Chris Nowinski vs. the NFL

The other night I was watching “Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel” and the topic was the follow up to a story they did in 2007 about concussions in the NFL. The segment was actually called “Head Games,” which I appreciate. Dateline and 48 hours should borrow the pun-y segment title writers from HBO. They’re always naming their segments after Nancy Drew books, like they’re going to trick us into watching news. "The Trouble At Twin Wrecks." "The Mystery At Empire Lake." (I didn’t make those up.) It’s a real life mystery, we get it. (I’m completely full of shit, of course, because Dateline reporter Keith Morrison’s voice is chilling and I dare you to watch 3 minutes of "The Mystery At Empire Lake" and not drop everything you’re doing to find out what happened to Michele Harris. “It’s a little piece of paradise…and perhaps…a particular corner of Hell…” Oh my God, where is she?!!)

That’s not the point, though. The point is that ex-NFL players are having all kinds of dementia and depression from brain damage they sustained while playing football, so Chris Nowinski decided to look into things. He’s a less than likely candidate to head up (yep) this investigation, but if anyone knows about concussions, it’s this guy.
He played football at Harvard (so, in a tweed sport coat) and then decided to ram his head into people (and folding chairs) for a living as WWE pro wrestler. (He thought about getting a regular job after Harvard, but then he remembered that girls who live in trailer parks are super easy.)
After a few years of that, he was diagnosed with post-concussion syndrome. He started investigating the link between repeated concussions and serious brain problems, and when Andre Waters killed himself, Chris took his brain to some doctor, who cut it up into slices and poked at with what I think is a martini stirrer.
In a shocking twist that only the most advanced science could have proven, it turns out that banging your head into things as hard as you can for years on end, damages your brain. They also figured out where babies come from, but I wouldn’t be too quick to believe anything until more testing’s been done.

If you want to see if you can make yourself as depressed as a veteran NFL player, watch this: