NFL Concussions: Something has to be done.

Hunter Hillenmeyer was a linebacker for the Chicago Bears from 2003-2010 and a key component of the Bears Super Bowl run in 2006. On September 14, 2010, Hillenmeyer was placed on the injured reserve due to conditions from a concussion he had sustained in his previous game. This would prove to be his last game in the NFL.

A player being carted off the field
after receiving a concussion.

Along with Hillenmeyer, dozens of NFL players have sustained career ending concussions from all their hard hitting years in the NFL. There are new regulations being set by the NFL to help players be much safer on the field regarding concussions, but Hillenmeyer doesn't think so. "“It makes me sick to see (the NFL) claim it is driving concussion research and putting player safety first,” Hillenmeyer said. “The whole system is designed to do one thing: make owners money". Hillenmeyer is currently in a lawsuit with the Chicago Bears and the NFL to get $900,000 he believes is owed to him after being released. Doctors recommended that he retire after suffering his concussion. He has teamed u[ with the NFLPA (NFL Players Association) to attempt to get half of his contract money for 2011 ($900,000).


But the concern of concussions go past just money owed. In an article written by Stephanie Smith in 2009, there were conclusive evidence to show brain damage sustained by players in the NFL. "But today, using tissue from retired NFL athletes culled posthumously, the Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy (CSTE), at the Boston University School of Medicine, is shedding light on what concussions look like in the brain. The findings are stunning. Far from innocuous, invisible injuries, concussions confer tremendous brain damage." This evidence really amazed me and led me to look around the internet to see what the NFL is doing to protect the players.


After an hour or so of searching, I found that the NFL is trying to start conducting studies to delve deeper into problem of concussions. Personally, I think that there must be some way to protect the players more, whether it helmets with better protection, or suspensions given out to players who make plays that put other players at risk for concussions. Either way, the risk for concussions increases as more and more players become stronger and stronger, so the NFL better figure out a way to solve this issue, and fast.

Meta Post

Looking back at my blog posts from the beginning of September, I have noticed lots of similarities but also lots of improvements. I have written almost a dozen blog posts since then, and every post I take a step toward being a better blogger.I took journalism for the last 2 years at New Trier, so when I started blogging I treated the posts as mini articles. I wasn't "joining the conversation" per say. My posts were generally just like news stories, meant to inform people of what is going on. The goal of this blog is to be able to join a conversation, whether it be something from class or an article read online. 

The first post that I had that really achieved this goal was the 9/11 Advertisements post. We had discussed the hot issue of whether or not these corporations should air these advertisements, and I was really interested in the topic, so I blogged. Although my post was extremely opinionated and wasn't really accepting of other opinions, it still joined in a conversation that we had in class and that other students posted about.

I've always been interested in astronomy and the present studies of what lies beyond our hemisphere. I decided to dedicate a couple of posts to this topic. Browsing through the science section of the New York Times, I found a couple of interesting articles that I could blog about. They were relevant ideas (i.e. Another Habitable Planet?), but I forgot to attempt to connect them to a present discussion. I stated some facts and what I felt about it, but I never mentioned what other people were saying about the discovery of another habitable planet. It was an interesting post both to write and learn about, but it didn't really fit into the requirements for a post.

My best post has to be my most recent one, To Consider a Gap Year. I am very interested in taking a gap year, and since college has become a bigger thought in all junior's minds, I thought it would be relevant to share my ideas. I looked online for any articles relating to gap years that I could connect it to, and luckily I found exactly what I was looking for. There was an article that talked about all of the things that I was talking about too, so I quoted it and shared my opinions. I feel that it was my best post because of the comparing of my own thoughts and that of the article. What I also find really promising is that my best post was my most recent. Hopefully I can continue improving throughout 2nd semester to craft more posts like the one I just mentioned.

To Consider a Gap Year

Every year no more than 40 seniors at New Trier decide to do a gap year once they graduate. I always have wondered why it isn't more. Taking a year off to be free from school and do anything that interests you has always been something that I have wanted to do, and as I get closer to finishing high school it seems more and more like a reality. Whenever I mention gap year, I occasionally get the response like "Really? What are you thinking?". That response normally comes from students that have parents breathing down their necks about ACT scores and their grades. These students are the ones who are aiming for the prestigious colleges, like Princeton and Harvard. In reality, lots of prestigious colleges actually encourage it.

Why might this be? In an article by MSNBC's Danielle Wood, Wood explains, "The reason behind higher education’s support of the gap year is clear: Better-prepared students mean higher completion rates. And it’s completion that matters. Parents should remember that getting a kid into college is only half the battle." Now that we have that out of the way, let me explain what intrigues me about a gap year.

After 12 years of schooling without a break (a legitimate break, not like summer vacation where we still have to do lots of summer reading), I feel like I haven't had the opportunity to do what I want. A gap year gives me that opportunity. I plan to do a road trip across the US for a couple of months, and experience life in a way that I want to. Not that I hate school or anything, but I feel restricted in the classroom, learning things like the periodic table, something that I know I will personally never use again. Being forced to learn these mundane tasks has let my mind wander. A kid needs an adventure every once in awhile, that's how we learn. School has not supplied me of that, so taking a year off to do what I want, when I want, seems like a perfect opportunity. If you are reading this and seek that adventure in your life, rather than brushing the idea of a gap year away, look into it, there are lots of different things you can do, and lots of experiences to be had.

NASA Should Be a Higher Priority

There are many problems currently in the world that have been helped directly or indirectly by advances in space technology and the tools developed for space flight. In fact, even the personal computers and the internet owe their existence to these programs. Weather satellites, communications satellites, cell phones, and many more neat things exist to resolve serious problems here on earth. Not all the uses are serious, but some are. There are a huge amount of space technology spin-offs (including the CAT Scan and PET scan)

NASA's budget seems huge, but is really pretty small compared to the jobs and stimulus and other ways the government can spend our money -- The Apollo project, if I recall correctly, cost something like 25 billion dollars. To go back to the moon was going to be a bunch more than that, but is still pretty small compared to the hundreds of billions that are spent in other ways.

NASA should be funded. Whether we should go back to the Moon, or go to Mars is another set of questions. Priorities need to be set and then pursued if you want a particular result. If we remove the quest for knowledge (outside of Earth) we will ultimately suffer. 

If we stop searching for answers (any answers) and just work on "politically acceptable" problems, some of the basic science that will ultimately be needed for some solution, perhaps to a problem we don't even recognize yet, will be missing. So, technology and science should advance. The competition of the Space Race motivated the research and development in two great countries, but left a lot for others as well. Further, the information derived has benefited humanity and the Earth.

Why is there homework over the holidays?

As I was finishing off some homework after eating way too much food on Thanksgiving, I started thinking. Why did we get homework over this holiday break? Normally I am opposed to homework even over the weekend because it should be our time to have to ourselves and spend however we want, but what really got to me was the fact that the school gave us this 5 day weekend because of the holiday. So, if the school doesn't want to have school go on over the holiday, why are we forced to do school work at home during it? It doesn't make sense to me, and it never really has.


My brother came into town from college for the weekend, and I know a lot of other families either went out of town to visit relatives or had relatives come into town. They come to celebrate Thanksgiving as a family and spend time together, but I found myself having to do homework a couple of hours each day rather than spend time with family. We get the couple of extra days off of school to be able to spend time with family, so it's crazy to me to actually have to do work over days our own school gives us off.


I then decided to look online about what other schools are doing regarding homework over holiday breaks. A high school in New Jersey decided to say no to homework over winter break, and is one of a handful of schools to actually do it. I read this in an article here.


Lastly, as a teacher, would you really want to be grading papers daily instead of spending precious time with family? I didn't think so. Cut us some slack please, I feel it is well deserved.