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This interview originally took place in February, 2010. A special Thank You to Dave Scherer for being willing to reprint it here on Xtra.
It won't take a genius to realize that I'm making noise about this issue for personal reasons. So let's get those out of the way, shall we?
I hardly remember my childhood.
Well, maybe some people don't think that's a big deal. Plus, maybe that's not such a bad thing. Okay then...
I don't remember 99.5% of the sports I've played.
Considering that my identity - to this day - has been largely wrapped up in sports, this is saying something. But then again, sports are only sports, they're not life. Let's try one more...
I barely remember my first love.
There, now we're onto something.
When sports, which are only sports and aren't life, affect your ability to live, to enjoy life, to function, we have a serious problem.
That problem my friends, is concussions.
As professional sports become more about money; as professional athletes are better protected by the most high-tech of equipment; as professional sports and athletes become less about being professional and more about being a star, the resulting lack of respect for one's opponent can only lead to one thing:
Professional sports are more dangerous today than they have ever been.
The negative impact of pro sports on athletes today is affecting their ability to live a long, healthy life both during, and after their careers end.
It seems like every month, we hear about yet another NFL'er in his 30's, or 40's, or 50's who has died due to circumstances having nothing to do with drug use or other traditional self-inflicted circumstances. Honestly, I find myself quietly impressed when the deceased NFL'er has even made it into their 50's. What does that say about the current state of the NFL, after the fact?
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My first time, I was 14 years old. It was the end of an overtime game vs. St. Mary's. They were largely a bunch of goons anyway, so I shouldn't have been surprised when, as the buzzer sounded to end a 6-4 victory (minor hockey OT games in my area, for some reason did not end in sudden death), I was hit from behind, causing me to go head-first into the boards. I was borderline-paralyzed, at least long enough for the offender to then stand over me and pummel me into the ice. Like I said, St. Mary's hockey players were a bunch of goons.
As I tried to punch back, barely able to even lift my arm off my side, let alone generate any power vs. both gravity and the momentary paralysis, I had no idea that what had just happened to me would be a precursor to a serious, terrifying issue that I, like many, would deal with years later.
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I've known Chris Nowinski, through e-mail, since November of 2008. Ironically enough, the night I first e-mailed him was the night where my post-concussion syndrome began to clear up.
Mr. Nowinski, President of Sports Legacy Institute, the forerunners of all concussion-related research and education, and I have talked a fair amount about bringing his programs to Canada, which we both still have high hopes for. Meanwhile, I felt like making noise about this topic, and Mr. Nowinski was kind enough to allow me to call him and conduct the following interview.
MC: Talk about your organization, Sports Legacy Institute: What it is you do, and what your goals are in the future.
CN: To solve the sports concussion crisis. To solve the issue with CTE. We are involved in research, education, and prevention.
MC: There was a very specific reason for you to start up SLI. Describe your personal experiences with being concussed and dealing with post-concussion syndrome.
CN: I got my 6th concussion in June of 2003. I tried to play through it, but had to retire. I had depression, terrible headaches, and developed sleepwalking.
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My second concussion was much like the first. Ten seconds into the High School Finals, the last serious hockey game I would ever play, I was crushed, head-first into the boards while retrieving a dump-in. I didn't go down because for whatever reason, when I played hockey, I didn't go down much. But I stood there, 95% paralyzed while the little punk who had hit me tried to take the puck. I tried to will arms to control the puck that didn't even want to move an inch, and as I tried, he got control. My legs started to work, and I was able to quickly strip the puck from him and get it out of the zone. I then went to the bench and javelined my stick by my poor Defense Coach's head. I was absolutely incensed that temporary paralysis didn't warrant even a two minute minor penalty, let alone a game misconduct. But since I didn't go down, no one had even realized that I had been hurt, let alone virtually paralyzed on the ice, including the referee and my poor, terrified Coach.
I finished the game, of course. It's not like a little thing such as paralysis was going to keep me off the ice, especially in a game of that magnitude.
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MC: How long did it take you to realize that your wrestling career was over because of concussions?
CN: Took a year. For a year, I was hoping it would get better. After a year, I decided it wasn’t worth it.
MC: Describe what it's like to work with people who are concussed, and the issues that both you face in working with them, and they face in working in general.
CN: If you have a long-term post-concussion problem, it’s hard being sharp, working, returning to a normal life.
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June, 2007. It was my second year, and first full season with the London Silverbacks of the North American Football League (NAFL). London is the farm team for the CFL's Toronto Argonauts (so if you're scoring at home in Canada, the NAFL would be the AHL/AAA, and in the USA, the ECHL/AA). I walked on mid-season the previous year as a kicker, and for the 2007 season, made the team both as a kicker and as a cornerback.
Tuesday night practice. A 7-on-7 drill, so only one lineman on either side. No helmets. Guys were going through their roles at various speeds, and as I jogged through my read (it was a run play), I ran behind the Head Coach/Owner, who was running the drill.
Not two steps out from behind the boss, I got crushed. Completely and utterly decimated. A 260 lbs. offensive linemen, the only one on the field for this particular drill, sprinting at full-speed, pumped his right elbow squarely into my unsuspecting jaw.
Now, best-case scenario, I should've done a reverse summersault, a la Heath Herring after a Brock Lesnar right hand a couple of years back, and the role would've largely absorbed the blow. Instead, I look back on that not-quite-summer evening as the only time I've ever regretted having a jaw.
Upon the smashing of his elbow upon my jaw, my head snapped back...all of two inches. I caught it immediately, brought my head back forward, and grabbed the lineman by the collar, right arm immediately cocked to throw a straight right fist into his jaw, as doctors are slowly realizing is the normal reaction when it comes to severe head trauma. I didn't though, and instead, I waited.
I didn't have to wait long, as the poor guy quickly realized what he had done, and begun apologizing profusely. He didn't see me, was simply running full-out in what's known as a drive block. I put my cocked arm down, and was pretty thankful. Thankful that he apologized, and thankful that I didn't punch him. While I have no doubt that my seven years of martial arts experience would've been more than enough to handle the majority of that team's lineman, this particular individual was crazy, and in all likelihood would have hospitalized me.
I finished the practice, not missing a single drill. I felt something, but I didn't know what it was. I drove home, a 27 minute drive mostly on highway, and told a friend that I thought I had a concussion, but wasn't sure. There was no dizziness, no sickness, no headache, none of the symptoms.
Just...something didn't feel right.
I got up the next day, still felt that same something. Still drove the 27 minutes mostly on highway to practice, still played both positions. Still drove back home.
The next morning, I woke up and tried to get out of bed. I collapsed. I caught myself on my chair, and pulled my limp body alongside it until I could lift myself into it. My legs were at fail station. I looked and saw my cordless keyboard five feet away, and to the left of my chair. I leaned over, which was easy - it was not falling out of the chair that was hard - and fought to reach the keyboard without falling out of the chair. I got a hold of the keyboard, and sent a message on Facebook to my best friend telling her what had happened. The ability to type came purely from muscle memory, as even talking was impossible – I was slurring my words like a stroke victim. Needless to say, she was worried. It's too bad I didn't heed her "Go to the hospital!" reply.
Eight months later though, I would. To get checked for a stroke. At 26 years of age.
Instead, I took a few hours, slowly got my ability to walk and talk back (think about that for a second), and less than nine hours later, was in an hour-long Taekwondo class. Immediately after that was 45 minutes in the weight room, doing NFL Defensive Lineman Mario Williams's insane upper body workout, as outlined in Men's Health in 2006.
You're not exactly supposed to push yourself when you have a concussion. Then again, when you hurt your brain, you can't exactly think rationally either.
MC: What are your thoughts on the WWE Wellness Policy, both in general as a former performer, and as it pertains to concussions?
CN: I’m not too familiar with it, however I’m pretty sure they’re not rolling research into preventing risks. The moves are too dangerous for the reward.
MC: How do you feel about the comments that Vince McMahon has made in regards to concussions and the effects they have – or don’t have – on professional wrestlers?
CN: The quote “If he had the brain of an Alzheimer’s patient, how could he have been able to wrestle, or even get on an airplane?” – he’s trying to take advantage of people’s lack of scientific understanding of concussions.
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The first 4.5 months post-concussion were an unimaginable, unfathomable hell that I wouldn't wish upon anyone short of Bin Laden (or other like-minded terrorists). They were such that if you haven't experienced it yourself, you simply can't understand.
You can't understand what it feels like to be a stranger in someone else's brain. You can't understand what it feels like to have no idea why you're thinking this, or doing that, or not doing that.
Frontal lobe damage caused me to be incapable of controlling my temper, and as such left me in a constantly bad mood. Working was beyond difficult to begin with, let alone the fact that I couldn't handle the lights in the gym that I was doing personal training at (or for that matter, the lying owners).
During all of this, I was trying to keep my stuff together just long enough to perform my duties as Head Scout of a Junior hockey team in Canada, which for those who don't know, is a level of hockey that is taken very, very seriously.
Ironically enough, the week before what I refer to as Stage 1 of Hell ended, I spent – at the request of her brother – six hours round-trip in a car with said first love, and her mother and sister, as we picked her brother up from an airport in Michigan. He was coming home from a Missions trip, and wanted me there. So I went.
If you can't understand what it felt like to be a stranger in someone else's brain, than I would venture a guess that you can't imagine having to fake being yourself for six hours with the one person who knows you better than anyone else, when you don't even know what it is to "be you" anymore. Not to mention keeping a completely unhinged temper in check with someone who isn't exactly your favourite person anymore.
The next four months, AKA Stage Two of Hell, were merely terrible. Do those two words even go together? They do here.
I still remember going to visit my sister, brother-in-law, and my nieces during this time. I took my oldest niece to see The Police when they played in Toronto, and spent four days with my family, functioning purely on the adrenaline of being with loved ones. Upon leaving, I stopped back in Toronto to visit my other best friend and his girlfriend.
When I got to her place, within 20 minutes, I was a blithering idiot, mashing together completely incomprehensible thoughts, to the confused delight of the two of them. After running on adrenaline for four days, my brain crashed like a worn out CPU in a computer, and the end result was that I was a 26 year old man, sounding like a 4 year old pre-schooler.
Overall, it was 17 months of post-concussion syndrome, an experience (as if that word properly conveys what it was) that has, unshockingly enough, changed me forever.
I have barely worked since June of 2007. Partly due to bad luck (leaving two fitness industry jobs after being lied to, as well as the litigious USA causing my employer at that time to close in January, 2009, a mere two months after getting that job, which I loved). Partly due to trying to work through the purple haze that was my injured brain, and burning the remaining bridges in my field, in my area. Your reputation is all you have, and in a small town with limited jobs and in a niche market, it's really easy to Fin that rep.
My only saving grace is being qualified to work in more than one area. Another of those areas began just a few days ago, and the hope is now that I can think straight again, I'll be able to keep this job for awhile. A long while.
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MC: What do you feel people who do not have first-hand experience with concussions need to understand to be able to relate to those who have had or are dealing with concussions and post-concussion syndrome?
CN: That it is something you can’t see in a quantifiable way, but it’s there. You have to give people the benefit of the doubt, and be patient with them.
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The funny thing is, I'm one of the lucky ones. Or should I say scary. Sure I lost 17 months. Sure my finances are a joke. But I'm okay now. Better than okay really.
When I didn't remember to do laundry for days at a time, or would leave the laundry in the washer for three days, my mother was patient with me, even though she didn't understand what was going on. How could she, this isn't something they teach you in Mom's School. I often would walk away alternately pissed off without having a clue why, and simply amazed at her ability to handle me in the state that I was in.
When my temper was straight out of a parody of Martin Riggs or John McClane, my friends stuck by me. They kept calling me and inviting me over, inviting me out, no matter how stupid, or how crazy I was.
Now, I have a full-time job that pays well, doing something that I enjoy. That job is going to, among other things, pay for me to go back to school and take something I should've taken 10 years ago. Once I graduate that, my job situation will never be an issue again.
Like I said, I'm one of the lucky ones.
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MC: Speaking of the Benoit quote, once in awhile you hear about a Tommy Dreamer, a Mick Foley, who’ve had over a dozen documented concussions. Based on his style, an easy estimate would put Chris Benoit at over 500 concussions. While that may be the exception, is this an epidemic at the major league level of pro wrestling?
CN: Yes, I do think there’s an epidemic. Depending on their style – some (styles) are heavier. More so than even football.
MC: As I understand it, the rule is “If you can walk, you can wrestle”…
CN: Exactly, you wrestle through. WWE won’t stop a match because of a concussion.
MC: Are there steps available under the conditions that exist in the business as of today that could (reasonably) be taken to lessen the extent of the long-term damage, and if there are, why aren't promotions taking them?
CN: Ya I do believe – you could take steps to diminish it by 50 percent, but no one is interested in learning.
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I'm not Andre Watters. Or Mike Webster. Or Chris, Nancy, and Daniel Benoit. Or Justin Strzelczyk. Or John Grimsley. Every one of these people lost their lives as a result of their brain being turned to mush by their profession, or in Nancy and Daniel Benoit's cases, the wife and child of someone whose brain was destroyed by 250-plus diving headbutts a year, and another couple hundred unprotected chair shots. Not to mention being dropped on your head for 15 years taking nasty, real suplexes in a predetermined field of entertainment before entering the WWE.
You may look at the names and do the quick math, and say to yourself "Well so what. There's only seven names there. It's an aberration." You'd be wrong. It's the beginning. Hell, it's the beginning of our knowledge of something that has likely been happening for 50 years, seeing as all non-Benoit names there are former NFL'ers.
According to Chris Nowinski, who would know infinitely better than you and I, it's far from the beginning. They are merely the names and faces of an already-epidemic state in professional sports and sports entertainment. At this rate, in twenty years, they will be the norm, and the exception will be the guy who lives to sixty, and is able to both watch and enjoy his children becoming adults. The exception will be the athlete who is actually able to enjoy the vast fortune he accumulated while participating in a violent sports arena.
At sixty years old, he'll be lucky to be alive. He will be the exception. That's where we're heading. Are you really good with that?
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MC: You’re not affiliated in any way with the WWE now, are you?
CN: I called Johnny Ace (in January) to offer my services to teach the guys about concussions, but (as of the time of the interview) I still haven’t heard back.
I will fully admit that I am a mark for Adam Pierce. And while I may not know much of Mr. Pierce's in-ring work, in my dealings with Adam Pierce the man, I have quickly realized that there are good people in the wrestling industry. Of course, I can say that about everyone I have met from Ring of Honor.
Considering what Mr. Nowinski had to say about the WWE in relation to the concussion "epidemic," I decided to contact Mr. Pierce, the booker of the number one Indy in North America; the number three wrestling company in North America; and frankly, the most physically intense wrestling company in North America. The following is Mr. Pierce's statement to me regarding concussions and Ring of Honor's stance on the issue.
We do take concussions (and all injuries) very seriously, to the point where I wish we had the means to keep a trainer on staff full-time.
We’re lucky in those cities where the State Athletic Commission governs the event that a doctor is present, and on occasion has been very instrumental in making sure that a potentially dangerous medical condition is stabilized quickly (some of them involving me). This includes concussions.
A few months ago we shuffled an entire card because one of our talents suffered a concussion the night before and was in no shape to carry out what he was originally scheduled for. Several members of our locker room noticed something weird about him, and as has become the norm in wrestling, the wrestler was chalking it up to “getting his bell rung” and saying he’d “be fine.” Everyone could see that he was suffering, so we made the change immediately for everyone’s benefit.
We just implemented a “No Unprotected Chair Shot Rule” for 2010 and we are sticking to it. The dangers are simply too great.
Our locker room takes concussions seriously, is observant, and cares for one another. We do the best we can with what we have to work with.
It was from my best friend in high school. It was a script that we had put together and performed for English class, probably in Grade 11.
"Hey look what I found while I was doing some cleaning! I hope this brings back as many memories for you as it did for me. Love ya!"
I sat down and started to read. It was in my hand writing, and as I read, I expected the memory to click in, and for me to remember putting this together with her, writing it, and performing it.
It never clicked.
I read my own hand-writing as an outsider; laughed at the funny parts as though I'd never performed them before.
I read a select few words again.
"I hope this brings back as many memories for you as it did for me. Love ya!"
My heart broke.
A girl I still consider, and will always consider a best friend. My sister. My Doll. One of the countless things we did together that made us family regardless of blood; she remembers it like it was yesterday, and I sit there reading, not remembering it at all.
Next time we talk, what do I tell her? Do I lie and say that I remember it, trying to b/s my way through the conversation? Do I tell her the truth, knowing that she'll quell her own sadness at my lack of recall and be the bigger person about it, because she's always sacrificing herself for others?
Either way, I'm screwed.
I'm an honest person, so I'll tell her. And hopefully by then, maybe a faint, fleeting memory of some aspect of putting it together and performing it will have reappeared in my forever-damaged brain. Maybe not. Either way, this instance is a microcosm of everyday life for those of us who have had severe concussions, survived post-concussion syndrome (as in not being so depressed as to kill yourself), and are now trying to live life the way we, ahem, remember.
MC: What haven’t we touched on today that you want everyone reading this to know, or even if it’s something we have talked about that you’d like to reiterate…
CN: This is a real disease. We need to scale back, especially with pro wrestling.
My mind wanders to my grandfather. Papa was the greatest man that I ever knew. He died in 1996, when I was 15. It's been almost 14 years since he passed, and while I still remember the definition of the traits that made him so incredible, I don't remember the essence. I don't remember what it was like to be around him anymore. Everyone else in my family does.
As I continue to repair my life, trying to live and feel like I used to, I can't help but recognize the part of me that has died, and will never return.
