For those of you who follow sports, the controversies surrounding sports concussions came to another head this week with the publication of League of Denial, with coverage from ESPN and PBS. Our own Rick Peterson points us to a Sports Illustrated piece that includes some heavy local interest:
If Hollywood talent scouts set out to create a reality series on the search for football-related brain damage, they would start with Ann McKee… McKee was not an athlete, but she grew up surrounded by them. Her father had played football at Grinnell (Iowa) College. Her older brother Chuck, whom she idolized, had been a three-sport athlete who turned down a scholarship at Wisconsin because he didn’t want Division I football to distract him from becoming a doctor. He played quarterback at Lawrence University, leading the Division III school to consecutive conference titles and earning All-America honors. Ann McKee had been a cheerleader at Appleton East High.
My emphasis.
Perhaps ironically, this week also brings us a piece by Evin Demirel over at SB Nation on the resurgence of Division III football.
UPDATE: I shared this with our students, who alerted me that Dr. McKee is the university physician! What an excellent end to this story.