Maybe the best story I wrote in my two years covering sports for Current Publishing -- which puts out eight weekly newspapers in suburban Portland, Maine -- was a piece on concussions called Hard Knocks. For the story I talked to high school athletes who received concussions as well as a doctor who specializes in brain injuries, a school nurse, an athletic director and a few athletic trainers. My conclusion was that concussions are much more serious than we thought even just ten years ago.
Today there is talk that an NFL player who committed suicide last fall might have been affected by the numerous concussions he received in his playing days. Also, there was a book published recently called Head Games that looks into "Football's Concussion Crisis from the NFL to Youth Leagues," as the subtitle says.
My story, by the way, was one of three I wrote that were chosen by the Maine Press Association to receive first-place awards. If I can toot my own horn for another moment, the judge of the contest wrote, "An important, anecdote-spiced story about concussions in high-school sports, a significant issue ignored for decades in a macho world. Well-written, well-researched, and well-done."
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