Author(s): Jeanne Marie Laskas

Football/Rugby

Soon to be a major motion picture starring Will Smith, "Concussion "is the riveting, unlikely story of Dr. Bennet Omalu, the pathologist who made one of the most significant medical discoveries of the twenty-first century, a discovery that challenges the existence of America s favorite sport and puts Omalu in the crosshairs of football s most powerful corporation: the NFL. In September of 2002, in a dingy morgue in downtown Pittsburgh, a young forensic neuropathologist named Bennet Omalu picked up a scalpel and made a discovery that would rattle America in ways he never intended. Omalu was new to America, chasing the dream, a deeply spiritual man escaping the wounds of civil war in Nigeria. The body on the slab in front of him belonged to a fifty-year-old named Mike Webster aka Iron Mike a Hall of Fame center for the Pittsburgh Steelers, one of the greatest to ever play the game. After retiring in 1990, Webster had suffered a dizzyingly steep decline. Toward the end of his life, he was living out of his van, Tasering himself to relieve his chronic pain, and fixing his rotting teeth with Super Glue. How did this happen? Omalu asked himself. How did a young man like Mike Webster end up like this? The search for answers would change Omalu s life forever and put him in the crosshairs of one of the most powerful corporations in America: the National Football League. What Omalu discovered in Mike Webster s brain proof that his mental deterioration was no accident, but a disease, caused by relentless blows to the head, that could affect everyone playing the game was the one truth the NFL would do anything to keep secret. Taut, gripping, and gorgeously told, "Concussion" is the stirring true story of one unlikely man s courageous decision to stand up to a multibillion-dollar colossus bent on silencing him, and to tell the world the truth. Advance praise for "Concussion" "" The story of Dr. Bennet Omalu s battle against the NFL is classic David and Goliath stuff, and Jeanne Marie Laskas one of my favorite writers on earth makes it as exciting as any great courtroom or gridiron drama. A riveting, powerful human tale and a master class on how to tell a story. Charles Duhigg, author of "The Power of Habit" Bennet Omalu forced football to reckon with head trauma. The NFL doesn t want you to hear his story, but Jeanne Marie Laskas makes it unforgettable. This book is gripping, eye-opening, and full of heart. Emily Bazelon, author of "Sticks and Stones""