NCAA Reaches $70 M Concussion Settlement
This morning, the NCAA announced that it reached a preliminary settlement with former players with regards to concussion testing and treatment. It's valued at roughly $70 million. Link with further details provided below.
http://www.cbssports.com/collegefootball/writer/jon-solomon/24641342/ncaa-reaches-concussion-settlement-for-70-million-in-testing
It's absolutely shocking to me that some of these policies weren't already in place:
- Baseline testing in the preseason for every athlete in which he or she competes
- Requiring medical personnel who are trained in concussion diagnosis and treatment to attend all games and practices for all NCAA contact sports. The settlement defines contact sports as football, lacrosse, wrestling, ice hockey, field hockey, soccer and basketball.
- Prohibiting athletes from returning to competition on the same day they are diagnosed with a concussion.
- Requiring that schools provide NCAA-approved concussion training to athletes, coaches and athletic trainers prior to each season.
- Implementing concussion tracking so schools will report concussions and their resolutions.
I coach middle school track and our district has every one of these policies in place currently... for middle schoolers... running track... shocking.
The school district that I live in actually has it in place for gym class at the elementary level. Every single student comes home with a form that must be completed and signed indicating that you are aware of the policy.
from 2007-2010 and we did not have
1. baseline testing (unless a physical counts?)
2. No medical personnel at meets (typically, maybe an exception every once in a while)
3. I wouldn't have done it obviously, but I was never informed of a specific rule outlawing this
4. No training on concussions, the only training I ever got was when I sought out and asked to go to the Barwis strength and conditioning training.
5. I'd be shocked if they have this now, definitely not when I was there
The scary thing is that this settlement is only the beginning. What concerns me is if (when) a suit is filed against a university and there is a large settlement or damage award that the school must pay. The NCAA has a big war chest; most university athletic programs run in the red.
Priorities homie.
No, I'm not. I'd sure as hell not like to see someone like Denard Robinson, or any athlete for that matter, who took a beating for four years end up with symptoms of CTE. I'd shut the game down tomorrow if I thought that would be the case. And it may yet come to that. Every new study seems to point in a direction that none of us wants and so far, technology is not providing answers.
Money is driving college football and, depending upon where these litigations go, could greatly change the game or worse.
Or else both football and soccer would be banned. Even one concussion can lead to mental health problems. So let's cut the crap and accept the fact that when we continue to allow high risk sports a risk analysis has been performed and it has been found that there is a risk we are willing to accept ($$$) at the expense of another human beings welfare.
You make it sound like we haven't done that with everything from drinking soda to launching people into outer space...
I merely pointed out that risk analysis is conducted and that yes, at the end of the day either a practice is banned or prohibited, or risk outweights the cost. In other words, people are always thinking about the health of their institutions and when they accept the risk of injury they do so in hopes of increasing the bottom line.
Universities have liability insurance policies, which they extend to cover the work-related actions of their employees. It doesn't really matter what the bottom line of any particular department looks like.
You are failing to note that these liability policies of which you speak have premiums that are risk-based, like most insurance policies. Annual premium costs could be incredibly high depending upon the frequency of CTE in college athletes. So yes, they could potentially very much impact athletic department bottom lines.
“What the case was originally about was people who suffered real injuries from concussions,” Edelson said. “If you look at the NFL settlement, and I'm not taking a position whether it's good or bad, there's going to be people who gets hundreds of thousands of dollars of cash. Here nobody is getting anything. I think we lost focus of what the purpose of the case was: get cash in people's hands.”
This guy is not helping.