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Running head: CONCUSSION MANAGEMENT AND RETURN TO PLAY PROTOCOLS IN THE
NCAA. 1
Concussion Management and Return to Play Protocols in the NCAA.
Matthew Paranczak
Wilmington University
2
CONCUSSION MANAGEMENT AND RETURN TO PLAY PROTOCOLS IN THE NCAA.
Due to the numerous complaints of former NCAA college athletes regarding post
season brain/head injury and discomfort, it is clear that the legal issue of concussion
management and return to play protocols should be more strict and evaluated more closely.
Specifically in division one football, some student athletes were being treated like
professionals rather than students, meaning organizations cared more about getting their star
athlete back on the field more than their well-being/potential academic issues following a
concussion. This was allowed to happen within the organizations because the NCAA had
vague/lenient rules on the return of student athletes following a concussion. This leniency is
what brought upon the legal issue of concussion management and return to play protocols in
the NCAA. An example of a risk factor just a few years back that football players were
allowed to practice was helmet to helmet contact during games. This specific contact in
football games brought about plenty concussions. After the law suites and everyone in the
football industry coming to a realization, helmet to helmet contact is finally banned from
both the NCAA and the NFL (National Football League). Many athletes who played college
sports under the NCAA filed lawsuits against the NCAA when realizing the negatives of
going through the years with concussions. At least 65 former college athletes are suing the
NCAA over its handling of concussions, according to a database pending lawsuits in federal
and state courts (Solomon, 2014) . CTE, Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s are all examples of
serious brain injury conditions that are suffered from athletes who have received concussions
or brain damage from football action in the past, and scientific results indeed help prove this.
There are plenty of court cases against the NCAA regarding the exact issue of return to play
protocols and the management of players who receive concussions. A few prime examples of
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CONCUSSION MANAGEMENT AND RETURN TO PLAY PROTOCOLS IN THE NCAA.
court cases defending these former athletes are Chris Walker vs. NCAA, Ben Martin vs.
NCAA and Dan Ahern vs. the NCAA.
There was an important and mind opening study performed to observe the brains of
football players versus non - football players. A scientist at the University of Tulsa's Laureate
Institute for Brain Research, Patrick Bellgowan had been scanning the brains of specifically
college football players, comparing the results to scans of non-players. His focus was on the
hippocampus, a seahorse-shaped area deep inside the brain that plays an important role in
emotional control and memory formation (Hruby, 2014). Bellgowan knew that the
hippocampus was sensitive to traumatic brain injury. Bellgowan did a study on a group of 25
players with no history of reported concussions and they had hippocampus’s that were, on
