Ep. 684 - Why we must STOP saying NFL players "got their bell rung."

The Breakdown with Shaun King

The North Star

News, Society & Culture

4.8 • 12.6K Ratings

🗓️ 3 October 2022

⏱️ 13 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Yesterday a brother I am friends with in the NFL received a brutal concussion. It was hard to watch for a thousand reasons, but when you get to actually know these men as human beings, seeing the physical toll it takes on their brain and body is pretty terrible.

And as soon as he received the concussion, I started seeing people online and on television say something about him that I've heard my whole life. They started saying that he "got his bell rung."

But here's the thing - human beings don't have bells. We don't get rung. And that cartoonish description of someone "getting their bell rung" masks what we are really talking about.

Their brains are being smashed against their skulls - which is what a concussion is - which ultimately causes CTE. Each concussion is a traumatic brain injury. And we have to stop making it sound like something other than what it really is.

Also, FYI: one of the doctors that cleared Tua to play for the Dolphins after his concussion has been fired.

Transcript

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0:00.0	He sat there doing all this financial modeling and I love doing stuff like that by the way.
0:05.7	I actually love sitting there and working out.
0:08.0	Is everything going to be okay?
0:10.0	It is so rewarding when you get to that point where the business has finally turned around.
0:18.0	Sage empowers finance professionals like Kat to feel more rewarded,
0:22.0	with helpful business tools and advice from real experts.
0:26.0	Sage helping business flow.
0:31.0	Yesterday I was watching an NFL game and a friend of mine, a man that I know personally and was rooting for,
0:39.0	received a hard hit to his neck and head and received a concussion.
0:45.0	And right away I noticed something foolish happening with the language
0:52.0	as reporters, people online, people on television described what happened to him.
0:59.0	They kept saying over and over again that he got his bell rung.
1:05.0	And I thought to myself, why are we saying this?
1:11.0	I've heard it my entire life.
1:13.0	We're humans, we don't have bells.
1:16.0	His bell was not rung.
1:19.0	His brain got shaken.
1:22.0	That's what happened.
1:23.0	When you receive a concussion, it's because your brain moved too hard against your skull.
1:31.0	That's what it is.
1:32.0	You don't have a bell.
1:34.0	And it's time that we retire the language.
	...

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