As I prepare to start my Junior year of college and my first season as an undergraduate Varsity Soccer Coach, I cannot help but look back on how my life has been shaped by my experience with concussions and concussion awareness. When I first started thinking about applying to colleges, playing NCAA soccer was certainly a priority of mine. However, because of the head injuries that I had suffered, I was not medically cleared by my doctors to pursue this endeavor. This development was a significant disappointment, as I had trained so hard for years hoping to one day reach this level of competition. During my first few semesters at college, I was able to play soccer recreationally, but I felt something was missing; I wanted to be involved in the highest level of collegiate soccer.
Countywide Concussion Care was created because I wanted to turn my negative experience of having suffered concussions into something positive. Going into my Spring semester last year, I remembered this choice and decided to take a similar course of action in regards to my soccer life. I interviewed with the Varsity Soccer coaching staff, and they gave me the position of undergraduate assistant coach. Working with the team has been an incredible experience, and I look forward to this upcoming season.
I have come to see first hand the power of turning a negative into a positive. Countywide Concussion Care is a prime example as is my coaching position. The lesson that I hope to spread through this post and with the Countywide Concussion Care program is a whole is that the increased awareness of the danger of concussions offers us a tremendous opportunity to do good and to make athletics safer. Rule changes across different sports such as football and soccer have been proposed and implemented, media coverage of such developments is ever-increasing, and more preventative measures are in the works. More and more research is being done to find out as many details about the real effects of concussions. We must continue these efforts in order to make athletics as safe as possible. Please contact me through this website if you are interested in working together towards achieving this goal!