I, Superman

Dateline: The Concussion Protocol

“I done wrestled with an alligator, I done tussled with a whale; handcuffed lightning, thrown thunder in jail; only last week, I murdered a rock, injured a stone, hospitalized a brick; I’m so mean I make medicine sick.”
~Muhammad Ali

There is but one uniform all athletes wear and it consists of blue tights and a red cape.

It is they who give us the “oh’s” and the “ah’s” of life.

It is their pedestal to dazzle us.

To do things with arms and legs that the arms and legs in the seats can only dream of doing.

No matter the field of play, the humans who play it are the bling of the game.

We don’t pay to watch each other bowl, play tennis, or take a swing in the office beer league.

But when Babe Ruth steps to the plate, all eyes are on one man. All eyes know who and what stands there.

I, Superman.

“…digging for kryptonite…”

This story I write may be the most important story I write this year, and possibly for my entire tenure at B.A.S.S.

I am not spitting on Superman’s cape, I’m pulling it off, folding it up and packing it away.

I write this story for the Supermen amongst us, and the Superwomen, moms and dads, brothers and sisters, who love them.

And for the children who look up to them.

As a sportswriter, as a father, as a caring God-fearing human being, I can not turn a blind eye anymore, pretend I don’t see an injured athlete take to the field of play, and be okay with it under some stupid sports mantra of machismo.

Just can’t do it.

If we care about athletes when they are on the field we must also care about them when they are off the field.

You don’t buy the person when you buy their jersey, you do though buy responsibility as a contributor to the game they play.

We call them gladiators but they are not, they are sons and daughters. This ain’t ancient Rome, folks. It’s a game and should not be life and death anymore.

And I worry about those athletes I write about now, worry about the pounding their bodies take, worry about the cancer that rides the sunlight, worry about the deep water they ride upon, and worry especially now about one of them, a friend of mine, close friend, Greg Vinson.

Worry about his bruised brain, worry that maybe, just maybe, the concussion is still there and that he is taking to this field of play because his livelihood depends on it, worry when he tells me this:

“Sometimes, as men we are taught to be tough, don’t mention the trouble, the pain, the problem, just work through it, just play through it.”
~ Greg Vinson

I, Superman.

“…on this one-way street…”

Meet Greg, who came in 2nd once at the Bassmaster Classic, easily one of the Top 15-20 anglers out here, nice guy, family man.

39 years old, one son, 4-year-old Gaige (I remember when he told me he was going to be a daddy; he found out in a Father’s Day card his wife gave him), married his childhood sweetheart, and I mean childhood, “I saw Stephanie when we were both in middle school, thought she kind of looked like the girl for me, our first date I was 16, she was 15…”

Played college baseball at Auburn University at Montgomery, where he was called “Big V,” because when “I hit I just hit bombs, just smashed them.” To prove that point he played as a 6’3” 215-pound pitcher and DH.

In college, Greg was a 2-time All-American sidearm pitcher. Graduated with a degree in Environmental Science, got a job at a fish hatchery where “…I seined a pond every day, which means me and three other guys drug a big heavy net through the pond and two feet of mud every day to get the fish out and into a truck, along with all the snakes and bugs and everything else in the pond.”

No thanks.

He grew up on Lake Martin, “where I swam and fished every day.” The son of two teachers who, “taught me the value of hard work and how to get the most out of myself.”

We are having a late dinner; Greg practiced this day from dawn to dusk and met me at the hotel restaurant. He ordered some kind of chicken dinner; I got a club sandwich. We talked about ESPN and his favorite TV channels, “…sports and The History Channel…” I was taking a bite while Greg played with his food, finally put the fork down, looked at me and said, “db, you know what makes you good at sports can also get you hurt, killed even.”

I, Superman.

“…only a man in a funny red sheet…”

“I’m no Superman.”
~ Michael Irvin

With both our forks down, Greg starts telling me about being the quarterback of his high school football team, “I once had my jaw broken, really broken, but went back in and finished the 2nd half of the game, it was the furthest we ever got in the playoffs you know.”

I do. Just win, baby.

“That’s when I got my first concussion, in a pile up. Got knocked silly, came to the sideline, shook it off and went back in.”

I once got knocked out, I was riding my chopped 650cc Triumph Bonneville, saw a carload of pretty girls driving alongside of me. I wasn’t married at the time, so I smiled at them and tried to look all tough and ran smack dab into the back of a truck.

I got launched through my handlebars headfirst into the back end of Vinnie’s Produce Cargo Van, woke up in a hospital, no broken bones or scratches, just a little loopy. I was asked if I knew where I was. I replied, “Earth,” which was close enough. I was released that afternoon.

For the first week afterwards I kept asking the girl I was dating at the time exactly this: “Why is everyone talking backwards.” She just gave me ice for my head. In time, people started talking frontwards again. I was back on the road before the bike was.”

I know of the seriousness of concussions.

The keyword for Greg’s last sentence up there is this, FIRST, as in not the only concussion he’s ever had.

I’m done with the club sandwich; sirens are going off in my head as Greg tells me, “I’m starting to hear better now, can hear out of both ears and it doesn’t sound like everyone in the room is shouting anymore.”

Staring to hear better after the fall he took around Valentines Day, “I woke up on the bathroom floor of the movie theater.”

Two weeks later, with a note from his doctor, he was fishing the Bassmaster Classic.

I, Superman.

“…looking for special things…”

“No man is invincible.”
~ Keyshawn Johnson

“I was peeing,” he says with a red face, “when I suddenly felt dizzy. I had a bad sinus infection, thought it was that, but it was weird so I stepped back and suddenly just crumpled to the floor. I woke up with 911 paramedics around me.”

Greg was told he was out cold for at least 30 seconds, “felt really embarrassed,” but was let to go home, “that night, I woke with an excruciating headache and violently throwing up but thought I could sleep it off.”

He didn’t, next day same thing, so Stephanie took him to the local Doc-in-a-box walk-in center, who immediately told him to go to a hospital. “When I do, the hospital does a concussion protocol on me. The MRI shows large bruise of the brain. The docs tell me it looks like I was in a bad car accident. They admit me and I’m in there for two and a half days.”

Two weeks later in the parking lot of the Bassmaster Classic in Tulsa he tells me all this, “I saw then the look on your face when I told you, the look of worry and concern you had for me and I knew from your experience dealing with stories like this at ESPN that you knew more than the ordinary guy and that concerned me.”

I have friends who are ex-professional athletes who may not know now what day it is today. I just read the other day that Jim Kelly, an athlete I covered for years, and the QB of my hometown team the Buffalo Bills, was quoted as saying that he didn’t remember one half of a Super Bowl game he played in because of a smack in the head.

Yeah Greg, I was worried in Tulsa, damn worried about you. Trouble is, Son, I’m still worried about you.

Here’s why: “After practice at St. John’s, I was pretty shook up that night, pretty weak.”

Oh great.

“…inside of me…”

Greg is telling me answers to questions I haven’t asked. “I’m glad I did play through the concussion because for awhile I was in contention to win the last Classic.”

I have heard that before, many times, most times that the athlete was telling me that he/she did so through empty eyes.

“The doc’s have no real clue what we do, the pounding and bouncing around that happens in the boat so I deliberately put off the follow-up exam with the doc until after the Classic. I was afraid he wouldn’t let me go compete.”

“After the St. John’s event I went for the follow up, the doc told me I still had a bruise of the brain but that it was smaller now, that I would still have symptoms for a couple of months and that the hearing issues would go away and those are getting better, said it was okay for me to fish.”

I have no notes after those two sentences.

After those two sentences I came out of the press box, became a friend once again, a dad of a young man…

“…inside of me…”

It is moments like this when you have to decide if writing about games, writing about the glory of the game, the value of sports, pimping the play of the athletes is, worth it.

At best, I lose sleep over it.

At worst I think it may be criminal to look the other way when you know.

When you know.

I promised Greg that in this story I wouldn’t call for, or press, that he spend the rest of the season on the sidelines. That is not my call. Maybe it should be, but it’s not and so be it.

I did tell him, though, that if he were my son, I wouldn’t let him play.

I am a hypocrite as I write this because I have gotten on a plane and flew out to do this job while my doctors were saying I should stay home. I may be paying for that now as I have to cut short my time at this event to fly home for some medical tests next Monday/Tuesday.

I sit and write this story under the gaze of the man in the red cape, he sits and hears every story I write, my motivation to be Superman of words.

I talked some with Greg, personal stuff between me and him, got him to say this, “I don’t need to be a tough guy, I need to take care of myself for my family, for my son.”

I asked him if he would want his son to be Superman, “No,” was all I got, all I needed.

Greg promised me that he will be open to follow up testing and if the symptoms don’t go away will take himself off the water, “get better and save myself so I can play longer. St. John’s scared me.”

Let me ask you this, does the score of the games matter that much that we let young men and young women play the game no matter what.

As a sport, we like any other sport, need to have a Concussion Protocol that takes the decision out of the hands of those who play the game.

We need to stop believing in “the heat of the battle,” because it is not a war, not life or death. It is just a game.

If you are a coach and you have any concerns the only place for the athlete to be is on the bench, in the doctor’s office, not on the field of play.

The athlete is more important than the score.

“Just win, baby.” kills people, and death is not a game.

We can’t live by rules printed on tee shirts.

We can’t live by the lights of a scoreboard.

We can’t live by the roar of the crowd.

I don’t feel good when I see Greg launch; I pray that all be right with him and his brain.

I pray for all of us who cheer even when we know those we cheer for are hurt.

I pray that the sounds of cheers in our stadiums are not the same as the lions heard in the stadiums of ancient Rome.

My most important story of the year.

Superman, I not.

“…inside of me.”
‘Superman’
Five For Fighting

db

“My main goal is to stay healthy because when you’re injured you realize how lucky you are to have your health.”
~ Maria Sharapova