Concussion Ink: YA Novelist Ty Roth Tackles Concussions in New Book

A Concussion Inc. reader, Ty Roth, writes young adult novels in his spare time from being a high school English teacher. For 20 years, he was also a football coach in football-mad Ohio, including nine as a head coach. Now Roth has followed up his first novel, So Shelly (Random House, 2011), with Goodness Falls, a recommended read.

Roth told us that the creative trigger for Goodness Falls was his own guilt regarding the judgments he’d made in player care. His story:

“As an undersized high school sophomore, I’d actually suffered a third-degree concussion myself that left me more-or-less unconscious for nearly an hour. Yet I returned to full contact practice two days later. Worst of all, one of my own sons suffered repeat concussions during his high school playing days, and I stupidly, in the typical manner of hard-ass football dads, did all I could to rush him back onto the field. These experiences inspired me to write Goodness Falls, the tragic story of a high school quarterback who has been the victim of repeated head traumas — the most recent of which, along with his attempts to hide the injury and to self-medicate it, caused his life to spiral out of control.

“I see my writing as a means of extending my classroom and as an opportunity to reach out not only to kids but also to parents in another way. In fact, many of my readers are adults. I firmly believe in the power of fiction to bring about change.”

For more information, see www.tyrothbooks.com or check out Roth’s blog, www.tyroth.wordpress.com.

You can buy Goodness Falls at http://www.amazon.com/Goodness-Falls-Ty-Roth/dp/162287529X.