Heady matters

The “NCAA Game of the Week” football program for Nov. 23, 1963 lists J. Proebstle at right end and D. Proebstle at quarterback for the Michigan State University Spartans. For the brothers, Jim and Dick Proebstle, this wasn’t the first team they had played together on. Back home in Stark County, Ohio, they had played together on a very good high school football team.

But that day, neither of them would take the field against the University of Illinois for the conference championship. Just hours before kickoff, the game was canceled in reaction to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy the day before. A rescheduled game played on Thanksgiving Day did not go well for the Spartans, who were dominated by an Illini team anchored by legendary linebacker Dick Butkus.

Before the loss, Dick Proebstle had led the No. 4 ranked Spartans to four straight victories. He took over the starter role midseason when Steve Juday was injured. MSU ended the season with a record of 6-2-1 and a final ranking of No. 9 in the AP poll.

Today, that season is only a vague memory for Jim Proebstle; his memories of playing football for MSU are overshadowed by the death of his brother. Dick Proebstle died in 2012 due to complications caused by the degenerative brain condition Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy, more commonly known as CTE.

In his book, “Unintended Impact: One Athlete’s Journey From Concussions in Amateur Football to CTE Dementia,” Jim Probstle connects his brother’s condition to the concussions he had received during his football career.

In an interview from his summer home in Minnesota, Proebstle told City Pulse that the book is meant both to honor his brother and as a way to educate others about CTE. He wants people to know that CTE isn’t just something that happens to professional football players.

The most prominent cases of CTE, however, have involved professional player. One such case is recent Pro Football Hall of Fame inductee Junior Seau, who committed suicide at 43 in 2012. He was posthumously diagnosed with CTE.

Proebstle said the hardest part of writing the book was the “emotional journey” for him and his brother’s two children.

“He had started to exhibit strange behavior in his 30s and 40s. His value system was changing rapidly. Dick was a good guy, but when his house burned down in 1982 he really began to unravel. By the 1990s he was in throes of CTE,” Proebstle said. “I didn’t want to throw him under the bus (for his errant behavior). I had to let loose of judging him and recognize this is a disease.”

When Dick died in May 2012, a portion of his brain was donated for further CTE research.

Proebstle believes stories like Dick’s are more commonplace than we suspect and that anyone who plays organized contact sports like football, rugby, hockey or even soccer is at risk.

And although the NFL has reluctantly admitted to a problem, Proebstle still believes there isn’t enough being done with youth and youth coaching.

“Kids get a 60-page playbook, and I think there should be a section in there on concussions, its symptoms and recognizing them,” he said. “Youth sports, unlike college and pro sports, don’t have a trainer on the sidelines. Kids between 10 and 12 are the most vulnerable.”

In Michigan, legislation requires that all youth coaches, school employees and volunteers who are involved in youth sports receive concussion awareness training. But if Proebstle had his way, he’d even change how young kids play the game.

“I’d rather see touch football at young ages,” he said. “I don’t think contact has any connection to how they will perform later in life.”

Probstle knows the answer in other sports isn’t as simple, and that after football, women’s soccer is the next most dangerous. The effort to eliminate the header in youth soccer, he said, needs to continue.

He does see some positive signs in the NCAA’s Big Ten conference, which just approved the use of a spotter at collegiate games to keep track of collisions that may lead to concussions.

He also praises MSU, which is one of the universities leading research in the area of CTE.

“Right from the top, (President Lou Anna) Simon and (athletic director Mark) Hollis are committed to player safety,” Proebstle said.

But he has less kind words for the NCAA, whose views, he said, run parallel to the NFL.

“They have had a denial system of years’ proportion,” he said.

He also finds it nearly incomprehensible that the connection between CTE and contact sports hasn’t come to the forefront earlier. The term CTE appeared in medical digests as early as 1966. The symptoms were first described in 1928 as a condition common to boxers, who were then called “punch drunk.”

In addition to his book, Proebstle recommends “The Concussion Crisis: Anatomy of a Silent Epidemic,” by Linda Carroll and David Rosner, and “Head Games: Football’s Concussion Crisis,” by Chris Nowinski, to parents who have children in contact sports.

Proebstle said his brother’s disease and the process of researching and writing his book have solidified his commitment to the issue.

“I want to do as much as I can and, in particular, help past players by making public presentations on this problem,” he said.