Dan Morgan at forefront of debate on concussions

CHARLOTTE -- When he was playing head-first and heads-up football, the only thing Dan Morgan ever sidestepped was the truth.

To this day, he still lacks hard information about how many concussions he suffered and how they will affect his future.

The former Carolina Panthers linebacker, who retired in part because of multiple concussions, still doesn’t have a good answer for how many he suffered in a life playing the game the only way he knew — hard and fast.

“I don’t know, could be double digits,” he said flatly when asked how many concussions he suffered playing football. “Something like that. Maybe eight, maybe 10. I never really kept count, but the longer you’re away from it, the more you realize you had. I never knew it was an issue until I got to the NFL, and the media made it an issue. Then you realize...

“I mean, I go back to high school, and I remember hitting people and seeing shades of green. You know, that was probably one there.”

Those kinds of stories of too-late awareness are becoming increasingly common, as more attention than ever has been focused on head injuries in football. In fact, Morgan has become part of a group convened by the NFL Players Association to study concussions and their long-term effects. Morgan is part of the Mackey-White committee, which conducted its first meeting last week in West Palm Beach, Fla. The group is named for former Baltimore tight end John Mackey, who now suffers from dementia.

Doctors, researchers and current and former players talked about what to do for future generations. Basically, how they can protect guys like Morgan.

“This committee will serve as a ‘superconductor’ of information in order to drive rapid and meaningful progress in concussions,” NFLPA medical director Dr. Thom Mayer said in a release distributed by the NFLPA. “We have assembled a world-class group of scientists to facilitate our work, which will benefit not only NFL players, but all those involved in all contact sports.”

Morgan admits that he wished he knew more earlier about the dangers of repeated concussions.

Like many players, Morgan often covered up the truth of his condition to stay on the field.

Typical of his experience was a big hit in Jacksonville the 2006 preseason. He left that game, but insisted a week later that he was OK.

“I came in on blitz, my helmet came down on the side of my face and kind of scratched the side of my face and my eye,” Morgan said then. “It was just a little cut ... everything’s fine now.

“It was just a little ding. I didn’t have a concussion. I knew where I was. It wasn’t where I was disoriented or anything. It was just something they wanted to be cautious with, with the regular season coming up. It was no big deal.”

Three weeks later, he suffered another concussion in the regular season opener at Atlanta and didn’t play again that season, the beginning of the end of his career, and his journey of learning what exactly was happening inside his head. Just over a month later, upon the advice of concussion specialist Dr. Mickey Collins, he shut it down for the rest of the year.

Reminded of the post-Jacksonville conversation last week, Morgan laughed, knowing he was busted — in one of the many little lies he told during his seven-year career in an effort to keep playing.

“As a football player, stuff like that’s in our DNA,” Morgan said. “You have to act like nothing’s wrong, you have to act like you’re the toughest guy on the field. You’re going to do anything you can to keep playing.

“You never want to admit you’re hurt. As a football player, you learn to be in denial, because you’re taught to suck it up and keep going from the time you start playing.”

Some of that denial started to slip away last week, when doctors at the meeting showed slides of brains which had suffered what’s referred to as MTBI (mild traumatic brain injury). Among the cautionary tales was former Philadelphia safety Andre Waters, who committed suicide in 2006. Many believe that stemmed from clinical depression, which many think was a direct result of his concussion-laced playing days.

“There’s some worry there,” Morgan said when talking about the Waters example. Still, Morgan said he feels good now, with shades of his old ways creeping back in.

“I mean, I feel good right now,” he said.

The 31-year-old still looks the part of a player. He’s living the easier life of retirement now, taking care of his wife and kids, looking after his South Charlotte pizza restaurant, involved enough in that enterprise to run to a nearby grocery store when they run out of ingredients during the lunch rush.

But his main concern, as it pertains to last week’s meeting, is making sure others don’t make the same mistake he used to make. While he said he’s not sure of the committee’s timetable, he and fellow member Zach Thomas (the former Dolphins linebacker) have talked about spreading the word to make sure others don’t follow their path.

It’s a hard topic to broach among Morgan’s NFL brethren, as he said the message is better suited to younger players at the high school and college level. But the committee has discussed other ideas, such as the possibility of NFL teams practicing without helmets, thus without contact.

Morgan knows it could take a fight to get football to wrap its collective head around such a revolutionary idea. After all, this is a sport full of guys just like him, guys who willingly will put their bodies on the line every week for paychecks and glory.

Asked if he thought the idea could really take hold, Morgan paused.

“I think eventually it would be fine,” he said. “Sure, there would be some old-school guys who wouldn’t like it, but I think the majority wouldn’t be opposed to it. I mean, think about it, you’re saving your head, you’re saving your body.

“I’ll be honest, I think if we were doing stuff like that then, I’d still be playing now.”

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(heraldonline.com)