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Texas Matters, A Documentary Investigation: Concussions And Repercussions

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A banged up and scared football helmet from Alamo Heights High School.
David Martin Davies

Four years ago the Texas legislature recognized that concussions in High School football had become ab epidemic and needed to be addressed.  That’s when HB 2038 was was passed and signed into law. That put in place the “Return to Play” protocol. It requires a doctor’s approval for a player to return to the field following a concussion.  But did the law do any good? The Texas governing body for high school sports, the University Interscholastic League, doesn’t actually recognize how big the concussion problem is in the state because it has a faulty system for tracking high school concussions. This documentary investigation looks into the tracking inconsistencies of concussion by the UIL.

David Martin Davies can be reached at dmdavies@tpr.org and on Twitter at @DavidMartinDavi