‘Concussion’ Movie Producers Play Dumb on Why Omalu Foundation Board Includes Pop Warner Football’s ‘No Youth Deaths’ Truther

by Irvin Muchnick

“I don’t understand your question,” Concussion movie writer-director Peter Landesman’s publicist, Amanda Lundberg, emailed me earlier today. “Sorry — Can you explain what you are asking?”

Landesman himself earlier had written, “Tying in my publicist. Go through her pls,” when asked for a comment on Concussion Inc.’s report that the board of trustees of the Bennet Omalu Foundation includes Julian Bailes, medical director of Pop Warner Football, who is making the preposterously lying public claim that there “no deaths in youth football.”

Here is how I explained myself to Lundberg:

With all respect, I believe my question is clear.

Peter — along with Bennet Omalu, Giannina Scott, Ridley Scott, and Jeanne Marie Laskas — is a trustee of the Bennet Omalu Foundation. Another trustee is Julian Bailes, who is on record as claiming that there have been “no deaths in youth football,” when in fact there have been scores. This is a not-insignificant disconnect.

Is Bailes’ message about the safety of youth football consonant with that of the film and of the foundation? Omalu, of course, last week penned a NYT piece calling for the end of youth football.

If Bailes’ message is not consonant with your message, then what is he doing on the foundation board? If the answer is that he is on the foundation board for complicated political reasons, will the others on the board say as much while publicly disagreeing with or disavowing the statements of the medical director for Pop Warner Football — which are blatantly false, and in ways I and others consider very damaging?

Lundberg has not responded. If and when she does, I will publish the response in full.

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