The Holidays are usually a time for family, gifts and general celebration.
In 2015, it was a time for “Concussion.”
Will Smith stars as Dr. Bennet Omalu, a Nigerian-born forensic pathologist whose autopsy of former Pittsburgh Steelers center Mike Webster – a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame — leads him into a lengthy battle against the NFL.
The story begins in 2002 when Omalu, who was working in the Allegheny County Coroner’s Office, conducted an autopsy of the 50-year-old Webster. The retired star player died unexpectedly after a multi-year struggle with depression, drug abuse, mood disorders and suicide attempts.
After examining Webster’s brain, Omalu noticed changes that pointed to the fact that concussions caused brain damage.
“I had to make sure the slides were Mike Webster’s slides,” Omalu said in an interview with FRONTLINE. “I looked again. I saw changes that shouldn’t be in a 50-year-old man’s brain, and also changes that shouldn’t be in a brain that looked normal.”
Three years later, Omalu and colleagues at the University of Pittsburgh published a paper called, “Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy in a National Football League Player” in the journal Neurosurgery.
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Omalu told GQ that he thought the NFL’s own doctors would be interested in his findings about chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE).
They were interested – just not in the way Omalu expected.
It wasn’t long before three scientists who were on the NFL’s Mild Traumatic Brain Injury Committee wrote a letter to the editor demanding that the article be retracted.
Shaken but undeterred, Omalu continued his work. He examined the brain of former Steelers guard Terry Long, who committed suicide at age 45. Long’s brain looked much like Webster’s. So did the brains of three other NFL players he examined.
A second paper Omalu wrote was published in 2006 by Neurosurgery. Omalu also founded the Brain Injury Research Institute with Julian Bailes, a neurosurgeon and former Steelers team doctor. Bailes is played in the movie by Alec Baldwin.
It takes until late 2009 before the NFL acknowledges the link between concussions and CTE and announces new guidelines about when players exhibiting signs of a concussion may return to play. Since then, the NFL has taken further steps aimed at protecting players.
Much of the film centers around the years between 2005 and 2009, as the NFL tries to discredit Dr. Omalu’s findings.
So far, the movie has received largely positive reviews, with Smith winning some best actor awards and a nomination for a Golden Globe.
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