The Briefing Room
General Category => National/Breaking News => Topic started by: mystery-ak on May 29, 2014, 04:34:57 pm
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http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/207589-obama-possible-he-suffered-concussions-playing-football (http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/207589-obama-possible-he-suffered-concussions-playing-football)
May 29, 2014, 12:03 pm
Obama: I might have been concussed
By Justin Sink
President Obama said Thursday that he may have suffered from mild concussions while playing football in his childhood.
"When I was young and played football briefly, there were a couple times where I'm sure that that ringing sensation in my head and the needing to sit down for a while might have been a mild concussion, and at the time you didn't think anything of it," Obama said at a White House event designed to highlight the risks of sports-related brain injuries.
Obama said his experience was common and underscored the need to "change the culture" around concussion injuries in sports, in which athletes are told to "just suck it up."
"The awareness is improved today, but not by much," Obama said. "So the total number of young people who are impacted by this early on is probably bigger than we know."
Obama said parents, coaches and administrators had a responsibility to make sure student athletes "are able to participate as safely as possible."
The president said a crucial part of that effort was filling in the gaps in concussion research.
"We want to keep them safe, and that means we have to have better information. We have to know what these issues are. And the fact is we don't have solid numbers, and that tells me that at every level we're all still trying to fully grasp what's going on with this issue," Obama said.
Toward that end, Obama announced millions of dollars the administration had solicited from corporate and nonprofit partners to help fund additional research into the risks of repeated concussions.
That will include a $30 million joint effort between the Pentagon and NCAA for what the White House described as "the most comprehensive clinical study of concussion and head impact exposure ever conducted."
The National Football League will also pledge an additional $25 million over the next three years to support partnerships promoting youth sports safety, including efforts to expand access to athletic trainers for student athletes and education programs designed to teach students about the risk of sports injuries.
"We've got to have better research, better data, better safety equipment, better protocols," Obama said. "We've got to have every parent and coach and teacher recognize the science of concussions."
Obama added that the research was important not only for athletes but for the nation's military.
"I've seen in my visits to wounded warriors, traumatic brain injury is one of the signature issues of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan," Obama said.
Despite the risks associated with concussions, the president repeatedly emphasized that he thought sports played a central role in childhood development.
"First of all, the first lady thinks everybody needs to move," he quipped, referencing his wife's signature policy initiative.
But, Obama said, sports are "fundamental to who we are as Americans and our culture."
"We're competitive. We're driven. And sports teaches us about teamwork and hard work and what it takes to succeed, not just on the field, but in life," he said.
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OTOH, it might also have been the result of smoking too much 'bud'...
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http://washingtonexaminer.com/obama-calls-for-end-to-suck-it-up-sports-culture/article/2549043 (http://washingtonexaminer.com/obama-calls-for-end-to-suck-it-up-sports-culture/article/2549043)
Obama calls for end to 'suck-it-up' sports culture
BY BRIAN HUGHES | MAY 29, 2014 | 12:35 PM
President Obama at a White House summit Thursday on concussions in youth sports said the “suck-it-up” mantra surrounding sporting events has to stop.
“Identifying a concussion and being able to self-diagnose that, 'this is something that I need to take care of,' doesn’t make you weak. It means you’re strong," Obama said of athletes acknowledging concussions, while he announced new private-public funding to study head injuries in sports.
The president admitted that he likely suffered from mild concussions in his youth but kept playing anyway.
The White House event comes after Obama famously declared that if he had a son, he wouldn't want him to play professional football.
And in some of the nation’s marquee sporting events, athletes are still trying to mask head injuries.
Paul George, the leading scorer for the National Basketball Association's Indiana Pacers, admitted in recent days that he should not have revealed his concussion symptoms during the ongoing Eastern Conference Finals against the Miami Heat.
“I probably should have kept that to myself,” he told reporters. “It just made a mess. That's something that, going forward, just keep that between myself and the training staff."
George played the final six minutes of Game 2 against the Heat despite a blow to the head — he was later diagnosed with a concussion.
Such thinking is what Obama and a growing number of sports leagues are attempting to combat.
However, critics fear that the concussion initiative, which is receiving tens of millions of dollars in funding, will get lost in the billions of dollars at stake in professional and youth sports.
And Obama said he didn’t want to discourage children from playing sports, which has become an area of refuge for the commander in chief.
"When I need to relax or clear my head,” Obama, an avid golfer and former basketball player said, “I turn to sports."
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"When I need to relax or clear my head,” Obama, an avid golfer and former basketball player said, “I turn to sports."
On second thought, I'll just leave that one alone....
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EVERYTHING is always about this fool. **nononono*
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Football, really? Do they play that in Indonesia, or did he mean what we call soccer and everyone else calls football?
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Obama concussed me. I vomit so hard when I hear him, it leads to a concussion.
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Football, really? Do they play that in Indonesia, or did he mean what we call soccer and everyone else calls football?
I was thinking exactly the same thing.....
:smokin:
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I was thinking exactly the same thing.....
:smokin:
Me too.
Or else he's just outright lying.
Trying to picture this metrosexual non-athlete playing real American football doesn't work.
It never happened.
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Cussed, I'm sure of. Concussed, I doubt. He hasn't got cajones big enough to play a contact support - unless playing board games with Reggie Love counts. :tongue2:
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The president admitted that he likely suffered from mild concussions in his youth but kept playing anyway.
well that would explain a lot, such as his general mental incoherence, detachment from reality, and irrational behaviour.
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Me too.
Or else he's just outright lying.
Trying to picture this metrosexual non-athlete playing real American football doesn't work.
It never happened.
Meh - I can see him as a tight end or a wide receiver.
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Cussed, I'm sure of. Concussed, I doubt. He hasn't got cajones big enough to play a contact support - unless playing board games with Reggie Love counts. :tongue2:
I suppose it's possible for him to get concussed when he gets all oiled up to play "Twister" with Reggie, gets slippery.
:Obounce:
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Meh - I can see him as a tight end or a wide receiver.
I assume you're referring to something other than sports when you use those terms.
I doubt Barack Obama has ever even held a football in his hand, let alone played the game.
Wusses don't play football.
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So if he had concussions, there is also the possibility he has the lingering effects; i.e. chronic traumatic encephalopathy. Symptoms include paranoia, memory loss, a general attitude of selfishness... hmm... maybe he did have a few bumps to the head as a child and that would explain a lot of things!