood changes like depression and suicidal thoughts, memory loss and behavioral instability among other symptoms.
While incidents like Oscar’s concussion and its mishandling is helping to lead to more discussion of reactionary response to head trauma, something that professional soccer is sorely missing, cases like Patrick’s lead to a bigger problem.
In the NFL, concussion research has led to positive changes to helmets to protect its players, something that has not dramatically changed the game. However, soccer’s problem is not so easily addressed.
Many coaches, from youth programs all the way through semi-professional and professional leagues have called for heading to be heavily discouraged or removed from the game due to its connection to this emerging trend.
Heading is one of the most integral and beautiful aspects of soccer, as there are few sights more beautiful than a perfect header over the goalie into the net.
But with research concerning head-related injuries becoming more prevalent, players of the game are finding their life’s love a double-edged sword.
