BREAKING THE SILENCE
By Andy Malekoff© 2007
As a student athlete who played competitive contact sports, I learned at an early age not to grumble about aches and pains or even more serious injuries. I learned to “play hurt,” a price that I was willing to pay and that promised me the dual advantage of advancing my standing on the team and garnering the respect of my coaches and teammates. Consequently, I played with broken bones, severe sprains, bruised ribs, painful contusions known as “hip pointers” and concussions. All but the latter could be detected by the naked eye.
I never once told a coach that I was injured. It was their job to figure it out, to observe me in action and then decide whether or not I should be pulled off the field. Keeping quiet and playing hurt were learned behaviors and important values on the field of play – a badge of honor.
Once when watching game films, my high school football coach chewed me out after a kick off when I appeared to be dogging it. “Malekoff, What are you doing, picking daisies?,” he hollered to the delight of my teammates who convulsed in laughter as he played the film clip over and over again. What did not make it into the frame was the knee applied to my head during a full speed collision with an opponent just moments before my screen debut. Only I knew about the collision that left me seeing stars and staggering about trying to maintain my balance. The truth is that I was out cold on my feet. I stayed on the field, continued to play and never told a soul. This was a scene that was repeated over the years.
I recently learned from reading a compelling series of New York Times articles by Alan Schwartz, that concussions in sports have reached epidemic proportions. Schwartz referred to this as a silent epidemic and a public health issue, fueled by a gladiator culture.
According to Schwartz, “At least 50 high school or younger football players in more than 20 states since 1997 have been killed or have sustained serious head injuries on the field.” He goes on to say that the sad truth is that these could have been prevented through better awareness and respect for the severity of a head injury.
He found that girls are even more vulnerable to concussions than boys in the sports that both play, such as soccer and basketball. I doubt that early advocates of Title IX of the Educational Amendments Act of 1972, a federal law prohibiting sex discrimination in educational institutions, anticipated that as young women and girls exploded onto the sports scene, that they would one day adopt a men’s code of silence. Apparently some have.
What can we do as parents to help to break the silence? If this is a public health issue we must insist that all children and teenagers and their parents be educated early on about the risks, consequences, signs and symptoms of head injury. In addition, young people who are planning to play contact sports require values education that puts the gladiator-play-at-any-cost-culture up for inspection. Adults who care about kids need to offer alternative views and models for demonstrating courage and heart. We must provide a counterforce to the dangerous and false belief that putting one’s well being or life in jeopardy when playing a game is noble.
Competitive sports involves sacrifice, perseverance, loyalty, honor, and courage, all values that will serve one well throughout life. They have served me well. However, maintaining a code of silence about a serious injury that can lead to lifelong consequences is another thing altogether.
Keeping quiet about a head injury is not honorable or courageous. On the contrary, it is ignorant and it is a betrayal of one’s body and mind, and of one’s loved ones.
We must demand that those in power in youth, interscholastic and intercollegiate sports protect our children; and we must help our children, from an early age, to think critically and to develop the good sense and courage, without shame, to break the silence.
This article was originally published in the Anton Community Newspapers, Long Island, NY.
Sunday, January 6, 2008
WHEN GOVERNMENT LIES, DEMOCRACY DIES
Weitzman blasted by Guidance Center
By Andy Malekoff and Jo-Ellen Hazan
First published in the Long Island Business News: Friday, December 28, 2007
For more than 50 years, the North Shore Family and Child Guidance Center has served children with serious emotional and social problems and their families.
Putting modesty aside just briefly, we do a spectacular job, often on a shoestring budget, and almost always under difficult circumstances. That is what we do.
Now, we find ourselves the victim of Nassau County Comptroller Howard Weitzman’s thinly veiled campaign to inflate his reputation, with no regard for the truth or for the people he might harm.
Here are the facts:
Four years ago, two employees in our accounting department conspired to steal $70,000 from us. Within weeks, we discovered the theft and called in the police. The employees were led out in handcuffs. They were convicted and punished. And every penny was returned. This is an unfortunate reality of doing business today, and it happens in the best of organizations – like ours.
More than two years later, in an audit by Nassau County, this incident was noted. By then, this was a non-issue, because we had resolved it ourselves, along with other concerns issued in the report. Yet Comptroller Howard Weitzman seized upon it and issued a press release, claiming credit for uncovering fraud, theft and lack of oversight at our agency. In fact, he did not uncover a thing.
The release was painstakingly worded to extract every bit of drama and to earn every nugget of credit for Mr. Weitzman, where he was entitled to none. He held a press conference to trumpet his accomplishments. He compared us to the Roslyn School District. And he issued a “blast” e-mail of the press release to his friends, donors and supporters, obviously to demonstrate that he was right on the case.
We had provided Mr. Weitzman with all of the ingredients for a juicy story – money, kids and theft. And he told the story – and a story is all it was – very well. To compare us to Roslyn is just pandering.
Mr. Weitzman may have done great damage to our organization and, ultimately, to the children and families we have been serving and advocating for every day for more than 50 years.
Unlike Mr. Weitzman, we don’t have a good publicity machine. For the most part, the people who know us are our donors and the people we help. Unlike Mr. Weitzman, we do not blare our accomplishments and we do not exaggerate them. And, also unlike Mr. Weitzman, we would not try to inflate our own image by harming others. Especially kids.
Shame on you, Howard Weitzman.
Andrew Malekoff, executive director; Jo-Ellen Hazan, president, North Shore Family & Guidance Center
By Andy Malekoff and Jo-Ellen Hazan
First published in the Long Island Business News: Friday, December 28, 2007
For more than 50 years, the North Shore Family and Child Guidance Center has served children with serious emotional and social problems and their families.
Putting modesty aside just briefly, we do a spectacular job, often on a shoestring budget, and almost always under difficult circumstances. That is what we do.
Now, we find ourselves the victim of Nassau County Comptroller Howard Weitzman’s thinly veiled campaign to inflate his reputation, with no regard for the truth or for the people he might harm.
Here are the facts:
Four years ago, two employees in our accounting department conspired to steal $70,000 from us. Within weeks, we discovered the theft and called in the police. The employees were led out in handcuffs. They were convicted and punished. And every penny was returned. This is an unfortunate reality of doing business today, and it happens in the best of organizations – like ours.
More than two years later, in an audit by Nassau County, this incident was noted. By then, this was a non-issue, because we had resolved it ourselves, along with other concerns issued in the report. Yet Comptroller Howard Weitzman seized upon it and issued a press release, claiming credit for uncovering fraud, theft and lack of oversight at our agency. In fact, he did not uncover a thing.
The release was painstakingly worded to extract every bit of drama and to earn every nugget of credit for Mr. Weitzman, where he was entitled to none. He held a press conference to trumpet his accomplishments. He compared us to the Roslyn School District. And he issued a “blast” e-mail of the press release to his friends, donors and supporters, obviously to demonstrate that he was right on the case.
We had provided Mr. Weitzman with all of the ingredients for a juicy story – money, kids and theft. And he told the story – and a story is all it was – very well. To compare us to Roslyn is just pandering.
Mr. Weitzman may have done great damage to our organization and, ultimately, to the children and families we have been serving and advocating for every day for more than 50 years.
Unlike Mr. Weitzman, we don’t have a good publicity machine. For the most part, the people who know us are our donors and the people we help. Unlike Mr. Weitzman, we do not blare our accomplishments and we do not exaggerate them. And, also unlike Mr. Weitzman, we would not try to inflate our own image by harming others. Especially kids.
Shame on you, Howard Weitzman.
Andrew Malekoff, executive director; Jo-Ellen Hazan, president, North Shore Family & Guidance Center
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