NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE • Dr. Bennet Omalu discovered something he could not ignore. The NFL tried to silence him. His courage would change everything.
“A gripping medical mystery and a dazzling portrait of the young scientist no one wanted to listen to . . . a fabulous, essential read.”—Rebecca Skloot, author of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
Jeanne Marie Laskas first met the young forensic pathologist Dr. Bennet Omalu in 2009, while reporting a story for GQ that would go on to inspire the movie Concussion. Omalu told her about a day in September 2002, when, in a dingy morgue in downtown Pittsburgh, he picked up a scalpel and made a discovery that would rattle America in ways he’d never intended.
Omalu was new to America, chasing the dream, a deeply spiritual man escaping the wounds of civil war in Nigeria. The body on the slab in front of him belonged to a fifty-year-old named Mike Webster, aka “Iron Mike,” a Hall of Fame center for the Pittsburgh Steelers, one of the greatest ever to play the game. After retiring in 1990, Webster had suffered a dizzyingly steep decline. Toward the end of his life, he was living out of his van, tasering himself to relieve his chronic pain, and fixing his rotting teeth with Super Glue. How did this happen?, Omalu asked himself. How did a young man like Mike Webster end up like this?
The search for answers would change Omalu’s life forever and put him in the crosshairs of one of the most powerful corporations in America: the National Football League. What Omalu discovered in Webster’s brain—proof that Iron Mike’s mental deterioration was no accident but a disease caused by blows to the head that could affect everyone playing the game—was the one truth the NFL wanted to ignore.
Taut, gripping, and gorgeously told, Concussion is the stirring story of one unlikely man’s decision to stand up to a multibillion-dollar colossus, and to tell the world the truth.
'Concussion' is the story of Dr. Bennet Omalu, the neuropathologist who discovered CTE - the disease that is damaging/killing football players at a rate that would never be allowed in anything else. Dr. Omalu, whose role in the discovery has been largely ignored/forgotten/whitewashed, came from Nigeria having little to now idea how big a role football plays in our nation. When he discovered CTE, and published his findings, he was certain that the news would be welcomed as a way to save future players. Instead, he got a fast and furious lesson in how big business (Yes, the NFL qualifies) can spin stories and take over the narrative.
This book takes a look at not only his discovery, but at Dr. Omalu as a person. His upbringing, who he is as a person, his motivations, and his convictions. Interspersed between the what the author has written are bits in italics - the words of Dr. Omalu himself. It's an eye-opening look at what shaped the man who, on nothing more than a whim, autopsied the brain of Mike Webster to discover the cause of Webster's crazy. It's also a heart-breaking account of what happens when the NFL and its fans put their money and desire for entertainment ahead of the health and well-being of those responsible for that money and entertainment.
The writing in places feels a bit...off. It's sort of like how a person inexperienced in English would write, with the very short sentences and awkward dialogue. However, it's not often and in the overall scheme of the story, it does not do any damage. It is an interested tale, as evidenced by the fact that the movie (with Will Smith as Dr. Omalu) is coming out this December. It's also a tale that needs to be told, for the sake of those who are putting their lives on the line for a billion-dollar entertainment industry, as well as for the forgotten man who has continued doing his best to help them.
Look, I am a football fan (not fanatic). I have a team I follow, and I root for them to do well. But I also believe that these players, not all of whom have multi-billion dollar contacts, are going to put their future health and well-being on the line, then the NFL has a responsibility towards them that has been lacking. This book makes very clear the science, the attempts to negate the science, and the outcome if something isn't done. Now the question is - are people truly listening?
