Concussions more serious than we know in college sports

[Photo taken by Anne Thompson of the university of Denver vs Loyola playoff game]

Concussions in college sports is something that has been researched for quite some time as it pertains to impacting student athlete immediately after the concussion incident as well as the impact it may have later down the road.

In the last five years, the NCAA has reported that there have been approximately ten thousand five hundred (10,500) diagnosed concussions in all of college sports. (NCAA)

“I see about two to three severe concussions every year. That’s not including the times where I see a big hit and the player gets up, takes a quick break and gets back out there or when payers lie about how their feeling,” said Josie White the athletic trainer for the University of Denver Men’s Lacrosse team.

Read more: Concussions more serious than we know in college sports

With a lot on the line players maybe hesitant to explain what they’re feeling as the fear of coming out of the game or practice may overshadow the risk, they are putting on their health, athletes are risking more than they even know.

“Players don’t understand the logistics and how minor hits, or collisions can cause a concussion. They don’t understand how the earlier we understand and treat the situation, the less severe it will be and the sooner they’ll be back,” said Ms. White

It only takes ninety Gs of force to cause a concussion, that is equivalent to hitting your head against a wall at 20 mile per hour. (Online website)

Players don’t understand that these minor symptoms add up and can make you more prone to future concussions and damage your brain in other ways such as school, social interactions or other activities.

“School isn’t easy for me at all I have pretty bad dyslexia, so it takes a lot to focus on my work, so I don’t make mistakes. Every time I’ve had a concussion the first few weeks after is such a struggle because my brain feels like it just cannot focus on anything,” said Andrew DiFrancesca, medically retired due to concussions with the Denver lacrosse team.

There are times to be strong willed and willing to risk your body for your team but when you’re dealing with something as important as your brain that is not something you want to play around with.

Your brain is something that needs to be healthy and stable in order to give yourself the best chances of living a long and healthy life. Constant or repeated head trauma doesn’t allow the brain to be the best so it can perform at a high level for a long time.

“After my ninth concussion I had a long talk with my family about what I should do, after fighting through the obstacles concussions made for me, I knew it was time to hang up the stick and helmet. I couldn’t keep risking my future for lacrosse,” said DiFrancesco.

Not only is long term trauma a huge concern but the instant trauma a concussions has can is also a huge concern and can make it hard to come back from.

“It was annoying how many weeks of school I missed because every time I had a concussion I wasn’t allowed to stare at a screen or focus on anything to intensively, so once I was ready to come back, I was out of shape from doing nothing and I was behind in school,” said DiFrancesca

Research shows that multiple episodes of mild head trauma can have a combining effect that may also result in serious long lasting conditions. For example, an individual who experiences a concussion and has a second one before recovering from the first is prone to development of a second impact. This can lead to major brain impairment and even death. (EBSCO)

Jack Hannah former Denver Men’s Lacrosse player said “I was honestly scared once I got up from my hit. I was dumb and kept playing but it wasn’t me. If I talked to the trainer and understood more about concussions, there was no way I would’ve gone back in.”

From further research, baseline testing is useful for detecting deficits following a sports concussion. A total of 223 collegiate athletes from multiple sports who sustained concussions and had both baseline and post-injury testing. Each athlete used Immediate Post-concussion Assessment and Cognitive Testing (ImPACT). (The Utility of Post-Concussion Neuropsychological Data in Identifying Cognitive Change Following Sports-Related MTBI in the Absence of Baseline Data.)

“I’ve done the impact testing many times I don’t feel like it doesn’t anything, but I’ll take the doctors word for it because I just show up and play if they say its fine for me to play,”

After going through repeatedly pushing your body through intense training and conditioning in college sports you tend to look the other way when things don’t feel right as most believe it’s just normal wear and tear.

“After I was hit, I got up angry like I always do but it did not feel normal, first my ears were ringing and neck kind of felt tweaked. But as I continued to play, I started to feel lethargic, even with these unusual symptoms I didn’t know what it was like having a concussion,”

Not knowing the signs is dangerous for athletes. They’re taught from a young age unless you’re not breathing, there is no blood, or you can’t walk then just keep playing.

That is why at NFL games there is usually thirty medical professionals and at least ten are on the sidelines watching carefully taking notes and making observations on certain players and plays that have happened to make sure nothing is going under the radar.

“When I’m not sure on what I’m feeling the first thing I do is go to the athletic trainer some may call me a baby from time to time, but I really want to take care of my body,” said defensemen of Denver’s Lacrosse team Adam Hangland

With this kind of mindset of wanting to take care of your whole body including your brain, is important. Even though its not an injury you can see its one that will have a major impact on your life.

“There’s so much I can’t really control so I want to make sure I control how healthy my entire body is for the season but also for the future I don’t want to be thirty-five but feel or have the mind of a seventy-year-old,” said Hangland

Being a college athlete is very important to most athletes, but it shouldn’t be more important than their health down the line.

Sue Kelley H.W.I.C

(Photo of Sue Kelley by the University of Denver’s photographer)

Sue Kelley is the head of operations for the University of Denver’s Men’s Lacrosse team.

Sue has been with this program since 2015, when the pois won the National championship for the first time in program history. Sue Kelley was there right from the start. She was a major contributor to the team in many ways that go unnoticed to people who don’t know what being head of operation of a men’s lacrosse team means.

Being the head of operations for most companies and organizations is mainly focused on these responsibilities of designing policies, overseeing customer service and implementing technology solutions. You should be a responsible leader with an analytical and strategic mind and have a broad knowledge of the business. With these requirements for a normal business. But being a part of the Denver men’s lacrosse staff allows her to give a more personal touch to things.

“Being a part of a team of fantastic coaches and players. I also thoroughly enjoy getting to know the parents – the relationships I’ve developed will last long beyond my time at DU, and to me that’s most important,” said Kelley.

Doctors talk resiliency and relationships

Photo of panelist speaking taken by AJ Mercurio

What does resiliency look like during an ongoing period of stress? How might this impact people of all ages and stages of life?

This panel meeting was for anyone and everyone. This was about how over the last year and a half dealing with covid has been hard on everyone and people have questions on what is needed to start to feel back to normal.

Dr. Natalie Mohan, Dr. Anat Geva and, Genevieve Fraser, all Psychologist graduating from different university’s answering questions for parents of children in school, looking to find answer to questions they might be having while dealing with their children or themselves during these times.

With an audience of twenty-seven eager to listen and learn. Parents and family members looking for some answers, eyes were glued to their screens waiting for the first question to be asked and answered by one of the specialists.

Read more: Doctors talk resiliency and relationships

“What builds resiliency in adults and children,” asked Dr. Natalie Mohan to the panelist

With note pads out and ready for any sort of tip and trick. The audience was starring intensely to see which of the panelist were going to answer the question.

“When adults go through hard times, we as adults are able to look back through our hard times that we pushed through and we’re okay on the other hand children have much less time, so they don’t have times to look back on,” Answered Genevieve Fraser.

Being able to look back on past experiences is a huge factor for being able to overcome obstacles for someone to not be able to look back and reflect on pass experiences it can feel lonely and that you have no support.

“It’s okay for kids to not feel okay while going something they’ve never experienced before; it may be hard for them, but you can set them up for success but letting them figure it out on their own lets them build that resiliency and understanding that they are going to be okay,” also said Fraser.

The way that children and adults grow resiliency is by breaking out of their comfort zones and learning new ways to get through certain situations.

“A comfort zone is a sum of all life experiences, the more we take small simple step outside of our confront zone it allows you to build resiliency to things you may come across in the future. Its our jo to help children understand that getting comfortable with being uncomfortable,” Continued Fraser

As that last line of specialist Fraser answer “getting comfortable with being uncomfortable” all heads were down, and pencils were up making not of what she just said and how impactful it was to the whole audience.

With heads perked back up in full attention to the screen Dr. Anat Geva icon flashed to the head of the screen where she would continue to answer Dr. Natalie Mohans question.

“One of the most important things parents forget to do is understand what they ask of their children they should be able to do the same. Even though this is not a symmetrical relationship value and important things that should be basic communication skills should be shown both ways,” said Dr. Anat Geva

Kids and parents aren’t required to do the same things, but kids tend to follow by what you do and not as what you say.

“When faced with adversity or standing up to a bully or when asking for help from someone is something that screams resiliency and all it takes is 5 seconds of courage and if we can teach and show this our kids will be able to take the right steps toward over coming whatever they are going through,” said Dr. Geva

Resiliency is something that we all need to have because with times as rocky and unstable as they are and have been the best thing you can do is be resilient and ready the best you can for the unexpected.

The Denver pioneers’ lacrosse team win with authority on senior day.

[photo by AJ.Mercurio: pioneers walking to the locker room at halftime]

Senior day in Peter Barton lacrosse stadium the Denver pioneers are hosting St. Johns for a chance to go 2-1 in the big east conference and build off their last win against Villanova.

With the stadium filled to the brim with friends, families’, diehard fans, and everything in between ready to watch the game.

Before the game was to kick off the pioneers had a ceremony for all of the seniors and grad students to celebrate all of there hard work and dedication to the game.

“I’m so happy to see all of the boys that started their first day of college lacrosse together now to see them coming down to one of their last days as teammates together.” Said Tina Stroman a mom of a senior goalie.

Because the emotions were high in the stands with happiness for seeing their sons end a part of their lives, they still knew business was not yet done with a minimum of 3 weeks left in the season.

Read more: The Denver pioneers’ lacrosse team win with authority on senior day.

“The boys need this win so they can get on a roll to go into the big east tournament with confidence.”

The pioneer has had a rocky start to the season losing some big games versus duke, UNC and yale going into big east play nationally ranked at 20^th.

With the emotions shifting gears from happiness and loving it was getting intense and quite in the stands and on the field because both teams knew what were on the line here.

“We needed this win as a statement game that the first half of the season was not the real pioneers and that were coming for that national championship” says Teddy Sullivan a midfielder on the pioneers”

Right from the start it was a dominant performance from the pioneers keeping the foot on the gas all of the first half ending at 9-1 going to the second half.

“we’re not done yet” says Teddy Sullivan repeatedly as the team walks out of the locker room to start the second half.

As the second half begins the crowd and players on the far side got loud and intense. Feeling there was a spark of life to the St. Johns team hoping to claw there way out of this deficit.

They gave it all in the third quarter scoring three goals in a quarter put the pioneers on their toes.

“The coaches will make the adjustments to dominate in the 4^th “says Joedi Stillstrop a father of a Denver lacrosse player.

The pioneers ended just as hot as the started score 4 in the 4^th quarter and allowing 0 goals.

With the final seconds counting downs the families of the seniors and rest of the family and fans cheering on the Pios for a dominant win over the hard-fought St. Johns team.

The game ended 18-4 the pioneers did exactly what they set out to by getting a dominant win to start their win streak.

The pioneers dominated in every category ground balls, shots, forced turnover, and the main one goals.

[photo by AJ .Mercurio: at the end of the game shaking hands]

This win gives the Denver pioneer seniors a good memory of their senior day and gets them into the big east tournament. It also gets them ready to continue this steak and mentality for their next game away against providence next week.

Time management is key!

Year after year college students is seeing more and more mental health problems due to added amounts of stress due to school personal problems and other everyday college students go through.

Time management is a major factor in the success and controlling stress levels of college students that feel they have lots of things to do start.

“There are days where I feel I wake up start to work and continue to work util I’m struggling to stay awake late into the night, but still feel I haven’t made any progress int my workload.” Says Bobby McCuskey a junior university of Denver student.