important, an issue whose time had come, like the dangers of nicotine or cholesterol. The paper’s major findings, published in 1999, were that neuropsychological testing was an effective tool to assess concussions in athletes and that those with a history of multiple concussions or learning disabilities were far more likely to fail those tests.
“Quite honestly, and not to sit here and blow, but this paper was seminal,” said Collins. He seemed dismissive of the earlier work of researchers such as Jeff Barth, who had reached similar conclusions but had published his research as a chapter in a book called
Mild Head Injury
. Years later, that book was still available on Amazon, delivered to your doorstep within days, but Collins would say: “The other article published on this stuff was published in some obscure journal, and there was very little. You had to dig deep to find it.” Collins’s own article, in contrast, was big-time: “This was
JAMA
!”
Collins had short blond hair, an angular head that squared off at its crown, and the wiry physique of a distance runner. He was tightly wound and argumentative and sometimes came off as being about as charitable with his peers as he was with Barth. Collins had particular contempt for neurologists, for example, believing that most of them failed to grasp the intricacies of his particular specialty: “There are some incredible neurologists, but ninety percent of them have no clue how to manage a concussion, ninety-five percent of them,” he said. When explaining his work and the science of concussions, he had a habit of punctuating his sentences with a quick check to make sure his listeners were able to keep up: “You following me? Does that make sense?” He was the opposite of his mentor, Lovell, who projected a kind of sleepy calm. But when Lovell went to work at the new sports medicine center that had been established at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, joining Maroon at UPMC, he brought Collins with him.
Collins worshiped Lovell. “Mark Lovell is probably the smartest human being I’ve ever met in my life,” he said. “He has vision. He’s a tinkerer. He’s the mad scientist in the room. Smoke comes out from under the door. I’m the guy that sees all the patients and runs around.”
After decades of neglect, concussions were taking off as a research subject that merited serious attention. As Collins had correctly pointed out, examining the brains encased in football helmets adorned with the team logos to which millions of Americans had sworn allegiance was suddenly a sexy topic. There was money to be had and, equally important, prestige. There were headlines and careers to be made. The researchers who got in early—Jeff Barth, Joe Maroon, Mark Lovell, and a few others—soon begat other researchers, and they too began to make discoveries, many of which would prove highly problematic for one of the nation’s leading concussion factories: the National Football League.
Julian Bailes wasa rising star when Maroon recruited him out of Northwestern University in Chicago to join him on the neurosurgical staff at Allegheny General Hospital in 1988. The two men could hardly have been more different in background and temperament. Maroon had grown up in Bridgeport, Ohio, a striver in the blue-collar image of his hustling father. Bailes wasthe son of a Louisiana Supreme Court justice. He had spent much of his early life in New Orleans and other parts of Louisiana and exuded the easy charm of a southern patrician, a stout handsome man with a slight drawl and thick dark hair that he swept back from his forehead.
Bailes had been ambivalent about beginning his career in sleepy Pittsburgh. But Maroon possessed one particularly attractive chit: In addition to performing brain surgery, Bailes could join him working the sidelines with the Pittsburgh Steelers, learning from the man who had watched over the brains of Terry Bradshaw and Jack Lambert. Bailes had
“Quite honestly, and not to sit here and blow, but this paper was seminal,” said Collins. He seemed dismissive of the earlier work of researchers such as Jeff Barth, who had reached similar conclusions but had published his research as a chapter in a book called
Mild Head Injury
. Years later, that book was still available on Amazon, delivered to your doorstep within days, but Collins would say: “The other article published on this stuff was published in some obscure journal, and there was very little. You had to dig deep to find it.” Collins’s own article, in contrast, was big-time: “This was
JAMA
!”
Collins had short blond hair, an angular head that squared off at its crown, and the wiry physique of a distance runner. He was tightly wound and argumentative and sometimes came off as being about as charitable with his peers as he was with Barth. Collins had particular contempt for neurologists, for example, believing that most of them failed to grasp the intricacies of his particular specialty: “There are some incredible neurologists, but ninety percent of them have no clue how to manage a concussion, ninety-five percent of them,” he said. When explaining his work and the science of concussions, he had a habit of punctuating his sentences with a quick check to make sure his listeners were able to keep up: “You following me? Does that make sense?” He was the opposite of his mentor, Lovell, who projected a kind of sleepy calm. But when Lovell went to work at the new sports medicine center that had been established at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, joining Maroon at UPMC, he brought Collins with him.
Collins worshiped Lovell. “Mark Lovell is probably the smartest human being I’ve ever met in my life,” he said. “He has vision. He’s a tinkerer. He’s the mad scientist in the room. Smoke comes out from under the door. I’m the guy that sees all the patients and runs around.”
After decades of neglect, concussions were taking off as a research subject that merited serious attention. As Collins had correctly pointed out, examining the brains encased in football helmets adorned with the team logos to which millions of Americans had sworn allegiance was suddenly a sexy topic. There was money to be had and, equally important, prestige. There were headlines and careers to be made. The researchers who got in early—Jeff Barth, Joe Maroon, Mark Lovell, and a few others—soon begat other researchers, and they too began to make discoveries, many of which would prove highly problematic for one of the nation’s leading concussion factories: the National Football League.
Julian Bailes wasa rising star when Maroon recruited him out of Northwestern University in Chicago to join him on the neurosurgical staff at Allegheny General Hospital in 1988. The two men could hardly have been more different in background and temperament. Maroon had grown up in Bridgeport, Ohio, a striver in the blue-collar image of his hustling father. Bailes wasthe son of a Louisiana Supreme Court justice. He had spent much of his early life in New Orleans and other parts of Louisiana and exuded the easy charm of a southern patrician, a stout handsome man with a slight drawl and thick dark hair that he swept back from his forehead.
Bailes had been ambivalent about beginning his career in sleepy Pittsburgh. But Maroon possessed one particularly attractive chit: In addition to performing brain surgery, Bailes could join him working the sidelines with the Pittsburgh Steelers, learning from the man who had watched over the brains of Terry Bradshaw and Jack Lambert. Bailes had
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