Cautionary Tale: Duke's Brad Ross Battles Post-Concussion Syndrome

[burnspbesq]

Lax guys tend to think that our game is inherently safer than football, because the collisions in our game are less frequent and less severe.

Everybody who has played the game competitively for a full season or more, at any level past junior high, has stories about getting lit up (including me: I rolled back into my share of double-teams and went after a few ground balls with my head down and my radar turned off back in the Pleistocene).

Statistically, it's probably true that our game is safer than football. Most of us never got a concussion, and most of us who did were lucky enough to make a full recovers. But that's not to say the game is risk-free, as this article from Lacrosse Magazine about former Duke All-American Brad Ross's battle with post-concussion syndrome reminds us.

http://www.laxmagazine.com/mll/2012-13/news/100913_lasting_impact_brad_ross_post_concussive_sy ndrome_lacrosse

[greybeard]

It's a shame. A young man loves a game, probably has since he was a kid, and, doing nothing unusually risky, ends up with significantly impaired cognitive abilities and the specter that one of the dreadful episodes the article describes might arise any moment, and, perhaps worst of all, not knowing if "it" will get worse, much worse.

We all know what should be done about it and it does not involve throwing a few hundred thousand dollars at some research and enacting rules that are designed to take some of the most dangerous hits out of the game. The neurologists interviewed said that they do not believe that those type hits are of primary concern. What they are focused on is the hits players take that brings them to a sudden stop, or snaps their heads forward or back, the head stops and the brain keeps going. They are also concerned with the non-concussive that infuse the game.

What to do about all this. Change the equipment. You don't need a lax stick that can create velocity that produces a ball flying in excess of 100 mph and that actually deliver the ball where the shooter wants it to go. Sorry, you don't need it; the game doesn't need it. Pannell had no such shot, Stanwick had no such shot, no one on Duke's national championship teams had such a shot, get rid of those sticks. Also, get rid of sticks because they make cradling a ball in the basket as easy as holding it in your hand. Those baskets and the lightness of the sticks make players at every position capable of drawing defenders flying at them and dancing and spinning, lifting and rolling their sticks over and around and down and beating those who mean them hard to steal the ball miss. A lot of times they don't, and the result is not pretty. It does please the crowd and make the highlights. They also cause brains to crash against skulls. Take away the sticks. Bring back the heavier wooden sticks with less whip and the dodges will stop, the ball will be released quickly and passing and cutting at a slower pace will ensue--think Cornell v. Duke when Duke won after Siebald got blindsided in the first few minutes and played the rest of the game hardly knowing where he was.

Wooden sticks would slow the game down, and perhaps more importantly, take away the opportunities of players to make the high risk plays that have high reward potential and invariably produce hits that lead over time to brain damage that no one can readily detect. Wooden sticks would go a long way to making the game safer.

So would returning to less effective protective equipment, helmets, shoulder pads, arm guards, you name it. No one is likely go charging into players when there is a high degree that the hitter will get the worst of it. At least such charges will be less attractive.

There are any number of rule changes that have been implemented to speed up play, make the art of occupying the ball and looking for finesse scores off smart little moves performed with less proficiency than those light sticks permit the mainstay of the game. There will be no one handed wrap around goals with the shooter going vertical and the defenders left committed to take away the middle by physicality that will make the shooter pay for such daring. Behind the back shots, stick handling in front of the goals, not so much. The incentive to take away other aspects of the game becomes greater when the specter of such offensive machines are present on every team. It becomes a game of planned mayhem away from the goal where a missed hit that leaves a defender out of position will have no immediate danger.

We all also know why the rules of the game, and the equipment used, is taking the game in precisely the other direction. This game is growing fast, and the move out West and into the Big Ten threaten to make it a real money maker. The more visible the game, the more product that is sold. This is driven by big business.

The game has always been exciting, and used to be marked by star ball players who relied on cleverness, quick feet, what used to pass for real elusiveness, and an ability to see the field and the game and find the right spots. They made the game fun to watch, engaging, a game to be played, not an athletic confrontation governed by high end strategies in wars fought between teams that travel thousands of miles to knock the snot out of one another.

Will there be as many fans as the sport draws and will the sport as a "show" grow at the pace it now does, no. But, who beyond the coaches, programs, allure of money and visibility for them, and of course the apparel and equipment guys care. The players play because lax is among the great passing and catching games there are, and permits, or used to permit, guys with skills and above average athleticism get onto a field of play and compete. Players will still play because they love it.

Do we need Fall unofficial seasons in the sport, guys working out to get bigger, faster, stronger, more agile, etc. working with high end trainers. Not if you want to reduce these concussions you don't.

The only sadder than reading about the travails of this young guy was reading about the vapid response by those in charge, those responsible, to the challenge to the well being that the young men who will do what they love face. It seems to have become the American way

Reality--it is not possible to grow a sport to make big time bucks without paying for it with the well being of the athletes who play it. Those in charge make believe that they know differently, and even well meaning reporters who write articles like the one posted here never call them on it. Here we go again. A shame that we the fans share in.
So where would that leave the game? Maybe it would permit players who play like Stankowsky