The symptoms, too, are subtle and often pass beneath the radar. And the players themselves are often in the dark. Until I had mine, for me I can say I never knew exactly what a concussion was or what it did. I always thought you had to be knocked unconscious, like in a coma. As it is, many athletes are loath to sit out.
Most athletes expect to play injured because the injuries are orthopedic.
The problem is when they apply that logic to the brain, because the brain is not like a muscle you can tape up and play on when it's 75 percent. It is a non-renewable resource. In a few rare cases, Lovell believes athletes should not play. Still, Lovell and Collins believe that in most cases, the number of concussions matters less than the recovery time allowed. The literature clearly pointed in that direction.