Keeping Contact Sports Alive Sandvig 1

Revision Sheet

For my Writing Project 1, I did not like how the narrative I included as my first paragraph

turned out as it seemed boring and did not grab the readers attention. I merely stated that I

received a concussion with a few details however, I felt like I could describe the scene in more

detail. In addition, I saw a problem with the conclusion as my original intention was to go back

to my horrible concussion and describe the events that followed it and how I improved my own

education of concussion as well as helped other people. I wanted to implement a conclusion that

includes my thesis and what the paper was and also include my own personal experiences and

how I bettered my understanding of concussions with the use of the genres that I wrote about

within my essay (articles and concussions). This would make my essay more appealing to the

reader and make the essay flow more as I concluded the essay drawing back from my first and

second paragraphs which both function as my introduction. I did not want to stray away from the

narrative part of my essay as I felt like it made my essay stronger as the reader would feel more

personable to me with the knowledge that I went through this tragedy. This problem as seen by

Professor Speiser as well as myself when I reread my project and saw how the essay would be

stronger if I began the essay with only event that took place and nothing leading up to explaining

why I was telling this story. My explanation about how long I played football and everything

before the event was unneeded as my essay focused on concussions and I need to only tell the

story of how I received one of my own. I kept the part where I state or so I was told because it

gives some comical characteristics to my piece because even though the event is not funny, it

shows that I really had no idea what happened to me until someone explained the event because

of the severity of my concussion. My revision did not only grab the readers attention more, but

it also made my essay flow with revisions to the introduction and conclusion.
Keeping Contact Sports Alive Sandvig 2

Shane Sandvig

Writing 2

Professor Speiser

January 31, 2017

Keeping Contact Sports Alive

My first varsity start was in my junior year of high school against Calabasas, a team not

very good. It was the fourth quarter and the win was already solidified. I was playing cornerback

in a must pass situation as Calabasas was down by over forty points. I read the quarterbacks eyes

and pounced on the ball as it was thrown my way: my first varsity interception. I caught the ball

at the twenty-yard line and ran as fast as I could, juking several defenders that were in my way;

however, I was stopped shy of breaking away from the last defender, or so I was told. I was hit so

hard in the wrong spot to the intensity that I received a concussion. Up until that moment, I had no

worries of concussion and did not care about the consequences these injuries have on the body of

athletes. From that point on, I went out of my way to learn the drawbacks of concussion and how

they have affected professional athletes as well as myself. With this education, I could prevent

future concussions and if I did receive another I could prepare myself of the symptoms that come

with such a serious injury.

The type of genre that a topic is being introduced as plays a pivotal role in how the reader

or viewer absorbs the information. Concussion awareness has become an important part in the

teaching of sports and how to play each sport in a safe way. In order for contact sports to exist,

these sports need to be taught to youth players in a specific way that allows these children to

continue playing without serious injuries that could affect them later in life. Organizations who

promote concussion awareness use a few different methods to reach out to their audiences
Keeping Contact Sports Alive Sandvig 3

including written texts and commercials. Each of these methods of spreading awareness use

different ways in informing their audiences of the risks and consequences of concussions. Articles

use a more informative approach and base their information off of facts and statistics while

commercials use a strategy of practically selling their audience on looking into concussion

awareness which proves to be the superior tactic of informing the audience.

Commercials give a larger impact on the audiences through dramatic scenes and music to

get their point across stronger. Concussion awareness organizations use commercials to present to

the world the affects and risks of playing a contact sport. In a commercial about concussion

awareness, the creator of the commercial, such as the Center for Disease Control and Prevention,

can implement music into their commercial to create more of an impact on the viewer to show how

serious concussions are in sports. The music used in this commercial found on YouTube, titled

Concussion Commercial is sad and sympathetic with acoustic elements to show how these

players are now being punished for not playing the sport safely. In addition, the creators put certain

scenes or video clips of sports players being hit in the head or the consequences of concussion to

players later on in their lives. One of the players who speaks during the commercial tells of an

experience while getting a concussion and states, Fullback lead is on me, and boom second

concussion (Concussion Commercial). Concussions are fast and surprising experiences and one

does not truly remember the specific actions leading to the concussion, but knows after the fact.

The National Dizzy and Balance Center (NDBC) creates a commercial aimed at effecting the

emotions of the audience. The commercials show a mother with her son speaking personally about

how her sons concussion has affected her. While the lady is speaking, her son stares into the

camera in a sad way the whole video, aiding his mother in reaching the emotions of the

commercials viewers. This commercial is not specifically aimed at children, but mostly for
Keeping Contact Sports Alive Sandvig 4

parents who have children who play contact sports or any activity that can lead to a concussion.

They aim the commercial at parents by using an actor who looks as though she is a mother to draw

empathy from any parents who have children who have received a diagnosis of a concussion.

Commercials present the information they are trying to get across to their audience through

placing these commercials between popular shows or sports events. The placement of these

commercials is quite important for the organizations sending the message of concussion awareness

as they look to show these commercials during times where the highest number of people,

specifically young athletes and their parents, are watching. Compared to online articles,

commercials are prone to be viewed by youth sports players and take a lot less effort to engage

with the concussion awareness facts in order to inform parents and children on how to play safely.

The woman in the NDBC commercial refers to the clinic that is offering the newest technology

called BNA (Concussion Commercial BNA). The organization chooses to briefly refer to the new

technology that they have to diagnose concussion and go into research to better understand these

brain tragedies. Although commercials can give their viewers a lot of information, they cannot

give as much information that news articles could because of their time constraints. The brief thirty

second to one minute commercials cannot display more time than that because it costs money to

put these commercials on the television between an entertainment show that the viewers are

watching.

News and online articles have a smaller audience than commercials do, however they

include many more facts and details on the effects of concussions. Alike the commercials,

articles contain quotes of old players that still have to deal with the effects of concussions even

though they have retired from the sport. These articles are written for parents or any adult that is

curious about concussions and the impact they have on players lives. In an article in The
Keeping Contact Sports Alive Sandvig 5

Mercury News titled Team Up Day aims to get high school athletes involved in concussion

awareness, uses the article to promote an extension of concussion awareness to its audience.

This article speaks to athletes and wants to increase their knowledge of how it feels to have a

concussion, so that they can look for the help they need to diagnose a concussion during a game.

Players have always been pushed to self-report themselves to see if they have a concussion, but

now as the CEO of Concussion Legacy Foundation, Chris Nowinski, states, But our research

has shown that we can teach signs and symptoms, but we havent really shown change in

behavior (Mazeika). Nowinski urges athletes to self-report themselves immediately and not try

to hide the symptoms to keep playing because that is when extremely serious brain destruction

occurs and effects happen later in life. Instead of specific statistics and facts involving the sports

themselves, the article focuses on the organizations and the educational events for young

athletes. The focus point of the article would differ from a sports news articles, such as one from

the Entertainment and Sports Programming Network, or ESPN.

ESPN articles can contain specific statistics of how many concussions are diagnosed

annually which gives the reader a clear image of how constantly concussions happen. In an

ESPN article, Preps at greater concussion risk, the author uses statistics to show that younger

football players, like in high school, are more likely to get concussions as on average 11.2

concussions are given every 10,000 athletic exposures (Farrey). These articles are not forced

upon the viewer as commercials are, since commercials happen periodically throughout a show

or television document. This means that articles are precisely written for people wondering about

concussions and people who want more information. rules of how concussions are diagnosed to

educate the reader of how seriously sports organizations, such as the NFL or NHL, take

concussions and how they need to educate the youth to keep the sports alive. The author refers to
Keeping Contact Sports Alive Sandvig 6

the Center of Disease Control Foundation by acknowledging that they gave 75,000 dollars to the

NFL in order to increase awareness on concussion. This article gives the facts of how the

commercial must be working because they are getting enough donations to give the NFL such a

high contribution. Both of these articles are significantly harder to reach the world because they

are not forced upon their readers like commercials are.

After my first concussion, which left me out of football for over five weeks and missing

the greatest rivalry game that my high school has ever seen, I received two more before I ended

my football career after my senior year. Sure, receiving three concussions in a lifetime is

horrible, but after I educated myself of concussions after my first one, I was able to be conscious

of my symptoms and could get the help I needed to be positive that the concussion would not

have a long-term effect on my body. Through the education from sports and medical articles as

well as commercials that promote the knowledge of concussion, I was able to help myself as well

as other people that went through the same tragedy that I did.
Keeping Contact Sports Alive Sandvig 7

References:

Concussion Comercial. YouTube. Centers For Disease Control and Prevention, 14 June 2011.

Web. 20 Jan. 2017. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhPyPTo-Df4>.

"Concussion Commercial BNA." YouTube. National Dizzy and Balance Center, 07 Jan. 2016.

Web. 30 Jan. 2017. <https://youtu.be/sG9ql2c4eiE>.

Farrey, Tom. "Preps at Greater Concussion Risk." ESPN. ESPN Internet Ventures, 31 Oct. 2013.

Web. 30 Jan. 2017. <http://www.espn.com/espn/story/_/id/9902116/report-details-

concussion-risks-high-school-athletes>.

Mazeika, Vytas. "Team Up Day Aims to Get High School Athletes Involved in Concussion

Awareness."The Mercury News. The Mercury News, 16 Sept. 2016. Web. 30 Jan. 2017.

<http://www.mercurynews.com/2016/09/08/team-up-day-aims-to-get-high-school-

athletes-involved-in-concussion-awareness/>.