May 28, 2015
Cecil Hurt
TideSports.com Columnist
On Monday night, Stephen Curry of Golden State, the NBA's Most Valuable Player, took a spectacular tumble while attempting to block a shot against the Houston Rockets in the Western Conference Finals, spinning in the air and landing with a solid jolt to the back of the head. Later, Curry returned to the game, although he was clearly suffering from what someone who didn't want to say "concussion" might call "the cobwebs."
On Wednesday night, Curry's teammate, the also-valuable Klay Thompson, took a knee to the side of the head from Houston's Trevor Ariza, left the court, went to the locker room and came back with no concussion test and a laceration to the ear that required him to go back and get three stitches. In a postgame interview, he told ESPN's Doris Burke that he was fine but "a little dizzy," a condition in which he played most of the fourth quarter.
If any background was needed for the new concussion protocol the SEC adopted this week and announced on Wednesday, the NBA playoffs more than provided it.
Yes, basketball is a different sport than football, but concussions are still dangerous. People who shrug and say, "it's only basketball," need to discuss the matter with former Alabama guard Andrew Steele, who lost much of his final season due to concussions. A blow to the head is dangerous in any sport. Ask Missouri softball pitcher Tori Finucane, who took a line drive to the face in an NCAA Tournament game at UCLA. In that case, there was no option to return, and she spent the night under observation at a hospital before being cleared.
I understand the NBA playoffs feature multimillion-dollar players who have a direct effect on multimillion-dollar outcomes. Furthermore, virtually all players, in football, basketball, softball or baseball, will tell their coach or the team's medical personnel that he or she feels fine, that they're ready to get back in the game.
Competitors want to compete, and they want to seem tough. But they aren't always the best judge of their own condition. Neither is a coach, who's under pressure to win and has a player telling him that he's good to go.
Motivated (although no one said so) by an incident at Michigan last season when former coach Brady Hoke put a clearly-concussed quarterback Shane Morris back on the field in a loss to Minnesota, the SEC has made the bold move of taking the decision whether a player can play out of the coach's hands. To its credit, the Big 10 has adopted a similar measure.
"It will be someone that the conference puts there, not the institution," Mike Slive, the SEC's retiring commissioner, said. "It will give us another check if, on the field, a team does not see that a player has sustained a head injury."
There is potential for controversy. As Andy Staples of Sports Illustrated points out, a football team that is told to remove its star quarterback in the fourth quarter of a close game is going to have some unhappy fans, and some unhappy coaches as well. Though it passed with little fanfare, the measure could potentially have more win-or-lose impact than a dozen "satellite camps."
But the mindset is going to have to change. A player who goes down with a serious knee injury under the same circumstances is not compelled to get back in the game. But a concussion can have serious consequences, both in the short term and the long term. There has been great progress in concussion awareness over the past 50 years, when players who were knocked out cold were often dragged to the sidelines, given smelling salts and put back into a game. But more progress needs to be made, so players - even valuable ones - aren't put back into action when they're feeling "a little dizzy.
https://alabama.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=1770107
Cecil Hurt
TideSports.com Columnist
On Monday night, Stephen Curry of Golden State, the NBA's Most Valuable Player, took a spectacular tumble while attempting to block a shot against the Houston Rockets in the Western Conference Finals, spinning in the air and landing with a solid jolt to the back of the head. Later, Curry returned to the game, although he was clearly suffering from what someone who didn't want to say "concussion" might call "the cobwebs."
On Wednesday night, Curry's teammate, the also-valuable Klay Thompson, took a knee to the side of the head from Houston's Trevor Ariza, left the court, went to the locker room and came back with no concussion test and a laceration to the ear that required him to go back and get three stitches. In a postgame interview, he told ESPN's Doris Burke that he was fine but "a little dizzy," a condition in which he played most of the fourth quarter.
If any background was needed for the new concussion protocol the SEC adopted this week and announced on Wednesday, the NBA playoffs more than provided it.
Yes, basketball is a different sport than football, but concussions are still dangerous. People who shrug and say, "it's only basketball," need to discuss the matter with former Alabama guard Andrew Steele, who lost much of his final season due to concussions. A blow to the head is dangerous in any sport. Ask Missouri softball pitcher Tori Finucane, who took a line drive to the face in an NCAA Tournament game at UCLA. In that case, there was no option to return, and she spent the night under observation at a hospital before being cleared.
I understand the NBA playoffs feature multimillion-dollar players who have a direct effect on multimillion-dollar outcomes. Furthermore, virtually all players, in football, basketball, softball or baseball, will tell their coach or the team's medical personnel that he or she feels fine, that they're ready to get back in the game.
Competitors want to compete, and they want to seem tough. But they aren't always the best judge of their own condition. Neither is a coach, who's under pressure to win and has a player telling him that he's good to go.
Motivated (although no one said so) by an incident at Michigan last season when former coach Brady Hoke put a clearly-concussed quarterback Shane Morris back on the field in a loss to Minnesota, the SEC has made the bold move of taking the decision whether a player can play out of the coach's hands. To its credit, the Big 10 has adopted a similar measure.
"It will be someone that the conference puts there, not the institution," Mike Slive, the SEC's retiring commissioner, said. "It will give us another check if, on the field, a team does not see that a player has sustained a head injury."
There is potential for controversy. As Andy Staples of Sports Illustrated points out, a football team that is told to remove its star quarterback in the fourth quarter of a close game is going to have some unhappy fans, and some unhappy coaches as well. Though it passed with little fanfare, the measure could potentially have more win-or-lose impact than a dozen "satellite camps."
But the mindset is going to have to change. A player who goes down with a serious knee injury under the same circumstances is not compelled to get back in the game. But a concussion can have serious consequences, both in the short term and the long term. There has been great progress in concussion awareness over the past 50 years, when players who were knocked out cold were often dragged to the sidelines, given smelling salts and put back into a game. But more progress needs to be made, so players - even valuable ones - aren't put back into action when they're feeling "a little dizzy.
https://alabama.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=1770107
