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.”
Leave a Comment:
At least five concussions?? Seems like adults need to step in sooner. "I'll quit after I've sustained five concussions".
Police state scare tactics and propaganda to stop all action - note the coincidence of all these announcements against all sports by ivory skulled professors and "experts".
Did any of these "experts" participate in sports in any way?
ALL the athletes that I know are a lot more dangerous to their environment than their environment is to them.
How did any of us grow up and survive? We are over protecting our kids these days or a very happy to sue if something happens to them.
Bravo!
I rode my bike without a helmet. I took a line drive off my forehead playing baseball. I played hockey without a face guard and for some time with no helmet. I survived and so did milions and millions of others. You don't change the rules because a relatively small number of people get hurt.
I am a female who has played sports my entire life. I played college basketball. The problem I always saw was that many fellow players decided to fall when they didn't need to. So many of my teammates and opponents would crash to the ground or into the wall if they were barely hit or nudged trying to get a foul of some sort. There is an art to falling and you have to fall the right way a lot of times to protect yourself. In the end, your health is more important than the game. That being said, there are many cases in which a concussion or hard hit can't be controlled and it's unfortunate.
What exactly did people think when title IX was passed and woman's sports went from fun to a tuition ticket. If you really want to see a woman's sports epidemic. look at how many softball players at the high school level wear knee braces. Woman are playing sports, often at the same level as men of the same age, but with substantially weaker and less developed bodies, usually so their parents, who probably never played a competitive sport in their lives can live vicariously.
I would think her parents would keep her from playing after the second concussion. What the hell is wrong with parents in America. Stop living vicariuosly through your children.
I have had 5 hospital treated concussions and a few that were not. One I was knocked unconscious in a basketball game another I was going up for a head ball with a player from the other team and she headed me in the back of my head. I lost my sight temporarily right after the hit. Every time I received a head injury my coach pulled me out. Maybe the coaches should have been smart enough to not let them continue to play right after the injury. And for those saying soccer is not a contact sport have obviously not played competitively. Basketball isn't a "contact" sport either unless someone under cuts you while you are going for a lay-up.
If the girls are getting this many head injuries playing soccer what would happen to them if they played a game that was actually physical.
wow...you must not have seen a girls high school or college soccer game lately. I can tell you that most high school soccer games are as physical than a high school football game.
You can have your daughter play YMCA or rec soccer and have a wonderful non-contact experience. Those girls just play for fun and excersize! If you play and pay for club soccer then as a parent you know and expect the games to be more physical. You can choose what level of play...not all soccer has to be physical. I don't have a problem with requiring the girls to wear head protection but to remove headers is absurd.
I have a twelve year old boy who helps me coach my son's soccer team. He's been banned from playing soccer b/c of the number of concussions he's had, but because he loves the game he wants to be a coach someday. I can see it when I talk to him in subtle ways that it's affected him neurologically. I don't think that we really know the effects of these headers on the developing brain because a) we don't have the resources to do the proper research and b) the proper research will probably never be done because people are afraid of being sued.
I wonder how many of these concussions have been sustained with a direct hit by a ball vs a hit with another head going for the same ball.
The more i think about it...the more I realize that soccer should just be banned here in the U.S.
Bad technique is to blame plain and simple.
They should just all wear crash helmets.
women arent as athletic as men so they have a higher chance to get injured.
This is a push from the liberal media to ban football and soccer. What next? Baseball?
well i guess theres no need for title IX anymore. I also heard a rumor that they are going to ban swimming because people are forgetting to come up for air
I recently became involved in a company that specializes in preventing head injuries.
We have a soft shell technolgy product that can reduce HIC by up to 30%.
All teams and coaches need to really look at ways of preventing life long injuries to our young ahtletes.
Even NFL players are now realizing the extent of HIC and its life long effects.
Let me know if I can be of assitance to any young athletes, parents, coaches or teams.
i played soccer from the age of 3 to the age of 18 and never once got a concussion
Something to watch for.
Unless you have suffered a brain injury you don't understand the impact it has on your life. Mine was last year (and not from soccer). However, I now see the importance of preventative equipment (and I do understand that accidents happen). I am very much protective of my head after in injury. I keep saying that I cannot imagine how a teenager could suffer a brain injury and continue at the pace they are expected to. School alone would be enough of a challange. I have found that brain injuries are difficult for others to acknowledge. It is hidden. I understand how the girl in the article mentioned about wearing a sign on her back indicating a brain injury. We wear no casts and everyone expects you to act ok because you look fine. We are injured inside and need others to be tolerant.
Five concussions = Poor Parenting. Period.
i guess theres no need for title IX anymore. the media keeps striking down woman in sports, I heard a rumor that the are going to ban swimming because people are forgetting to come up for air
When is common sense going to prevail? How many youth have to be injured or have to die in order for someone to wake up and realize that head injuries can be reduced by the use of helmets?
There was a time that helmets in football were made of leather and that was better than nothing.
How long would a player last in football with no helmet? There would be no NFL, as no player would last long enough to get through college.
I don't hear anyone complaining about "SHIN GUARDS" and being kicked in the shin is no where near as dangerous as a concussion, which could result in death.
See what your attitude is when your child dies playing a sport that isn't even American........... Yea thats right, look at where it came from and who dominates world wide. It's not baseball or basketball, but more kids are at risk of injury do to lack of safety than in the American sports.
You are an idiot, blaming the sport because its not American therefore it can't be safe!!!
This isn't about sports or no sports. This is about the trust children have in the parent/adults to provide a safe and healthy life.
And the best adults can do is make good decisions based on the knowlege and the facts.
Facts: Concussions are serious with longterm consequences that affect ones mental abilities. Concussions are caused by a head colliding with a solid object such as another head.
I think I will have my child play golf. She can play her entire life and it will contribute to her business success.
Not all soccer is dangerous...
it depends of the level of play. If you don't want your child hurt then just have them play rec soccer with the other kids who are just there to have fun and play. (Most of these kids still put their hands over their face when the ball comes towards them, so unless the child is just not paying attention or trip into another player the concussion risk is pretty non-existant). Those kids that want to be more competitive play and usually pay for club soccer where the game is much more physical and the chance of injury is higher. At least that is how it works here in Texas.
I've watched kids from 5yrs old to 16yrs as my daughter has progressed from rec, to classic, premier. Under 14, my experience has been that head injuries are almost exclusively due to tackles or collisions that cause the child to fall and bang their head on the ground hard. I think heading is being unfairly used as the poster child for concussions in soccer. I also agree with a post earlier indicating that ACL tears and lower leg injuries are much more common injury.
Republicans like severe head trauma because it gives them a larger future voting block.
My daughter sustained a concussion a year ago, at age 10 during softball. She is still dealing with brain injury and it affects every facet of our lives. Her team is now enforcing protective masks for all of the kids, and the game goes on, but with increased awareness and protective measures. I have no idea how she will be day to day, heat, stress, adolescence all affects her slow healing. Her improbable injury is helping awareness occur around here, but the answers and assurances are slow in coming. I was happy to read this article right now when I sometimes feel isolated by our experience here due to my daughter's young age. I hope for continued healing for these kids and increased awareness for youth sports and the preventative measures to reduce the possibility of these heinous injuries.
There are an aweful lot of judgemental, rude and sexist people posting here today. If you don't think soccer is a contact sport, then you have never played competitively. If you think women can't compete then you must never have watched Abby, Mia, Candice to just name a few. Male or Female is not the issue here. Neither is the sport of soccer. It is concussions - prevention, treatment and consequence education. Education, research and training. Sports can be very healthy - mentally and physically - but lets deal with Concussions!!!!
I've been playing football sorry "soccer" for 27 years now and have never once received a concussion.
If you are receiving a concussion from headering a ball then its bad technique nothing more. This has been tested by FIFA and UEFA on many different occasions.
Most ignorant peice of journalism I have ever read, but then again what should I expect not like you guys are known for it.