MU| S p o r t s
Spartan Beat
MU ahead of the pack on preventing concussions
These are not Nate Jensen’s father’s football
helmets. Heck, they’re not even Jensen’s
football helmets.
Matte-black, the two helmets rest on a
conference table in the Manchester football
offices, and they come bearing secrets. One is
the padded inner liner, which can be detached
with a telltale rasp of Velcro and opened;
inside are what look like metallic bumper
stickers of varying shapes and sizes, but which
are in fact electronic sensors.
Not at all like the helmets Jensen, MU football
coach, wore as a player.
“Oh, heck, no,” he says. “The helmets I used
to wear are so much heavier than what we
wear now. (These) are a little lighter and ... we
have almost like rollerblade straps on them so
that the helmets fit tighter.”
All of this is a response to research that
has linked concussions to a degenerative
brain condition called chronic traumatic
encephalopathy, or CTE. Its discovery has
changed concussion protocols from peewee
football all the way to the NFL.
can understand and get a deeper knowledge for
how serious this is.”
“I think that’s where this has to start,” Dougal
says.
“We have 118 guys coming in this year, and
(at practice) they’re spread out pretty far
across several fields in their different position
groups,” Foreman says. “This software just
provides me with another set of eyes.”
As befits its core values of innovation,
leadership and community involvement,
Manchester has been out in front on this
issue and continues to be. The University is a
foundation chapter in Team Up, a collaboration
with the Concussion Legacy Foundation that
offers free interactive education on concussions
to area schools, parent organizations, recreation
leagues and others. Manchester was one of
only 12 partner universities in the United
States and the only one in Indiana with a clear
endorsement from the CLF when it joined last
December.
Two years ago, Manchester was the first
school in the Heartland Collegiate Athletic
Conference to install the sensors. Sixty-eight
of their helmets are equipped with them now.
“It’s designed for grades 4-12,” says MU
Assistant Athletic Trainer Zachary Dougal,
the local program coordinator. “We teach, but
there’s also an interactive component