Welcome to the Machine

(Episode 11: A High They Have to Have: A Retelling)

In this episode, I update my original Sports Illustrated piece from 2015, in which I described what suffering a concussion in a football game is like and the day many years later when I finally faced the truth that I could no longer conceal my true feelings about the culture of enablement that surrounds the football industry.

Football always seems to sneak up on me, somehow, and before I even realize it, the season is here. I’m 47 now. The early-August two-a-days of the late 1980s have disappeared into the past. Truth told, I’ve done everything I can do to put them out of my mind. I wish it were that simple.

Meanwhile, the masses once again spend their weekends entering the coliseums (or, barring that, tuning in to College Gameday). Are they not entertained? Of course they are; they always are.

Not me. As baseball winds down and America’s addiction to football peaks yet again, a growing part of me wishes summer would never end. I didn’t always feel this way, and anyway it’s a strange confession to have to make — that I don’t follow football anymore. Truthfully, my animosity towards the game and its culture came on gradually, over a period of years, hardening and hardening until I finally started coming to grips with the ugly truth.

But to understand how and why I arrived here, you first need to know where I’m coming from.

Those who on the outside look in — those people who have never lived it — might say football was somehow good to me. My father was an All-American in college and an All-Pro, playing eight full seasons in the NFL and never missing a game.

As for me, I earned a scholarship to an outstanding academic school in Division I, and had my undergraduate education paid for in full. I made lifelong friends through playing football, and a big part of me still misses that feeling of camaraderie. In fact, it’s probably one of the biggest reasons why I decided to pursue a career in the military. There, I made an even greater group of friends. To this day, I cherish the memories I made with my teammates.

That’s one side. But there’s another side — the collateral consequences, many of them negative — that didn’t reveal themselves until later in our lives. It’s not fair for me to speak too much for my father. He was never one to talk about his injuries, let alone how he felt. He came from a generation of men who did not talk about feelings.

He played offensive tackle for nearly a decade, hitting and being hit on every offensive play. If I had to venture a guess, I’d say he’s hit his head hit thousands of times — if not tens of thousands. Like many of his peers, he now has serious cognitive dysfunction.

I played contact football from the age of 9 through my final year in college at age 23. I suffered a number of concussions, and kept playing. Back then, even when you got your bell viciously rung, you kept playing. You might sit out a few plays. It’s what we did. If it was bad enough, as it was following my most significant one, you went into the locker room and were held out for a week — maybe. But back then, no one thought concussions could cause permanent brain damage, or that numerous concussions and even sub-concussive hits to the head could do the same.

They were never a serious issue, and it may well have stayed that way if not for a Nigerian-born pathologist named Bennet Omalu. It was Dr. Omalu who was on call the day former Mike Webster’s body was brought in for an autopsy. Omalu noticed that Webster, the Hall of Fame center for the Pittsburgh Steelers who’d died at the age of 50, looked more like a man 20 years his senior. Puzzled, Omalu decided to examine Webster’s brain. While the brain appeared normal on the outside, a closer look showed something far different: abnormalities typically associated with Alzheimer’s patients. This new disease was named Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE), and Omalu would eventually find it in the brains of former Steelers Terry Long — who’d committed suicide by drinking anti-freeze — and Justin Strzelczyk, killed in a fiery car crash after leading police on a high-speed chase.

Researchers have since examined the brain tissue of 128 football players, all of whom had played the game professionally, semi-professionally, in college or in high school. Within that sample, 101 players, or just under 80%, tested positive for CTE, which develops when repetitive head trauma produces abnormal proteins in the brain. These proteins work to essentially form tangles around the brain’s blood vessels, interrupting normal functioning and eventually killing the nerve cells themselves. Patients with less advanced forms of the disease can suffer from mood disorders, such as depression and bouts of rage, while those with more severe cases can experience confusion, memory loss and — in some cases — advanced dementia.

NFL players found to have had CTE include former Chicago Bear Dave Duerson and San Diego Chargers legend Junior Seau, both of whom eventually committed suicide. Jovan Belcher, the former Kansas City Chiefs linebacker who shot and killed his girlfriend before taking his own life, was also determined to have CTE.

How can a single concussion impact a person? Leigh Steinberg, former agent for numerous NFL quarterbacks, recounts the conversation he had with Troy Aikman hours after the Dallas Cowboys won the 1994 NFC Championship, during which the star quarterback suffered a concussion:

Aikman: Where am I?

Steinberg: You’re in the hospital.

Aikman: Did I play today?

Steinberg: Yes, you did.

Aikman: How well did I play?

Steinberg: You played very well.

Aikman: Did we win?

Steinberg: Yes, you did.

Aikman: What does this mean?

Steinberg: It means you’re going to the Super Bowl.

Five minutes later, Aikman asked the same exact questions, and Steinberg gave the same answers. After another 10 minutes had passed, Aikman and Steinberg had the same conversation again.

Perhaps the most shocking discovery made by doctors, however, has been the frequency of CTE in college and high school players — including one 18-year-old prep player who died following his fourth concussion, leading researchers to conclude that CTE can begin in youth football players.

I’m certain I suffered some concussions that went undocumented during my youth football days, but it wasn’t until college that I experienced a hit which was a turning point of sorts.

It was 1989, we were playing in a late November game. With just a few minutes remaining in the third quarter, I went out and lined up with the kick off team. My role was to be a “safety,” one of the players whose job it was to hang back and make a tackle only if the return man beat the coverage.

That’s exactly what happened. After their return team opened a huge gap, the runner was heading full speed straight at me. At first, I thought the best approach would be to simply get in his way. Then, at the last second, realizing I was flat-footed and in danger of being run clean over, I ducked and tried to body-block him at the legs. As he went over me, his knee struck the right-back side of my head. Down he went. I’d made the touchdown-saving tackle.

But I was knocked unconscious for an instant. When I opened my eyes moments later, I found myself lying face down on the turf. For a moment, I didn’t know where I was. Then, suddenly, I was back. I pushed up and off the turf, only to realize one of the officials had me by the arm. I quickly turned towards our bench, ready to run off the field. The first step I took was with my left foot. As soon as it hit the ground, the weight of my body collapsed on top of it, and I fell back down. My left leg would not work.

“That’s weird,” I thought before standing back up once again. This time I limped off, dragging my left foot in tow because it wouldn’t answer the commands my brain was sending it. It took everything I had just to get myself off the field. Looking back, watching replays of the televised game, it’s strange seeing the trainer meet me halfway to the bench and taking me by the arm; I don’t really recall that happening. They started evaluating me almost immediately, and even took my helmet away — at the time, the only tried and true method of preventing a player from re-entering the game.

Shortly thereafter they took me to the training room for further evaluation. I can still remember watching the rest of the game on the locker-room TV, although the memory has always been a fuzzy one.

It was somewhat surreal, seeing something happen on the screen and then hearing the real-time roar of 70,000 fans. I remember calling my parents, watching back in Texas, and telling them I was alright. I also recall the trainer telling me not to go to sleep, and to have my roommates wake me up every two hours — just in case. I’d been officially diagnosed with a concussion, which was soon reported in the media.

I was listed as probable for the next game.

The week after the Baylor game was like a waking dream. I went to practice, but didn’t participate. I went to my classes, but it all made me feel scatter-brained. More than anything, I was tired. But come game time the following week, I was sure I was ready, and the team doctors agreed.

I’m convinced I sustained another concussion the following season — on a very similar play, no less. Only this one didn’t affect me like the previous one, mostly because I was able to get up and off the field on my own power. I wasn’t taken out of the game, even though I felt the same, spacy symptoms. I just didn’t tell anyone. And I am sure my father never told anyone when he suffered a concussion. Why would he?

Back in his day in the NFL, if you told anyone you were hurt, you might get cut. Even though I was only 7 when he retired, I can remember Dad talking to mom when a teammate got cut from the team. Today they call it being released. And back then, players didn’t have a cushy bank account to rest on if they were cut. There was no such thing as a league minimum salary like the player have today. Today, the league minimum is $660,000 dollars per season. This means if you are anywhere on an NFL roster, you must be paid a minimum of $660,000 a year. That comes out to an average weekly paycheck of $41,250 per week.

By way of comparison, my father never made that much money in an entire season. (As an aside, this is one fact that makes me laugh at people who think I grew up in an affluent family because my Dad played in the NFL. That’s a myth.) And if he or any other player got cut, it was a much more devastating life event for them back then. So they were motivated to not report concussions. If you did, you might lose your starting job; you might even lose your job altogether.

My football career ended at 23. I went on with my life. Then, when I reached my thirties, I started noticing things. For no discernible reason, at the most random times, I’d experience sudden, intense episodes of what felt like sadness, guilt, or self-criticism. Spring or fall, summer or winter, these isolated attacks did not discriminate or come in one season. They came without warning, and would often strike on days when I otherwise felt completely normal. Unlike many who’ve been diagnosed with CTE, I’ve never had thoughts of harming myself; it wasn’t like that. It was more a general feeling of uneasiness, of being depressed, but without any discernible or precipitating event I could link it to. I would push through them and they would eventually dissipate.

I know now these symptoms are consistent with what we’re now seeing in victims of head trauma — not just in football, but in hockey and even soccer, as well. Are my experiences the result of concussions or repetitive head trauma? I have no idea.

At the same time, it’s telling that I only began having these bouts after suffering my concussions. I never experienced them growing up. I wasn’t depressed as a kid. I wasn’t depressed in college.

With time, I’ve grown to feel fortunate to see these episodes for what they are — isolated instances that I am able to control through logic and will. I tell myself there is no actual reason to feel this way. But they still manage to find me, often on an otherwise perfect day, for no apparent reason at all.

Today, as I hear about more and more kids suffering concussions and catastrophic, often life-changing injuries, I wonder if it’s all really worth it. Many Americans love football. But the price some pay, physically as well as psychologically, is just too much.

I have two sons. Neither of them has ever played a single down of football. The excelled in baseball, basketball, and track. But I never suggested football to them, and they never asked. I wasn’t about to be one of those dads who puts a ball in the crib and takes them out to throw and catch as soon as they’re old enough to walk. Had they approached me about playing football, I’d have talked with them about it. I doubt I would have allowed them to play because their grandfather had already started to suffer from his time playing. But I never had to make that decision because they never expressed any interest in it. I am sure that had to do with the fact they grew up in places where football was not the golden idol.

Today, it has been many years since I watched a single down of a football game. I do not miss anything about it. But I know almost everyone around me continues to feed the beast. This used to feel strange, but I got over that long ago. And it’s a lot easier to avoid it when you live somewhere where the thing is not worshipped like a false god.

Somewhere deep down, the thing appeals to something dark in people. Whether it’s learned in American culture or innate in some people is probably debatable and both conclusions are likely accurate. But to those that consume it, it’s something they can’t get from anything else, in many ways the ultimate high. And it’s a high they simply must have, if only so they can continue to avoid talking about the consequences of their participation.

Glen Hines is the author of the Anthology Trilogy of books — Document, Cloudbreak, and Crossroads — and the highly regarded Bring in the Gladiators, Observations From a Former College Football Player Who Was Never Able to Become a Fan, all available at Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble. His writing has also been featured in Sports Illustrated, Task & Purpose, and the Human Development Project.

This series, Welcome to the Machine, is being simultaneously run on Amazon Kindle and the Welcome to the Machine Podcast, available on Anchor, Apple Podcasts and Spotify.