National Collegiate Players Association President Ramogi Huma’s Statement on Concussion Lawsuit Against NCAA
Sports Fans Coalition: NFL Must Reconsider Player Disability Claims That Were ‘Swept Aside’
September 15, 2011‘Is There a Veterans’ “Bonus March” in the NFL’s Future?’ (full text)
September 16, 2011Ramogi Huma, the former UCLA linebacker who founded and presides over the quasi-union National College Players Association (http://www.ncpanow.org), provided this blog with a statement on the class-action lawsuit on players’ concussions that was filed against the National Collegiate Athletic Association in Illinois federal court:
“This concussion lawsuit strikes at the very core of what’s wrong with the NCAA’s priorities: money first, players last. The NCAA and its members seem to be focused more on conference realignments and windfall TV deals than on addressing what is the number one health threat to the players who generate the money.”
I have found almost no coverage of this case, which was reported here yesterday at https://concussioninc.net/?p=4593. There is only one cite at Google News, from a small legal news website.
I go all the way back to 2003 with NCPA head Huma, to my reporting for the 2003 Los Angeles Times Magazine article “Welcome to Plantation Football,” which I jokingly call “Taylor Branch lite.”
Irv Muchnick
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Interesting developments
…as a perusal of the history of the NCAA reveals that its roots of origin were based on making the football enviroment safer…
Below excerpt is from the following research entitled:
A Preliminary Investigation of Active and Retired NFL Players’ Knowledge of Concussions (Brady,2004):
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In 1904, President Theodore Roosevelt demanded that presidents of several colleges meet to discuss the alarming amount of violence, injury, and death occurring within college football. Roosevelt insisted that reforms be initiated to prevent these adverse occurrences and to develop more stringent regulations for these athletic contests (Cantu, 1997). Toward the end of 1905, representatives from a small group of northeastern colleges gathered in New York to further discuss the possibility of athletic intercollegiate reform designed to provide a safer environment. The eventual formation of the Intercollegiate Athletic Association of the United States emerged from this and subsequent meetings (Guttman, 1988). This athletic organization later became known as the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA).
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The presenting current NCAA scenerio kinda reminds me of a refrain from the Kingston Trio song entitled Where have all the flowers gone ?…
When will they ever learn, when will they ever learn ?
Los Angeles CNN — Seventy-five former professional football players are suing the National Football League saying the league knew as early as the 1920s of the harmful effects of concussions on players brains but concealed the information from players coaches trainers and others until June 2010. The players did not know the long-term effects of concussions and relied on the NFL to protect them the suit says.