4:29

NPR’s Audie Cornish speaks with Emily Kaplan, who writes about the NFL for Sports Illustrated, about the league’s 2015 season and Black Monday firings.

Transcript

AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:

It’s Black Monday, the day after the end of the regular NFL season when teams that had disappointing seasons start firing coaches. We’re going to talk about this and more with Emily Kaplan. She covers the NFL for Sports Illustrated, where she’s a staff writer. Hey there, Emily

EMILY KAPLAN: Hey. How are you?

CORNISH: Good. So let’s start with what’s being describe as the end of an era. New York Giants’ coach Tom Coughlin stepped down. And this is a guy who’d been with the team for 12 years, two Super Bowl titles under his belt, right? What happened?

KAPLAN: Yeah. Well, Tom Coughlin – yeah, it was a – kind of a long time coming, or everyone kind of knew it. He’s 69 years old, and the bottom line is that six out of the last seven years, the Giants haven’t been in the playoffs. And they kind of need to cut the cord, so it was a mutual parting.

CORNISH: Meanwhile, a team sort of jumping the gun on Black Monday – the Philadelphia Eagles, right? They’re coaching change came early last week. Tell us what happened.

KAPLAN: Sure. They fired Chip Kelly, who, when he was hired three years ago, was the hot candidate. Everyone wanted him. He came from a super successful program at the University of Oregon and was seen as this offensive wizard. So them cutting ties with him kind of just admits that maybe they didn’t have the patients to see if he could make it work.

CORNISH: Now, how much of a surprise is any of this, right? I mean, there are teams like the Cleveland Browns where there’s, like, perennial change, and there’s always speculation.

KAPLAN: Yeah. Well, you mentioned the Browns, and they’re a model of inconsistency under owner Jimmy Haslam over the last three years. They’ve fired two presidents-slash-CEOs, three GMs and three head coaches. Then, on the other end of the spectrum, you have the Giants, who had a coach for 12 years and also a longstanding GM. So I think kind of what Black Monday always reminds us, is that, there really – it’s so rare to have a happy ending in the NFL. It’s just such a frail, you know, line of work, and you know, turnover’s really high.

CORNISH: In order for all this to work, there needs to be a pipeline of editors, right? There needs to be applicants. In this gets to the idea of diversity in coaching, which is something the NFL’s been talking about for a few years now. Give us the update. How well is the league doing on that note?

KAPLAN: Yeah. A couple years ago, they instituted something called the Rooney Rule, which really is affirmative action. It means that every NFL team with a head coaching vacancy must interview at least one minority candidate. Now, you’ll never hear teams go out and, you know, kind of announce that, this is our Rooney Rule applicant, but sometimes, it’s a little bit obvious. I think that we are seeing a little bit more diversity than we definitely have, especially before this rule was instituted. Earlier this year, you know, for the entire season, six out of the 32 NFL head coaches were minorities, either black or Hispanic. And I think that, you know, if you look at the reflection of the league, I think that that number should be probably higher.

CORNISH: Just to take a step back for a moment, I mean, for sports fans, people treat Black Monday kind of, you know, like an event, like the draft, and it can be funny, play for laughs. But for coaches, can this be traumatic? I mean, have you ever heard of coaches talking about what this experience is like going through this day?

KAPLAN: I think it’s absolutely traumatic because the think about NFL coaches is that, you know, it’s their life on the line. It’s their career. But they’re also responsible for a lot of people. When you hear about coaching trees, that means that there’s a head coach, and they have five or six assistants under them who travel with them. So you know, when they’re getting fired, it’s not only their job and their family that has to uproot. They’re responsible for five or six other men. And so if you think of how many lives are affected, that’s a lot. So you know, I think this is a really high time of anxiety and a really stressful time for so many people.

CORNISH: Now, this is also the day that football fans basically digest the playoff matchups, right? They’re either feeling really happy or probably bummed out by this point. What have been the highlights? What are the highlights for you, looking forward?

KAPLAN: Looking forward, I think that the NFC and AFC paint two really diverse pictures. The NFC has some of the most, you know, dominant teams all season. That’s the Carolina Panthers, who almost went undefeated, and the Arizona Cardinals, who just have an absolutely fantastic offense and defense. Meanwhile, in the AFC, you have some teams that came in hot – Pittsburgh Steelers, the Kansas City Chiefs. Both come in on really ridiculous hot streaks. So there’s going to be kind of a clash of a titans going forward.

CORNISH: That’s Emily Kaplan. She covers the NFL for Sports Illustrated. Emily, thanks so much.

KAPLAN: Thanks for having me.

Copyright © 2016 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by a contractor for NPR, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio.

4:58

The new film Concussion has many football players thinking about the possible long-term health risks of the game. But that hasn’t stopped two brothers from taking the field.

Transcript

AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:

For football fans, it’s an exciting time of year – college bowl games in full swing, the NFL heading for the playoffs. All eyes are on the field. And this year, many will be on movie screens, too. The new film “Concussion” brings a broader awareness to the issue of head trauma in football, even for those who play the game. Here’s NPR’s Tom Goldman.

TOM GOLDMAN, BYLINE: I have tickets for “Concussion” at 7:45.

My movie date, in Grapevine, Texas, actually was with three people – Donovan Lee, a sophomore running back at the University of Colorado, his mom Angela and his younger brother, Dymond Lee, a high school senior quarterback and wide receiver whose career has been a veritable highlight reel.

(SOUNDBITE OF FOOTBALL GAME)

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Here on fourth down – huge play, Kai to the end zone. The pass is caught for the touchdown by Dymond Lee.

GOLDMAN: Nineteen-year-old Lee goes to Chaminade College Prep in Los Angeles. On this night in Texas, where he was visiting his mom for the holidays, Lee sat in a theater getting another kind of education. “Concussion” is the story of Nigerian-born pathologist, Bennet Omalu. He was the first person to publish research on the brain disease chronic traumatic encephalopathy, CTE, a disease linked to football head trauma. In this scene from the movie, a character warns Omalu his research puts the future of the game in peril.

(SOUNDBITE FROM THE FILM “CONCUSSION”)

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: (As character) Do you understand the impact of what you are doing? If just 10 percent of the mothers in America decide that football is too dangerous for their sons to play, that is it. It is the end of football.

GOLDMAN: Did you know about Bennet Omalu before tonight?

DYMOND LEE: Not at all. I had no idea any of that was happening.

GOLDMAN: We are now back at their mother’s apartment after the film. For all three, not just Dymond, the story of Omalu and CTE was a revelation, even though they are football lifers. The boys have played tackle since they were 6 and 7 years old. And Angela has been there every step of the way, driving to and from practices and games, cheering and watching – kind of.

ANGELA LEE: When they were younger, I watched them. But high school on up into college, I have a hard time. And I was sharing with my son that I look across the field as though I’m looking at the field just so that, you know, I’m there, I can hear it.

(LAUGHTER)

A. LEE: I don’t mind hearing it…

DONOVAN LEE: (Unintelligible).

A. LEE: …But looking at it is a different monster for me.

GOLDMAN: Still, she never said no to football because she says the boys love it so much. But she worries, quietly. “Concussion,” she says, made her reflect on her sons playing football and what could possibly happen. The film includes the story of Mike Webster. He was the Hall-of-Fame NFL player who died at 50, racked by dementia and self-destructive behavior. Omalu first found CTE in Webster’s brain. Dymond Lee says he actually developed a headache watching Webster’s agony.

LEE: Imagine living through that every day and not being able to just take a moment to breathe, not being able to just take a pill every day and it goes away, not being able to just live life and understand who he even was.

GOLDMAN: I asked Dymond Lee if he thought that could be him someday. Yes, he says. He thinks he’s had concussions, although none has been diagnosed. And football for Lee is about to get more demanding. He signed with UCLA to play quarterback.

LEE: Speed is faster and the people are bigger. So, I mean, that impact is going to have a lot more g-force, as they were saying in the movie. So, I mean, having to protect myself is definitely a thought that’s on my mind, but it’s something that I can’t play with.

GOLDMAN: On the other hand, Dymond and his brother think the story of Webster and the other players who suffer in the movie is more past tense than present and future. The Lees are playing football in an era of much greater awareness about head injury. Dymond’s high school practices had less contact, as mandated now by California law. And he says there’s more talk today about players personal responsibility.

LEE: We’re the makers of our destinies, so we have to take the right steps to prevent injuring ourselves. And we’ve done a lot more in the training room with our trainers and stuff, just going over concussion protocol. Whenever we get hit and we look a little dazed, the trainer will come over and make sure we take the right steps in order to get back in the game or to pull us out if we need to.

GOLDMAN: Reduced contact and proper tackling techniques are an important part of Donovan Lee’s college training as well, although he acknowledges the contradiction endures when it comes to safety in football.

LEE: I mean, I’ve always been taught to like, you don’t come off the field unless you have to be dragged off the field.

GOLDMAN: The NFL gets blasted in the movie for its alleged cover-up of a concussion crisis. The league has been under fire for several years. Aware of the hypersensitivity to concussions, it has responded with reforms and rule changes. Both Dymond and Donovan Lee believe the game will continue to evolve even while they play. And while they do, Angela will keep going to games. She’ll be the one in the stands not watching her boys. Tom Goldman, NPR News.

Copyright © 2016 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by a contractor for NPR, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio.

7:47

The new Will Smith movie Concussion has put the spotlight back on the dangers of football. Smith portrays Dr. Bennet Omalu, the Nigerian immigrant who was the first to publish research on the degenerative brain disease he called chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE.

Omalu, a forensic pathologist, noticed something strange in 2002 when performing an autopsy of Mike Webster, a famous former player for the Pittsburgh Steelers. In the years following his retirement, Webster suffered from mental and financial problems. He died at age 50 of a heart attack, Omalu said.

Omalu expected Webster’s brain to look like that of a boxer with dementia pugilistica, but it looked normal.

“I remember that moment very vividly. I was so downcast; totally confused. And I felt I had let down Mike Webster,” Omalu recalled.

Omalu took it upon himself to find the source of Webster’s mental problems in the years before his death. A deeply religious man, Omalu believes the spirit is alive after death, and talks with his “patients” accordingly. “I said to him, ‘Mike I will get to the bottom of this, I think there is something wrong with you.'”

Omalu ordered special tests, and even took the brain home for six months to investigate. When looking through stained slides, he told GQ he discovered accumulations of tau proteins, which are associated with diseases like Alzheimer’s.

He searched the scientific literature for similar cases involving football players, but found nothing. This was a new disease, and needed a new name. Omalu settled on chronic traumatic encephalopathy. “Chronic means long term,” Omalu says. “Traumatic means associated with trauma. Encephalopathy means a bad brain.”

The goal, Omalu said, was to “brand” the term CTE — not to sell anything, but to create awareness. “It was more likely to be impactful,” he said. “If I had just published it as a case report without a name in a scientific journal, it would have just fizzled, and become swallowed up by the body of existing literature.”

He found that repetitive impact to the head, like the players take in football, causes microscopic injuries in the brain. Hundreds of these blows over time cause permanent brain damage.

“Sometimes it may take weeks, months, years, decades, sometimes up to 40 years later … and you will now begin to manifest with symptoms like mood disorders, major depression, suicidal attempts, suicides, loss of intelligence … you begin to lose your learned behavior,” Omalu said.

Omalu’s research on CTE had an impact, but not the one he expected. When the NFL responded aggressively, he was genuinely surprised. He thought professional football would welcome his research as a way to “enhance the lives and safety and health of the players,” Omalu said.

“The NFL made a very calculated attempt, very mean attempt to decapitate me professionally,” he said. “They sent a very, very strong letter accusing me of fraud. Accusing me of practicing something that was not science, insinuating I was a voodoo doctor. Calling me all types of names.”

Still, Omalu said he never considered retracting his research.

“I had met the families of the sufferers of this disease. They were suffering in silence, they were suffering in obscurity. And it offended my sense of America. … I used my knowledge and education … to become the voice for the voiceless. To make a difference and enhance the lives of these players.”

Omalu said he’s happy with the way Concussion tells his story. He said he was involved in the whole process of production and wanted to ensure it was historically accurate.

And how about Will Smith playing him on the big screen?

“I think Will Smith did a phenomenal job. Will Smith’s acting reaffirms my belief in the American perfection,” Omalu said.

10:17

In the Barbershop, blogger Dru Ealons, Washington Post reporter Wesley Lowery and NPR editor Ammad Omar discuss controversies involving Donald Trump and Ted Cruz, and a new set of ads from the NBA.

Transcript

MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:

And now it’s time for our trip to the Barbershop – that’s our weekly conversation about what’s in the news and whatever else is on our minds. Sitting in the chairs for a shapeup this week are Dru Ealons, a political blogger, former Obama appointee at the Environmental Protection Agency. Hi, Dru.

DRU EALONS: Hey there.

MARTIN: NPR’s own Morning Edition editor Ammad Omar. Hi, Ammad.

AMMAD OMAR, BYLINE: Hey, how are you?

MARTIN: And Wesley Lowery, reporter for The Washington Post. Hi, Wesley.

WESLEY LOWERY: Hello.

MARTIN: Thanks for coming in, happy holidays to everybody. I hope…

LOWERY: Merry Christmas.

MARTIN: …Everybody had a pleasant day, whether you observe the holiday or not. But we see that not everyone is feeling the love and joy of the season. For example, Donald Trump has not taken time off from slinging the rhetoric. Hillary Clinton was the target on Monday of this week – what a surprise. Trump used what I think a lot of people heard as a Yiddish slur, saying that she got schlonged in the 2008 Democratic primaries. You know, Ammad, I just have to ask, as a person who sort of sees all of the traffic around these stories when they come in, is it even worth asking anymore whether he’s crossed the line?

OMAR: It’s funny because, you know, if you go back to the earlier parts of this campaign, we heard his comments about Mexican immigrants; we heard his comments about Megyn Kelly, the Fox News anchor – he said there was blood coming out of her you-know-where, something along those lines. At all of these moments, people were saying that he must have gone too far now. This has got to be it for Donald Trump because we’re not used to hearing candidates use that sort of language I guess. But this one, it just seems like – it’s like oh, he said something again. I think the surprise if he were to stop using this kind of language because now it’s par for the course for him. And he’s doing great in the polls, so it seems like maybe it’s working.

MARTIN: Dru, what about his comment about – Hillary Clinton – he had a lot to say about her this week. He said that her – remember, Saturday night was the last Democratic debate of the year. And there was a point at which the cameras came back to the stage and Hillary Clinton was not yet back from what we assume was a stop. And, you know, he said it was too disgusting to talk about. I’m just wondering how do you hear that as a person who’s kind of done campaigns, been involved and sort of knows what it’s all like to be involved. And she was the only woman on the stage, of course. How do you hear that?

EALONS: What I – what – you know, I guess from the political perspective of what I hear is he’s just playing right into her game. Like, he – she wants the conversation between him and her to be around the sexism that he automatically already puts out. But now he has focused it towards her, so it gives her something that she can actually poke at and peel back at and that – honestly, I feel like he fell into her own trap. So now he has all week, unlike how he has before been a little bit more apologetic. He’s been more apologetic this time than he really has the last time, or he’s been explaining himself more than he has beforehand, usually as a matter fact. So yeah, it was stupid on his part. But…

MARTIN: Interesting…

EALONS: …He fell into her playbook.

MARTIN: That’s interesting. Wesley, what do you think? This is funny because you’re big into social media, too, and you sort of follow this stuff. What do you think about it?

LOWERY: Well, of course, I mean, it’s never surprising when Donald Trump does one of these things. You know, every single – tomorrow, we’ll be talking about something completely new that he’s said and done. It’ll be the new worst thing he’s said or the new, you know, most hyperbolic thing he’s said. But again, you know, I think that that was right. It does really play into kind of where Hillary Clinton wants the conversation to be, but it also doubles down on what Donald Trump supporters want to hear. You know, people who like Donald Trump like these things. They like this kind of hyperbolic celebrity, not afraid to say whatever’s on his mind no matter who knows what that is. And so it’s interesting to see how that cuts both ways.

MARTIN: Interesting. You know, there’s another interesting dustup I wanted to talk about this week, and that’s between Ted Cruz and The Washington Post. It started with this holiday-themed campaign ad featuring his family. And it’s supposed to be a spoof infomercial of Cruz reading re-imagined classic Christmas stories but with a snarky political twist. I’ll just play a little bit of that.

(SOUNDBITE OF POLITICAL AD)

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: The whole family will enjoy reading stories like “The Grinch Who Lost Her Emails.”

UNIDENTIFIED CHILD #1: I know just what I’ll do, she said with a snicker. I’ll use my own server and no one will be the wiser.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: And if you act now, we’ll throw in the inspiring new Christmas story soon to be an instant classic

UNIDENTIFIED CHILD #2: Please read this when daddy.

TED CRUZ: OK.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: “The Senator Who Saved Christmas.”

MARTIN: So then there was this political cartoon mocking the ad. It shows Sen. Cruz in a Santa outfit with a grinder and two monkeys on leashes – presumably, the monkeys representing the two little girls. So this was not appreciated by the Trump campaign. The Post then pulled the cartoon. So Wesley, you work for The Post.

LOWERY: I do.

MARTIN: I don’t want to put you on the spot, but I kind of do. So, I don’t…

LOWERY: The Washington Post is right always – period.

MARTIN: Well, exactly…

LOWERY: Are the bosses listening?

MARTIN: But, you know, The Post featured the famous political cartoonist Herblock for decades, and he made a lot of people angry but particularly political leaders. I don’t remember them ever pulling a cartoon.

LOWERY: Well, you know, the conventional wisdom or the rule of thumb is always that, you know, you keep children out of it. No matter who the politician is, you don’t go after the children. Now, that rule is always broken. We’ve seen – whether it be the Palin children or George W. Bush’s children or even Michelle and Barack Obama’s children be attacked previously. But I think that – and so it feels as if, you know, this may have been over the line because it invoked his children. That said, when you – you know, Ted Cruz is one of the smartest people in the campaign. You know, a very book smart – a debater, Ivy League-educated. You know that when you involve your children in something like a political ad, you’re potentially drawing fire to them so that you can then take the high ground of saying don’t attack my kids and raise money off of it, which he did.

MARTIN: He is raising money. But you talked to the Cruz campaign, Ammad. What did they say?

OMAR: Right, so we were talking before about how the Hillary Clinton bit – the Donald Trump bit played into Hillary Clinton’s hands – throughout this campaign, Ted Cruz has been kind of playing this – this theme about how the mainstream media is attacking him and the liberal media is out to get him. And they’ve been pounding this over and over and over again. And like Wesley mentioned, they immediately turned around and launched a fundraising appeal off of this…

MARTIN: Saying what?

OMAR: Saying that – again, look at the liberal media…

MARTIN: They’re trying to get me, so you need to help me to…

OMAR: Exactly.

MARTIN: …Defend myself.

OMAR: And so I asked the campaign if they’ve been getting more money from that. They didn’t really want to go into specifics about whether or not the fundraising is showing any immediate impact, but they went into it. They said look, this is just another example of how the mainstream media is out to get us. And they’re saying they’re using this – they’re very open – they’re saying they’re using this as a way to energize their supporters and keep playing this theme that they’ve been hitting over and over again. And I really – I think it played into their hands perfectly.

MARTIN: Dru, what do you have to say about this? As a mom and also as a person who saw how there are some just vicious things said about the Obama girls in – on the other hand, people say well, you know, it’s one thing for a politician to use – your people – just a picture of your kids and say look at my beautiful family; I’m a good person. And to actually put them in a political ad in a very particular way – I don’t know, where…

EALONS: Right.

MARTIN: …Do you come out on this?

EALONS: Exactly. I think one – the way that I look at it is he opened the door. Now, we can debate on whether The Washington Post should have walked through that door and actually put that picture – but the actual ad really depicted that whole sentiment of just bringing your children into a conversation around a particular person and taking that story and having them being a part of the politics versus saying oh, here’s my beautiful family…

MARTIN: OK, but the monkey thing – that’s exactly the kind of thing that has…

EALONS: Right.

MARTIN: …Really infuriated Obama supporters over the years…

EALONS: Oh, yes.

MARTIN: …Is depicting him as a monkey and so forth.

EALONS: Oh, no, no.

MARTIN: So just on that basis, they’re not the same ethnic group. And so, of course, there are particular issues around, you know, depicting African-Americans in a certain subhuman light, which is infuriating. But given that…

EALONS: Oh, yeah, I – again – if I was the mother, of course I’d be very upset. And as a mother, I would not want my child, an African-American son, depicted as a monkey. I think that was inappropriate on The Washington Post’s part. But I also say when you bring your children into the debate – not about just showing your family but having them talking about the Grinch who used emails or tried to get away – I mean, they have them in what I call the messiness of politics versus just saying here, as a prop, my beautiful family and wouldn’t you want to see them in the White House?

MARTIN: I see, so you think they stirred – OK.

EALONS: They opened the door. We shouldn’t have walked through it as the media, but they opened the door.

MARTIN: OK. Well, speaking of TV commercials, one more commercial. Another one making headlines this week is from the NBA with basketball stars Steph Curry, Carmelo Anthony and Chris Paul speaking out about gun violence along with the families of some victims. And, you know, Ammad, just is this something new? I mean, it seems as though the league is getting involved or at least embracing something that is a polarizing political issue. Does that seem like a new thing to you, the way – yeah.

OMAR: It’s interesting because it does seem like a new thing. And I chatted with some folks over at the NBA just today asking them about this. And they were very careful about how they’re kind of framing this. They’re saying this is nothing new. We have been doing community outreach for a long time. And they made it very clear – they’re very precise about – and careful about their language. They were saying we’re not advocating for any new gun laws. We’re not calling for gun control. We just want to stop gun violence and make safer communities. And who can be against that? Everyone’s for that, so they’re trying to make this a non-controversial thing. But obviously, that’s a very fine line to walk.

MARTIN: Wesley, you get the last word on this.

LOWERY: Of course, I mean, I thought it was really interesting. I mean, I thought it was really interesting. Now, it’s not the first time. You know, we’ve seen after Sandy Hook, there were some similar PSAs involving a lot of celebrities, including some NBA players. But one thing that’s really fastening is the NBA players tend to be the most outspoken about social issues, whether it was LeBron James wearing the I Can’t Breathe shirts after the Eric Garner – it seems to be – they are some of the athletes who are the most human. And for me, as a basketball fan, as an NBA fan, it’s very attractive to me to see them engaging, no matter what side of some of these issues you’re on.

MARTIN: All right, we have to leave it there for now. That’s Wesley Lowery of The Washington Post, Ammad Omar from NPR’s Morning Edition and blogger Dru Ealons. Thank you all so much for joining us.

OMAR: Thank you.

EALONS: Thank you.

LOWERY: Merry Christmas, happy New Year.

Copyright © 2015 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by a contractor for NPR, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio.