West Orange, Seton Hall Athletes Learn of Concussion Danger

West Orange and Seton Hall Prep athletes were among the audience at the Super Essex Conference Sportsmanship summit Thursday at Bloomfield High School. This year's workshop had an additional message for the 500 student athletes who took part.

The summit highlight was a program on concussions. The workshop was a refresher course on the awareness of the injury and just how serious it can be. Among the speakers were Dr. Jill Brooks, a clinical neuropsychologist from Bernardsville, and New Jersey Congressman Bill Pascrell Jr. (D-8).

Pascrell said as many as 3.8 million concussions related to athletics were reported last year and that 41 percent of those injured returned to the playing field too soon.

"Concussions are nearly invisible, but devastating,'' said Pascrell. "They are nothing to play around with.''

Athletes were asked to fill out blue and pink slips that were to be filled out.

Among the questions was whether a concussion is a brain injury, can a concussion change your life and whether they had hidden symptoms of a concussion from their coaches, teammates or parents. 

"Trust me, no long-term consequence is worth it,'' said Pascrell. "There was a lady at Marlboro High School who's had 11 concussions playing sports. She went to Washington to testify at a hearing. She'll never be able to play sports again.''

Pascrell has worked diligently on a bill to get the federal government to make guidelines to prevent and treat concussions in student athletes. The ConTACT Act creates a five-year grant for schools that adopt the measures and run neurological tests on athletes from the sixth grade through high school.

The day's lesson hit home for West Orange football player Pascal Louis.

"I didn't realize it was such an in-depth injury, I just thought it was a knock to the head and that was it, but now I know it's a brain injury and can be very complicated if you don't take care of it,'' he said.

His coach praised the league for having the idea to host the workshop.

"It was a real positive experience,'' said West Orange football coach John Jacob, adding that his team suffered just two concussions from freshman through varsity teams last season. "It was a great idea for the conference to do. We have a great trainer and a staff that's very aware and we really emphasize reporting injuries prior to the year and our players are good at it.''

West Orange quarterback Chris Smith said the morning's workshop was very detailed and helpful.

"It was pretty good, it was very informative,'' said Smith, adding that he hasn't suffered a concussion. "The guy's speech at the beginning was very good, lots of good stories. You hear about concussions, but it's really the first time I learned about them.''

The audience was made up of mostly seniors and captains of their teams. When Brooks asked the crowd how many of them had suffered concussions, many hands went up. When she asked how many had suffered a second concussion, not as many hands were raised, but it was significant.

"Fifty percent of people who have a second impact die,'' Brooks said. "Not all symptoms occur immediately, some come 10 to 12 hours later, some five to seven days after. In many cases, people don't recover completely.''

"Any information you get is good, more information is better,'' said West Orange boys soccer coach Doug Nevins. "You have to be extra careful. Soccer isn't a sport you wouldn't think there's a lot of concussions. But with a rap to the head, there's head to head contact, so wen a kid looks a little off that's when you have to be careful. Better safe to sorry. Winning a high school game isn't as important as a kid's future or life.''