By Kate Snow, Sarah Koch, Deirdre Cohen and Jessica Hopper
Rock Center
Fifteen-year-old Allison Kasacavage, once a rising soccer star in Pennsylvania, is slowly recovering after suffering debilitating concussions while playing the game she loved.
“It’s almost like I need a sign on my back saying, ‘My head is broken.’ And you can’t see it. It’s like not visible and it’s like not many people understand, “said Allison in an interview with Rock Center’s Kate Snow.
Allison, who lives with her family in Chester Springs, Pa., has had at least five concussions. She is only able to attend school four hours a day. Her room is lit with soft blue light to ease her headaches and her family now eats dinner by candlelight.
She is one of hundreds of girls across America each year who suffer concussions while playing soccer.
“People who think of concussions as only being present mostly in guys and mostly in the sport of football are just plain wrong,” said Dr. Bob Cantu, who is chairman of the surgery division and the director of sports medicine at Emerson Hospital in Concord, Mass. “Soccer is right at the top of the list for girls.”
With the steady popularity of youth soccer, more girls are playing the game than ever before. Girls make up 48 percent of the more than 3 million kids registered in US Youth Soccer leagues.
Cantu said that the country is in the midst of “a concussion crisis” and that studies show girls are reporting nearly twice as many concussions as boys in the sports they both play.
‘Concussion Crisis’ impacting girls’ soccer
The number of girls suffering concussions in soccer accounts for the second largest amount of all concussions reported by young athletes, according to the American Journal of Sports Medicine. (Football tops the list.)
“What’s happening in this country is an epidemic of concussions, number one, and the realization that many of these individuals are going to go on to post-concussion syndrome, which can alter their ability to function at a high level for the rest of their lives,” Dr. Cantu said.
Allison still remembers when she suffered her first serious concussion in October 2008. It came when she collided with another player on the field.
“When I like got up, my head was like pounding,” Allison said. “There was, like, a pulse in my head. It was like the strangest thing. There was a heartbeat in my head and I had no idea what it was and why it was there. I have never felt that before and I was just so confused,” she said.
Click here for more on concussion symptoms
After Allison had apparently healed from the concussion, she returned to soccer. She’d been a star player since she was six years old, working her way up to one of the top teams in Pennsylvania. She said that her identity had been wrapped up in the game and she felt pressure to please her coaches.
Allison said that she was nervous about heading the ball, but continued to do it.
“If you didn’t head the ball, you were like the weakest link,” Allison said.
When heading, players attempt to use their foreheads to direct the ball, often jumping with opposing players, a move that can lead to collisions between players, bumped heads and strained necks. Dr. Cantu says that the act of heading is one of the most dangerous parts of soccer because players often collide.
Allison suffered a third concussion in her final season of soccer and another two off the field, the latter because her spatial awareness had been impacted from her previous concussions and she hit her head on a table and other furniture, her mother said.
Her parents said that they knew about the danger of concussions in sports like football, but it wasn’t until Allison had her first serious head injury that they realized what a big problem concussions can be in soccer.
“I think that we were blind to what was going on around us because, yes, it was about the team. It was about the winning. It was about all the, it was almost like a routine of, like I said, an awful lot of practices and you just went through it and really your lives rolled by with soccer being the most important thing,” said Lex Kasacavage, Allison’s father.
Sports psychologist Richard Ginsburg says that enthusiasm for the game and the kids by parents and coaches, while well-meaning, might be making the concussion crisis worse.
“We get wrapped up,” said Ginsburg, the author of ‘Whose Game is it Anyway?’ “We want success for them and so sometimes we get, we lose perspective. It doesn’t make us terrible people. It just makes us human. “
NBC News
Kimmie Zeffert
In Allison’s town of Chester Springs, about 30 miles from downtown Philadelphia, she is not alone. She has bonded with at least five other 14 and 15-year-old girls who have suffered concussions while playing soccer.
“My main friends are actually people that have head injuries,” said one of the teens, Kimmie Zeffert, 14. “I’ve become so close with them because I can relate to them. They understand what I’m going through.”
Kimmie had her first concussion when she was 12.
“I took another head ball and then I don’t even remember,” she said. “The next thing is I got, apparently, got elbowed in the back of the head. But (when) the coach asked me if I wanted to come out, I was like, ‘No, I’m going, I’m going to stick it through.”
Those hits -- heading the ball and being elbowed by a player in the head -- ended her soccer career.
Kimmie’s teammate Jenna Rohr made the same choice to continue playing in her game after getting hit in the head.
“I didn’t want to quit,” she said. “I didn’t want to let my team down because, like, so many people already had concussions on the team.”
Both Jenna and Kimmie have been unable to make it through a full day of school for almost two years. They still suffer from intense headaches, dizziness, nausea and vision problems.
Along with their physical ailments, several of the girls NBC News spoke to have struggled with depression since leaving soccer. Some have taken anti-depressants. One teen soccer player, who is returning to the sport after suffering a concussion, said that she felt so terrible at one point that she even thought about suicide.
Despite their experiences, the teens still love soccer and say they don’t discourage their former teammates from the sport.
“I think like speaking for all of us, like we would do anything to just be able to play one more game,” Jenna said.
Should heading be banned from girls’ soccer?
Dr. Cantu has made the bold proposal that heading be eliminated from youth soccer under the age of 14. He said girls, because of their anatomy, may be especially vulnerable to concussions.
“Girls as a group have far weaker necks,” Cantu said. “The same force delivered to a girl’s head spins the head much more because of the weak neck than it does the guys.”
New research suggests some body types may be more at risk than others.
“We believe that individuals with very long, thin necks may be at greater risk,” Cantu said.
With this evidence, Cantu said, “I would hope it would not only make parents look at their daughters, but make every one of those parents insist their daughters are on a neck strengthening program if they’re playing a collision sport.”
Brandi Chastain, the Olympian who helped the United States win a World Cup, strongly disagrees with Cantu’s proposal to eliminate heading from girls’ soccer.
“It’s a part of the game and I think it’s an important part and I think it’s a beautiful part of the game, to be honest with you,” she said. “I would never want to see that go away, but there’s a right way to do it. There’s a protective way to do it.”
Chastain said that girls need to be taught to create protective space around their bodies. She says heading isn’t dangerous if it’s done correctly.
“I circle back to education and preparation and I put that on parents and coaches because the kids don’t know any better,” Chastain added. “You know, they just want to go out there and play, but if we can educate them in a fun environment that’s safe, that teaches them the skill and gives them the confidence to try it and then they can put it into practice in the game.”
Back in Pennsylvania, the girls and their families are trying to educate people based on their own experiences. Despite their concussions, though, they say they don’t want to discourage girls from playing soccer.
“Please don’t go and not play soccer because it’s such a great opportunity for the girls to just prove themselves and challenge themselves and make friends and travel,” said Wendy Zeffert, mother of Kimmie. “But be aware.”
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If only they could play something less injury prone such as American football ;)
Of all the dumb things to read. Football or soccer is one of the safest sports to play for both boys and girls. Study after study has shown that. But yes ALL sports have dangers that goes without saying.
Well I am from Europe (thank God, not America!) but I still beg to differ. Please see my post below. The most dangerous aspect of junior sports, or of all levels of sports I should say, is the commercial influence which turns fun, healthy and honourable competition into war. Add to that overzealous coaches and parents and you create disaster for the children. Btw, my son and daughter engage in rowing and have more fun at their competition meets than I ever remember having playing soccer. They're in better shape than I ever was too, I have to ruefully admit.
can we, like, stop quoting, like, anyone who, like, says like, like, more than once in, like, every sentence? like.
Likes your post.
Conservatives don't like to be told what to do for their own safety. They have no problem, however, telling people who they can marry.
Very true! You do honour to your moniker.
Two words, Head Gear. They make head gear to protect soccer players when heading. It's not a helmet but should be required by all youth soccer associations. Teaching proper heading technique is also critical.
3 words. Nerf Soccer Balls
nerf soccer balls do not concuss young girls.
The injuries are more from head collisions than heading. Proper technique is all that is required to not be injured heading the ball.
The problem is the referees and soccer clubs are permitting rougher play and not enforcing the rules meant to keep the games from getting out of hand. There is a trend to let the soccer play with the same physical style you see in the rest of the world's pro leagues. For non-adults that needs to be kept in check. My 16 yr old daughter plays select soccer and suffered a ruptured spleen playing goalie by an intentional late hit meant to intimidate her. There are select teams in her league that the coaches emphasize out-of-bounds play. And there are far too many referees that want to let them play ball rather than control it. Pushing and shoving is part of soccer but it needs to be called out when it's cheap. Just watch my son's tea, rec soccer, play a team last night where a player on the other team not being able to get the ball purposely threw an elbow into his opponent's back knocking him down to prevent a goal. The foul was called however the boy should have been carded, he wasn't. And of course he did the same thing again, and still wasn't carded. This is where it starts and should end.
I agree 100%. In my experience there way more injuries from over agressive players and/or refs not calling things than I have from players heading the ball.
This may sound extreme but, why not simply not allow head contact with the ball for anyone under 16 (for example). Treat it the same as a handball.
I grew up as a boy in a European country where soccer was/is the ultimate sport that everyone wants to engage in and excell at. There was/is tremendous pressure to be good at it and so, as any 12 y-o kid is bound to, you take chances and risks. I did too and got myself a jewel of a concussion and a broken leg that I don't recall anything about getting. I woke up in hospital and eventually 'fully' recovered, lost a year in school, but aside from an occasional migraine-attack from there on, was functional and successful in my academic and my professional pursuits.
Soccer was history for me though and from there on I pursued counter-intuitively less physically damaging, but also non-commercially pressured athletic endeavors like Rugby and Field-Hockey. Never suffered any injury there, because it is much more strictly refereed and coaches were on the whole more into it for the love for the sport in and of itself and more cautious and pro-active in assessing their player's possible injuries. Different, and from my perspective, much healthier and more responsible.
I can't count the times that after a clash or wipe-out, a seemingly okay player, including myself was sent off to the sideline to take a break and a professional evaluation by the always present medic or physician. Even at the height of competition.
My best ever coach was a Scottish WWII veteran NCO (ret) who made a point of reminding us that: "You do sports to be healthy and have good clean fun. For pain, violence, anger, desperation and injuries you do war and I'va hae seen enough of that not to want to see any of that on my field.".
I am now 57 years old and still suffer migraines and after a recent brain MRI, my current physician warned me for increased stroke risk, most likely caused by my concussion, now 45 years ago. Sometimes I almost feel like an invalid and from what I have heard from many old friends, they invariably have similar feelings, but then with knee, leg and spinal injuries and according to many physicians, soccer is currently the #1 physically damaging sport.
Fantastic quote from your coach. Too bad most athletes seem to disagree.
Wendy Zeffert said ""Please don’t go and not play ... " Does this lady not speak Engrush? Maybe found da problem.
Waaah...waaah...I don't want people getting hurt in a contact sport. Everyone needs to wear helmets and padding and sue when they get a wittle bwuise!
whiny little maggots.
sackless, you are offensive and a troll. Begone!
Centurion, you are a hater of the 1st amendment. Your words of terror amuse only yourself. Away with thee. :)
A corrective mouth guard may help in cases where a diagnosable condition known as temporal mandibular joint dysfunction is present. The symptoms of Tmd are overlapping and may be misconstrued as mtbi related. www.mahercor.com
Wake up America. All you wussies out there. How about Hunter Games as an alternative. Part of our culture, me thinks.
Mrs. Jones, Therein my lie the root-cause.
My daughter has played soccer since she was 3 (almost 15 years) and loves the sport, the team experience, travel, etc. - it is part of her life and we support her 100%. I agree with Brandi Chastain's comment that with better education and good coaching, girls can learn how to protect themselves. However, there is this 800 lb. gorilla in the room that seems to be absent from this conversation. First, we now have many more girls (and boys) playing sports at early ages and more frequently through school sports, recreation and travel teams. Second, there is this ethos about winning at any cost even if that means that you stay in the game when injured, take out star players on the other team (even if you get carded), and basically risk it all for your team. This is insane but supported by parents, coaches and even refs who will allow "dirty" playing until someone gets hurt. So, if we want to continue the sport, it's going to take more than concussion education. Otherwise, we are wasting our time.
Seems pretty simple, if it's hurting girls, ban heading the ball.
Ban heading the ball is not near enough.
What about the poor Goalie?. What if the goalie gets hit by a (I can barely type the word, it makes me so angry..) soccer ball. I mean actually kicking the ball hard to score a goal can hurt the goalie. There should be no trying to score goals.
My solution:
Girls can wear "shock" absorbing head bands, mouth guards, and gently kick "nerf" soccer balls around mid field. I can promise you that this way no girls get hurt. We must eliminate all risk!!!
It concerns me that these kids feel so pressured to perform that they're willing to permanently injure themselves over what should be a fun time. How much fun is it to suffer continuous headaches, nausea and suicidal thoughts? And the parents justify this by saying they got "a little too wrapped up" because they wanted their kids to win? Yikes.
Tiedyeguy, you are taking too many drugs. Get off the opiates and start your brain working. You find Brandi Chastain and me disgusting? While I am pleased to be compared in the same sentence with Brandi, I think her credentials as a professional player speak well for her. The bottom line is: Don't play if you don't want injuries. By the way, tiedye, from which worm species are you descended?
Lets all just live in foam padded bubbles and not come into contact with each other or the world at all. That way will never get sick or hurt.
I'm sorry, but this is absurd. I was a women's professional motocross racer for 10+ years and I can't even count the number of concussions I've suffered, or how many CT scans I've had and I've never had to use "blue lighting" or been to the point where I could only make 4 hours of class a day. I've never suffered depression or thoughts of suicide and I'm not talking measley concussions where you suffer headaches and dizzyness, the kind where you go into convultions, throwing up, memory loss, resulting in an ambulance ride. If they're so concerned with the risks, don't do it in the first place.
Sure and all at your service, but if I'm correct, you wear a helmet at pro motocross, which, even if you get a concussion, it modifies the nature of the impact. As in the difference between bopping your noggin into a pile of dirt and bonking it off a slab of concrete. The resulting injuries also differ vastly. If you did and underwent what you claim to have, without a helmet you would likely not be typing on a keyboard, but at best be subsisting as a 'veggie'.
Please refrain from comparing apples with peanuts.
Centurion:
First of all I am a fellow pro racer along side Angela and have known her for some time. We have both...I should say ALL racers have had a concussion resulting in an abulance ride at some point in our carreers. The convultions, memory loss, studdering and CT scans out the hooha are all part of it. You deal with you you accept the fact that you put your life in danger and you move on.
We dont consider killing ourselves because we can no longer ride or finish a moto. I was landed on by another motorcycle and that injury ended my career. I still ride and Im still the same person I dont need special treatment because I am a GIRL. I have had heat strokes...countless times and almost died because the paramedics couldnt get my temp down at a national. Do we have rules against it being to hot? NO. We race in 110 degree weather with 110% humidity. YES we wear protection and helmets but that only does so much. We have lost so many lives. YOUNG lives the past year due to head injuries.
Its just like any other sport. However we don't single out the fact that we are female. and we dont get special treatment because of an accident. If they want to prevent concussions, wear a helmet, dont hit the ball with your head. COMMON SENSE. But it is in no way shape or form an Epidemic like this artical states. It is straight rediculous and everyone involved in our sport seems to feel the same way.
Of course we wear helmets, we are falling from 50+ feet in the air, not 5 feet. And if this epidemic is as big of a deal as this article is making it out to be, wear a helmet. It's that easy. But the "special treatments"... absurd.
And obviously I'm not a "veggie", if you knew anything about head injuries you'd know that unless you suffer bleeding or any permanent damage to the brain tissue, you can recover pretty damn well with little to no long-term side effects. Maybe you should do a little research before you compare apples to peanuts.
https:// fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.ne t/hphotos-ak-ash4/292576_432743150072952_100000118123131_1745183_1789404597_n.jpg
copy and paste this link and see for yourself what kind of an impact motocross has. This picture says it ALL. And after that fall. he got back up. and finished the 20 min moto and finished quite well.
My girls wear the headband helmets made for soccer players. They were told to wear them or don't play....after they'd been playing for years. No real complaints. Yes they get hot. No they do not affect the ability to head the ball. And we aren't military style parents but alas, we are the parents. Teaching them that following the crowd is not always the smartest idea. I could care less if the article zeroed in on boys or girls..I have both. I got the message that concussions are serious...and adults don't take it seriously. Parents who promote injuring opponents, or ref's that let rough playing get out of hand are partially to blame. And maybe coaches should pull out the player with a headache, to err on the side of caution. That would be looking at the big picture.
What about the Goalie? Has your daughter ever kicked the ball real hard towards the Goalie? What about her?
Not sure I follow your thinking. Goalies can wear the same helmet, for added protection. If you're going to play soccer, whatever position, you should play hard. But goalie, forward, defender- they all have brains that need to be used off the field. Maybe you're a coach. And maybe you do all that you can to take care of your players, and win the game. And it would be hard to pull your best(only abled) goalie out of the game if they were hurt. I imagine it's a tough job. A coach chooses to be in that position, just as players choose to be on the field. But adults need to use the reasoning skills they hopefully acquired over time. If they do that then those young adults watching them may actually learn more than how to play soccer.
And like, a concussion, like, makes you, like, say like, like, all the, like, time, like, you know?
Like many of the others who have made comments, I suspect this story is a little over sensationalized and the author is extrapolating from a few examples in PA. As a high school referee for over 20 years, I do not recall seeing any head injuries take place in a girls game, and that includes 5 years at the NCAA level as well. Ankles, knees, one major kidney issue (a player taking a hard shot in the back), but never concussions.
Blind and yet keeping your eyes open aren't ye? Soccer and concussion go together like peas in a pod. If you don't know that, you should hae na place on a soccer-field.
There is inherent risk to everything we do these days. We can either choose to accept it and the consequences that go with it, or we can choose not to do it. Sitting at a desk all day increases your chance to become obese but you don't see people rushing to change that. Driving your car increases your chance to be in an accident but you don't see that being banned or changed anytime soon. Running around the park increases your chance a foot, knee, or leg injury but that isn't stopping people any time soon. You can get a concussion from falling down walking and hitting your head the wrong way.
The bottom line is that we are human and we are prone to get hurt that's why our body can recover to some extent and some can't. You can't regulate the human race and it's inherent risk called living life. If you want to live in a bubble and never go outside by all means go do it and don't force it on everyone else.
Delta.
You just need to see the bigger picture here. If these children and their foolish parents are so blind to the fact that physical activity leads directly to life altering injuries, then the government will have to step in to oversee the deimplementation of organized (and eventually unorganized) athletic endeavors.
You gatta think of the children!!
Possibly the most inane post so-far (aside from the obvious 'troll' ones, that is.). The original 'modern' idea behind sports in general is that it serves to positively stimluate the body, the mind and the spirit as an enjoyment. As such sports fit into a lifestyle choice that balances the drudgery of work with uplifting recreation.
As longs as we can recognize that, then sports can remain a healthy pursuit. Otherwise it turns into the nasty outgrowth of 'bookie and hustler' originated and driven monstrousity which it has become in (semi) commercialized sports. (as like in America, I might add.).
Centurian,
I believe they can prescribe something to stimulate those things.
Of course, due to seperation issues the government won't have anything to due with stimulating the spirit, but the rest shouldn't be a problem.
The solution is amazingly simple.
Don't let anyone under 18 play sports. Or engage in any activity where they stand a greater than .0001% chance of their head touching anything harder than a very soft pillow.
If they REALLY want to play a sport they can play on an Xbox. NO Wii! Those things require slight movement. Too dangerous.
I mean it. No sports for these young ladies. They are just naturally too aggresive to be allowed onto the grass fields and let loose.
KATE SNOW...BRYAN WILLIAMS...
You think soccer is bad????
THE growing crisis is GIRL LACROSSE!! Why any game has any different rules for girls is obnoxious (and we wonder about equality). The girls playing lacrosse have just as much chance, as their counterparts, of having a collision with the hard lacrosse ball ALL BECAUSE...they do not possess the ability to control the ball at their age.
I have been talking about this since our daughter started playing. It infuriates me. The girls...just like the boys...need helmets!!! Yes, they have different rules...that, in theory, should prevent contact with the ball...BUT THE TRUTH IS...practically each and every game...one of these kids ends up going to the er for getting hammered in the head...with the lacrosse ball...and let me tell you...it's a hell of a lot harder than a freakin soccer ball!
Maybe I'll get a petition going on Care2Change to change this. What'ya think?
Quit being so darned focused like a zazer beam on the one sport you are around.
Baseballs and softballs are crazy dangerous. Those kids are swinging metal death clubs inches from other players heads and trying to hit a very small and very deadly ball into an area with other children just standing around!!
Don't even get me started on swimming. Diving head first staight at a slab of concrete. Sure, theres a thin layer of water to soften the blow to their heads, but its still insanity.
Then theres wrestling. Its 2012 people!! How barbaric are we? Sending our little ones out to the arena floor to grapple in hand to hand combat for our entertainment! For shame!
I agree, in the sense of practicing sport which are performed while wielding potentially deathly implements, we have hardly if at all evolved past the level of ancient Rome. On the other hand, even the gladiators and hippodrome-racers, for reasons best known to themselves, wore helmets so as to avoid becoming victim s to the rigours of their pursuits. As do present-day baseball-players, I might ever so pointedly add.
Hey, yeah.
Those football teams don't need their pads most of the time, and its a sunk cost for the schools. Why not just make all players from all sports wear them. It may be a little bulky at first, but they will get used to it.
I feel sorry for this young woman (by the way story author boy - she's not a girl if she's college aged). If guys also get concussions in soccer, why don't we ever see stories on that? Do women in sports really threaten men that much? Could it be that this story and so many others that focus on standard risks of girls / young women in sports are a further attempt a eventually barring females from doing anything active? While we're at it, let's deny them jobs and keep them at home, locked away. Then they can be kept cattle like Muslim women. That would fit nicely into the GOP agenda for women too.
Yes. The GOP had a meeting and discussed ways of excluding the female sex from participating in athletics. They decided they couldn't have those uppity girls gaining any sense of acheivment at an early age. A few Dems were there too. I think it turned into more of a man vs woman thing about half way through. Political affiliation just melted away as the men at the meeting realized that it was way funner to try to turn american women into "cattle like muslim women."
Hate to break it to ya, but unlike in Europe, soccer is not eggsackly a 'guys' sport in America. Henceforth, not many boys or men play it and if they play it, it is mostly in a strictly recreational setting. Fewer men playing a well-regulated sport; fewer men getting injuries and specifically those of the extreme competition-driven nature of the 'Heading' variety. Hence the fewer 'documented' cases.
In addition, getting a concussion before adulthood can AND WILL impact the still growing and progressing brain-development (as I all too well, am fully aware of.).
Healthy people (both male and female) take part in healthy sports, what makes a sport healthy (in America; profitable.) is defined mostly by the ones off the playing field and has no significant input from the players.
Man, your perception of soccer in America, and the sport in general, is really wrong. Significantly more males play soccer in this country than females, starting in the youth leagues and progressing up into college, professional, and adult club teams. This is obvious if you look at the number of male and female teams at each level. I would expect the ratio is at least 4:1 male to female, maybe higher..
Aside from your colorful language, what makes you god's gift to the sport? At least I stated my credentials.
For all you parents of soccer players...