Broken Brains with Bruce Parkman
Broken Brains with Bruce Parkman is presented by The Mac Parkman Foundation
The mission of this show and the foundation is To serve as a source of information, resources, and communications to the community of parents, coaches/Athletic trainers, medical staff, and athletes that are affected by sports-related concussions and to raise awareness of the long-term implications of concussive and sub-concussive trauma to our children.
Broken Brains will also explore how Concussive Trauma impacts our Service Members and Veterans.
Join us every week as Bruce interviews leaders and experts in various Medical fields, as well as survivors of Concussive trauma.
Broken Brains with Bruce Parkman
Phil Quinlan: A Survivor’s Mission to Make Youth Sports Safer
In this powerful episode of Broken Brains with Bruce Parkman, Bruce sits down with Phil Quinlan, a traumatic brain injury (TBI) survivor and passionate advocate for concussion awareness. Phil shares his deeply personal story of how a single soccer match changed his life forever, leading to a challenging yet inspiring journey of resilience and recovery.
The conversation explores the lasting effects of brain trauma, the importance of family support, and the urgent need for education and prevention in youth sports. Phil highlights the risks of head injuries in contact sports and discusses his mission to advocate for safer environments for young athletes. He also opens up about writing his book, which sheds light on the realities of living with TBI and aims to spark meaningful change in how we approach sports safety.
This episode is a call to action for parents, coaches, and sports organizations to prioritize athlete health and well-being. By raising awareness and promoting advocacy, we can work together to make sports safer for everyone.
🎧 Tune in now on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or YouTube to hear Phil’s incredible story and learn how you can contribute to concussion awareness and prevention. Don’t forget to follow, share, like, and subscribe for more impactful stories and discussions on mental health and brain trauma!
Broken Brains with Bruce Parkman is sponsored by The Mac Parkman Foundation
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Chapters
00:00 Introduction to Repetitive Brain Trauma
00:58 Phil Quinlan's Journey with TBI
09:11 The Impact of TBI on Daily Life
16:47 Overcoming Challenges and Resilience
20:04 The Importance of Education and Awareness
25:55 The Impact of Contact Sports on Youth
30:30 Advocacy and Education on Brain Injuries
35:10 The Journey of Writing a Book
41:57 Future Aspirations and Family Support
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Connect with Philip Quinlan today!
LinkedIn: Philip Quinlan
https://www.linkedin.com/in/philip-quinlan-41b79943/
Instagram: philquinlan
https://www.instagram.com/philquinlan/
Don’t forget to grab a copy of his book today!
And a Bang on the Ear: Reclaiming My Life After a Brain Injury
https://www.amazon.com/Bang-Ear-Reclaiming-After-Injury/dp/1788493222
Join Blue Fusion and Horse Soldier Bourbon for the inaugural Special Operations Army vs. Navy Tailgate Event
Celebrate with us and support veteran wellness. Your participation helps fund The Mac Parkman Foundation's Veteran Program and Team American Freedom.
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Enjoy food, beverages, and live music by Razor’s Edge, one of the top-perform
Produced by Security Halt Media
Hey folks, welcome back to another show of Broken Brains with Bruce Parkman, sponsored by the Mack Parkman Foundation, where we focus on the issue of repetitive brain trauma whether it's repetitive head impact from sports or repetitive blast exposure for our military veterans, and what these impacts are doing to the lives of veterans, athletes and children and the challenges they face. And what do we need to do as a society to go ahead and do a better job to make our sports safer and protect our military veterans from the impact of the service and the training that they undergo. We reach out to researchers and scientists and people that have suffered through these tragedies and have turned them around in lives in order to give you the latest information in science and research on what we can do about the impact of mental illness, psychological and behavioral disorders that come from these types of tragedies. With us today another fascinating guest, mr Phil Quinlan.
Speaker 1:Mr Phil Quinlan is from the motherland of Ireland. Here he is the survivor of a massive TBI that occurred when he was a very young man in football. He wrote a book called and a Bang on the Ear, which seems to be an amazing review of what he has been through as a survivor of a TBI. He has a beautiful wife, two kids and he works as a patients and special needs assistant at St Mary's Special School, again in the motherland of Ireland. Mr Gwynlyn, always a pleasure to have guests come in from overseas and really appreciate the time that you're taking to talk to us today, sir.
Speaker 2:Bruce thanks a million for having me on and Dennis thanks a million. It's always a pleasure to speak to guys who want to learn a bit more about TBIs and ABIs and sports injuries, mental health. It's all huge. But I suppose my story is a little bit different to a lot of the stories out there. I was the fittest young guy in the town, the fittest 15-year-old going. I'd previously grown up in a place called Zambia where I had to climb trees and I was swimming rivers and I was basically Tarzan, but obviously Tarzan with an Irish accent and Tippex legs. But no, we relocated to Nav in 81 and I kept on running, kept on swimming and kept on cycling. And it was those days when the Olympics were fascinating for me. I always wanted to challenge myself to be better, faster, jump higher, run for longer distances. All that and I promised myself one day I'd go to the Olympics to represent Ireland, Whether that be in the marathon, the 10,000 meters. I'd probably run both of them on the same day and win both of them. That was how fit I was. I ran for my county. I represented my club on various occasions the school county medals. I was a really, really fit guy.
Speaker 2:One day, I suppose I joined Parkville at the local soccer club and Dad had played with them years previously and won countless medals with them. I just wanted to be Dad as every young fellow does, I'd say and I went along to play on a very, very foggy morning against the local rivals. The fog was immense, we didn't think the game would go ahead. But we arrived at this backward little town and the referee came along on his Honda 50 and his welly boots and we just cracked up laughing at that, because as 15-year-olds, anything different is funny. So the game kicked off anyway in immense darkness. I think the ref just wanted his money, so that's why he played on. And I suppose about 10 minutes before half time the ball came head height to me and my head clashed against the centre half's head and it was a very innocuous clash. I'd had worse hits in my life, but never on my head.
Speaker 2:And next thing was I went down, got the magic sponge applied. The referee came over and asked me what day it was, what the magic sponge applied. The referee came over and asked me what day it was, what the score was, where we were. I answered everything correctly so he deemed me okay, play on. So about five minutes later I started to feel woozy. I turned around to face the ball and I just kept spinning. I didn't realize it was concussion. But looking back now, being more mature and all the signs of concussion, I started to feel sick. I wasn't able to kick the ball, so I was taken off at halftime and thrown into the dugout and told to fall asleep. That was 35 years ago and I think I was probably one of the first people ever told to fall asleep. That was 35 years ago and I think I was probably one of the first people ever to invent concussion. Nobody knew the signs, nobody knew what to do, so it was probably better off that I just fell asleep and wasn't hassling everyone by talking. So I was going incredibly well. I was dreaming. I had some really weird dreams. I didn't realize it was a perfect storm for me.
Speaker 2:It was Sunday afternoon, traffic, the fog was terribly bad, the roads were very small, the bus driver couldn't overtake, he just kept beeping everyone and I suppose what would normally be a 10-minute journey was a 45-minute journey and I arrived at the local hospital and I'm not sure they knew exactly what to do with me, because I was coherent, I was conscious, I was answering questions to them, but as a precaution they decided to send me to the head injury hospital in Dublin, to the head injury hospital in Dublin. So I had to wait for an ambulance, which was another hour to wait, and on the way up to Dublin I regressed on the way and just as we arrived at the front door of the hospital I arrested and thankfully the ambulance man had radioed ahead to say what state I was in. I was deteriorating rapidly. The resource team were there, they brought me back to life and then I was put into a CT scanner which revealed a huge, ever-growing hematoma, or clot as it was back in the day, and that had to be removed. I think that the surgery lasted for a few hours, but I recently met my neurosurgeon to discuss everything with him, and he was a very modest man. He said it was a vital operation, but a simple operation. So I had visions of him going in with his Black Decker and hoovering out the hematoma with his Dyson, you know. But no, that was all fair enough.
Speaker 2:And then I spent 10 days in a coma. There was no such thing as a medically induced coma back in those days, so it was a coma and I think on the 10th day I started to show signs of consciousness. But I wasn't fully conscious for about six weeks afterwards and it wasn't like in the Hollywood movies where you wake up from a coma and go. What happened? Where am I? It was drip by drip by drip, like a seeping tap, and I realized what was going on, what had happened. My whole right side was paralyzed, I couldn't walk, my voice had gone through aphasia and I was being fed through an NG tube. So I couldn't eat and I always loved my grub, but it wasn't exactly scary. It would have been a lot more scary if I'd have woken up suddenly.
Speaker 2:But because I learned over time, drip by drip, the information came in bit by bit and it was. It was just as my parents said you ran yourself into the ground, so use this as a this as a rest. And the surgeons kept coming in to monitor me and they kept saying two years, two years. That's all I heard. But I didn't hear what they had in brackets we reassess. So they were going to give me two years before they reassessed and then they'd tell me what was going to happen long term. Two years before they reassessed, and then they tell me what was going to happen long term. So I went from Beaumont Hospital into the rehab center in South Dublin where I was going to undergo lots of physio, OT, speech therapy all that to bring me back to the man I thought I was going to be. So I was 16 then at the time and I thought, okay, two years, I'll run the Dublin Marathon when I'm 18. What a birthday present to give myself.
Speaker 2:It was in the brackets that I never really understood the full gravity of it back then. I suppose the innocence of youth naivety. It probably got me to where I am, because there was always that little bit of hope that I'd be able to hammer back into my previous skin and roll on like this was just an episode, but I didn't realize it was something that was going to really change my life forever. And I suppose I was three and a half months in the centre in Dun Laoghaire the rehab centre and I went in there in a wheelchair, came out with a sort of a walk or, as I called it, a wobble, and it was more like your 80, 90-year-old grandfather shuffling along. That's me as a 17-year-old, and I suppose it was all done to me then to get better myself.
Speaker 2:I was given the two years. So I still thought naively of this two years I was still going to be able to perform. But I suppose that the sliver of hope I had became less and less as the years went on and I became more mature I realized what was going on it. It really hurt because I didn't realize at the time I was grieving for the body that I once had, the teenage body, the fitness freak that I once had. And I suppose, looking back now I probably think that what the work I put in before I got injured was sort of a prehab and it stood to me. It stood to me well that I was so fit going into this that I came out relatively not as bad as a lot of people with brain injuries do.
Speaker 1:What a challenge. I mean 15, coming out of Zambia getting on. So when you cracked your, it was together with the center's head. Was that in the front of the head or the back of the head, sir?
Speaker 2:It was just inside of my ear.
Speaker 1:Okay, inside of the ear. So you had rotational issues, I mean you had all kinds of, and nobody noticed anything before they put you in the dugout to give you rest.
Speaker 2:No, I'm just groggy.
Speaker 1:One of the things you do with a brain injury is, you know, tell somebody to go to sleep because you want to monitor them. You know, during the time, but to your point, back in 1990, you know there was not a lot of concussion awareness back then. You know we were all. I'm a rugby player. I played semi-pro rugby here in America. So I I know the mentality you know well. But you know, you know it's just to go through that at that age and then come out.
Speaker 1:What was your? I mean, obviously you know you had your attitude. You're Irish, you know stubborn, right, that's what we are and you're obviously very determined. You know how long did it take you to get back to? I mean, you know, obviously you might still be coming back. But you know, tell us about some of the challenges that you know you faced. You know you're still in grade school, right. I mean you're in high school for the most part, right. So you know, all during high school did this impact, you know, your learning reading for a while? Did it delay your graduation or anything from that perspective, from the cognitive side of things?
Speaker 2:Absolutely. I was one of the best mechanical drawers in the class at the time, in my year at the time, and I was going to. I was planning on being an architect or a draftsman. I was going to design the world, build the biggest buildings and the longest bridges. But the first day I picked up the pencil in the mechanical drawing class, that whole side of my brain just didn't work anymore. I couldn't grasp what was needed Along with the right. Like I was right-handed, so my right hand was basically paralyzed to, I'd say, 40, 50%. So I had to learn how to write again and that side of the brain it really scared me. It really did scare me and I burst out crying in class. And then I changed different class. I think I went to economics, which was I don't know I adored economics. I was probably the teacher as well. He was a local football celebrity, an international celebrity, who taught me economics and he really, really drove me on. He knew what it was like to have a bad injury.
Speaker 2:But going back to school was always a huge target for me. It was about nine months off school. It wasn't the honeymoon period. I thought it would be Because, as you know, all teenagers want to fit in. They want to blend in.
Speaker 2:I was suddenly this mess of a man with a broken brain and my balance was poor. My walk was very obvious. I had a very strong limp and the boys just shouldered me to knock me over, to make fun of me, to slag me off, to bully me. And I suppose the first month or two was very scary, very intimidating.
Speaker 2:But once I learned what I had to do, I couldn't even scream back at them because my voice was as loud as a whisper and it took me, I suppose, a few months to learn that I had to adapt. So what I did was I became involved with the successful Gaelic football team in the school and surrounded myself with these athletes, these young physical gods, and once the bullies saw me hanging around with these guys, they knew well they couldn't tackle me. And then I had a good core group of friends who were always there for me. They always looked after me, they stood up to the bullies for me and it was just I was walking around like, I suppose, the president of America, being surrounded by guys with suits on and sunglasses, ready to pounce if anybody looked any way awkward at me at all, you know.
Speaker 1:So what about back then? I mean we. You know, nowadays, if you've got a head injury and you're a child, I mean obviously you were going through some psychological challenges. I mean nobody becomes goes from a fit 15 year old to a, you know, a damaged young man. You know without. You know suffering from some of the you know depression, anxiety, whatever it is that that hits us. Well, nowadays they just put you on all kinds of medication, you know, I mean they just give you all kinds of pills and numb you up. Whatever they do.
Speaker 1:You know, back then, you know it was just. You know, how'd you get through that? I mean, what was, what was it that caused you to persevere and drive through that where you didn't need the medications and all the. You know all the, all the, all the crazy crud that we throw at our kids right now. You know, when it's needed, got it, you got to have it, but you know it's more of a, you know it's more of the go-to approach to, you know, the children right now that are having psychological disorders. Man, I mean what? How did you get through it?
Speaker 2:Well, I mean, how did you get through it? Well, I was on a certain medication to prevent seizures, which I took hundreds of them when I was in the coal mine in the early days. But I knew myself, I knew my own head as a 17, 18-year-old that I would not take a seizure. So I, quickly enough, binned that medication and what really drove me through the 80s and 90s was my parents.
Speaker 2:80s and 90s, ireland wasn't, as I suppose, rich as it is these days. I got everything I needed but never anything I wanted because we couldn't afford it. So it was the tough love back then. I know these days it's all political correctness, you can't tell people to pull yourself together or anything like that at all, but back then I think it worked for me. And even these days when I'm having a bad day, my wife is the one, she's, the first one to know, to tell me to cop on to myself. And it doesn't work these days, but for me it works. That tough love.
Speaker 2:And I suppose you mentioned a word called stubborn. There it was stubborn, I suppose, my thickness, as we call it over here. I think there's a word these days, resilience they call it, but that wasn't invented back in the 80s and 90s. So it was just. It was the thickness I had to get on, the stubbornness, my dogmatic nature, and I suppose I really wanted to prove to myself and to other people that I was capable of living an independent life. I didn't have to be mollycoddled for the rest of my life Like mom and dad wrapped me in cotton wool. Obviously they would. They looked after me. They always had my back, but the first chance I got was I'd read about this new drug and I'd always wanted to try this new drug. It was called travel and that's what was going to make me independent. It was going to prove to my parents, my family, my friends that I could do so much without them. And travel was the next chapter in my life that really drove me on.
Speaker 1:So let's talk about the title of the book, because it sounded like you know, when you said bang on here, said bang on the air, that we always minimize concussions, right, whether we're the player that wants to stay on the field that's something for our parents to take a look at or the coaches that don't want to lose their star player there's a variety of inputs going on that we're always trying to minimize these concussions. And obviously you know, bleeding from the ear you have a. You know you had a serious, serious one. But when you first got up, I mean, what did the coach say? I was just, you know, shrug it off, get back out there. Did you shrug it off?
Speaker 1:But you know, obviously with a title like that, there was some attempt to minimize the concussion. Because back then and I'm a guy that's woken up in the middle of many rugby fields from taking knees to the head and a whole nine yards and then you get it back up and you just go find the play and go make a tackle and get back in there. So back then, you know, we talk about the stigma of sports and how you got to be a man and we take these very, very serious impacts to our brains and we take them lightly a lot. So it hasn't changed, but it's changing. But it sounds like. Back then it was like ah, just a little knock, man, get back there and play.
Speaker 2:Well, I played rugby for years with my school and with the club and I never got injured. I think I got a bruised kidney at one stage from a nasty tackle.
Speaker 2:But I was your typical wiry scrum half who, okay, the big lads. They don't get a chance to run from the scrum, so you hop on top of them but you don't let them get any chance of a run at all. The title of the book stemmed from a song from the Waterboys. There's a very famous song called the Bang on the Ear, and it's what the bang on the ear in Scottish means a kiss. So I was trying to look it up. Look it up, it's very cool.
Speaker 2:But this is what I really wanted to portray. A little bang on the ear was what happened to me. It was innocuous at the time. You'd seen worse. You know, on anything you'd seen worse. But this particular day, this particular point in time and the particular point where I was hit probably just below the temple made for a very dangerous outcome, a very serious outcome. But I think the key these days is education. It is improving. It's very, very slowly improving, but when I'm on the sideline I know things quicker than other people do and if a kid gets a bang on the head, I'm glued to that kid from the sideline to make sure that they're looking good, because and then I'd start screaming my voice has improved more than a whisper these days, and refs, managers, coaches they can all hear me when I want to be heard. So I'll tell the officials to get that child off the pitch and keep an eye on that child. And I have the backup now to prove it, because it might only have been a little clash in the airport. So was mine.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, and we're trying to get parents I mean, you just touched on a great point Education is one of the big things that we're pushing for, because we're, you know, we we have, no, we have minimal education with parents on not just concussions but how to recognize them and then how to follow up on them, because concussions like what happened to our son obviously had impacts that he wasn't aware of. They didn't show, and you have to really stay on top of these kids. When you're on the sideline, are you there as like a physician assistant, are you like a trainer or you're just? Are you there as a fan, a spectator?
Speaker 2:What capacity are you? I'm there as a dad.
Speaker 1:Nice Okay, yeah.
Speaker 2:A lot of people know my story. If I'm screaming my head off, they know it's serious.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:And to get that child off, to get that child seen to monitor. Like everybody knows their own kid, everybody wants their kid to do well, to do better. If they're a good player, they don't want them coming off. But if I'm on the sideline scooting, up and down in my power chair, they'll understand why I'm being suddenly so serious about this, roger.
Speaker 1:And so in Ireland, right now, in America, we have no head soccer till the age of 12. And we're pushing that to go at least to 14, now where the prefrontal cortex starts to develop. Right, the CEO of the brain, we still have no restrictions on kids tackling in football, which is horrible right now. I mean they're starting at the age of six, which we're trying to educate parents is not healthy for the child. It's nothing against the sport. I still love playing football, I mean rugby, and I'm 62 years old, right, so you know.
Speaker 1:But there comes a time where we have to understand that it's these knocks when the brain's developing. I mean, you were a 15-year-old, you had 10 years more of development within your brain that you still had to go on, and you had been playing sports for how long, sir, since I could walk, walk right. And now you look at the size of the athletes that are compared to when we were children. Right, you and I are roughly the same age. Right, I'm a little bit older than you. You look at these guys and girls now they're faster, they're bigger than ever, and thus they're faster, they're bigger than ever and thus they're hitting harder and they're causing the brain to shake more violently with those hits um in ireland right now. Are there any limitations, uh, in youth rugby, youth soccer right now, from hitting the ball or tackling that you are aware of?
Speaker 2:I think in rugby they start off with the tag rugby at underage. I'm not sure what age they start tackling properly at. It could be under 10s, under 12s, I guess it's under 10s. It starts becoming very physical at that age. In soccer there's no restrictions, but the killer for me is the killer for me is they're still heading the ball at every age, and I don't know whether you've ever heard of a manager called Brian Clough no sir.
Speaker 2:Brian Clough was a very, very famous England manager back in the day. He brought his side to European Cups and won them, and he was a very outspoken guy for his time. He used to say if God had meant football to be played in the sky, he'd have put grass in the air. It's called football for a reason Keep it on the ground, you know, that's.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we're trying to get that fixed here in America right now because you know, we find that, you know, if we just even took the exposure out of practice, we could save 80% of the exposure to these head impacts and give these kids a chance to become adults and not severely impacted. Because, you know, when you start extending the amount of time of exposure to these head hits right, you really start extending the amount of damage to the brain and I can feel that when you're screaming, there's something going on there that they better start paying attention, because obviously, again, you're educated, you're aware paying attention because obviously, again, you're educated, you're aware there is a program called Heads Up that we work with Heads Smart, I think that we work with in Europe. In England it's a anti-heading soccer program for kids and they're having a lot of success in getting parents to listen nowadays about the impacts of these repetitive head impacts on the ball. So we'd like to work with you on that because that is I mean you just brought up one of the largest problem that we have right now is education.
Speaker 1:We don't need more of these significant impacts like what happened to you, phil, when you were a young man and you know that's that is you know that doesn't happen every day in football, but it does. The hitting of the ball happens every day and we need to take the lessons that we've learned from you know that you've learned and pass those on to our children. Are you? From an educational perspective, it sounds like you're heavily involved in, you know, in illuminating the issue of contact sports and brain damage and or the potential for brain damage, and what we need to do to do a better job of you know, of recognizing the problem, diagnosing the problem and treating the issue. All three of those areas were not obviously done properly when you had your head hit, because of just the time and circumstances.
Speaker 2:Yeah, now I've spoken at length on this for local acquired brain injury islands. That Federation set up to educate people in this country and advocate for them. But I think that the biggest thing I could do is, if I'm rolled out across the world to show parents exactly what could happen. I can. I can arrive in my power chair and I can destroy their toes if they don't believe me. I just roll right over them.
Speaker 1:Good for you.
Speaker 2:No, no, I'd speak to anybody. I'd argue with anybody who wants to argue with me over this. It's like as a child I didn't sign any form consent form to say this is what I knew could happen. But these days people know the seriousness of it, they know the gravity, they know exactly what could happen. They don't want this. They don't want what happened to me to happen to their own child For the sake of an extra goal, an extra three points, whatever it is. If they see me, I can speak to them and tell them exactly what I've been through. They don't want to go through what my parents went through.
Speaker 1:Absolutely not, and I can feel the passion in your voice because you've taken a tragedy and turned it around to build hope for others. When you get into these arguments, or when you talk on the subject of brain injury, what are the primary points that you're trying to get across, especially when it pertains to children?
Speaker 2:Well, you said it yourself At underage there shouldn't be any head contact.
Speaker 2:You can describe it, you can coach, you can talk about it. But that seems to me that the main distraction of parents these days, they don't want to listen to this Because maybe it'll never happen to me syndrome, it'll never happen to my child syndrome, who knows? I like to get across the point that, yeah, play football, or soccer as it's called over there, play rugby, but you don't need the hard impacts just yet, right? Yep, late teens is good enough. Some coaches might say it's too late at that stage, but if I save one kid from going through what I went through, that's a good enough job done.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, sir, and that's some of the points that we're trying to make. Back here in America we work. I don't know if you know Willie Stewart. He's one of the premier brain experts out of Scotland there, Glasgow.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I spoke with Willie in Trinity College last month.
Speaker 1:Did you? Willie's an amazing cat. We're going to have money. He's fantastic.
Speaker 2:I brought my 10-year-old son with me and Willie stood up and gave his half-hour data analysis, everything. And then I got up and I said sorry, willie, but I was invited here to lighten the mood a little bit and Willie has been an extraordinary man and he's been a great help to me with my book. So he just laughed that off and I think everyone in the room was stunned that I'd come to speak on this subject and for me it was a privilege to speak in the hallowed, that I'd come to speak on this subject and for me it was a privilege to speak in the hallowed halls of Trinity College, one of the oldest universities in the world, and to be spoken about there. I think my granny always said I'd make it to Trinity College and I think maybe to some extent she was there on my shoulder, which was a bit scary, but I think she delighted to hear that I finally made it to Trinity College.
Speaker 1:I mean, do you know that? You probably already know this, but I don't think our viewers know. Every year they have this soccer game and they have all these old professional athletes what do you call them? The Hall of Famers? Right, they all show up and they play one half of this charity game hitting the. What do you call them? You know, like the, the hall of famers, right, they all show up and they play one half of this charity game hitting the ball, and then one half. There's no hitting at all. And at the end of the game, you know they. They asked these players. They played thousands of games. There were professional soccer players, professional footballers, and they said, hey, you know what was the difference? And they'd all said to the point. They said, hey, you know what was the difference. And they all said, to the point, they said, honestly, there was none right.
Speaker 1:So I do think we are moving rapidly to an era where there's not going to be any heading in soccer. You know it's just going to, naturally, once we understand what it does to our brain, the tragedy that is left in the sports room with, not only with the players, but the families that have to be caretakers, their children that lose their fathers and mothers at extremely young ages. You know this is and it's all preventable. It is all preventable by not having, you know contact. Now we do have, you know, tragedies like yours, phil, where you had an enormous, you know, collision between two players on the field, but if you weren't going to head the ball, you probably wouldn't have been going for the ball in the first place. So you know, I mean the fact that it's moving in that direction. It's efforts like yours right now, your story, that's driving you know the way that you know you are helping move that ball in that direction. You are helping move that ball in that direction and we are extremely thankful for what you have.
Speaker 1:Tell us a little bit about the book, I mean, as we get ready to close out the show, where can people find you? I mean, where is it? How do they buy it? We'll definitely promote it. We'll put it all over our social media and website, because you're one of the you know there are.
Speaker 1:You know we meet people on this show all the time that have turned their you know tragedy and I just want to say your, you know, your, your, your, your perspective, your perception, your I mean your perspective on this. You know, having endured such a tragedy at 15, and here you are talking about this and trying to help others. That is an amazing testimony to you as a person, mr Quinton, and I can only thank you as a parent, as a grandfather now old guy as a player, a sports player for speaking out on this topic and using the profound impact that this has had on your life to help others. And you're doing that not only coming on this show, but you've wrote a book. So tell our viewers a little bit more about this book so we know where to find it and where they can find you, sir.
Speaker 2:Well, I've always been a voracious reader of sports biographies and I've read some good, some bad, and I thought I'd like to pen one myself one day. So it was 2016 and I was on the beach and I broke my hip. I had a stupid fall. I fell down and broke my hip. Stupid fall, I fell down and broke my hip. So this gave me three months to write, I suppose, to chronicle 80,000 words of my own story. So I thought, right, I'll send this away to publishers. Reject, reject, reject. A lot like my teenage love life, really. You know. Reject, reject, reject.
Speaker 2:I didn't want it to be just about Jack Trevo. No, I didn't want it to be just about the injury. I didn't want it to be a sad story. I wanted it to be an inspirational story. So I got in touch with a friend who'd written an article about me and brain injuries back in 2014. I asked him would he know of anybody that might want to ghost my story? And he perked up straight away and says, yep, I would. So I suppose his little changes and tweaks really made it what it was. He's a fantastic guy. I think he's one of the first Irish journalists to interview an NFL player. You'd have to look after him. Contact him for that. Steve O'Rourke is his name. He's a very, very talented bloke.
Speaker 1:Good.
Speaker 2:Irish name. Yeah, it came down to writing it all. We wrote about 80% of it and I submitted it to another O'Brien Publishers one of the oldest independent publishing companies in Ireland, and got a phone call from Michael O'Brien, the head man, one week before I think we finished up for the summer holidays and he said, phil, I want to publish a book. And I just I just burst out crying this was, it was a dream come true, and it was. It was originally just written for for Eileen and Joe, my kids, just as sort of a keepsake to show them what I'd been through, what I, what I would go through for them, to show them what I'd been through, what I would go through for them. And it turned into this number one bestseller in Ireland in March 23. And I was blown away by the feedback.
Speaker 2:The launch had over 400 people in one room and we sold out within minutes which we probably should have had a few more books there. But people came from all over the world to that An ex-girlfriend of mine who I'd met in New Jersey back in 96, she was from the Czech Republic, she was stalking me on Facebook and she arrived at the launch much to the consternation of my wife who wanted to know who this girl was planting her lips on mine. But it all went very well. We had a couple of keynote speakers there. They were. They remembered it happening and they helped me with the book. Amazingly, willie Stewart was one of them who helped me a lot. I've just after sending Chris Nowinski a copy so he can add it to his library or sell it on Amazon, whatever he wants to do.
Speaker 2:But no, that was it was. It was great to have done it. But the real reasoning didn't come until afterwards, when all these hard men in the town came strolling up to me. Who'd only ever noticed me before him strolling up and saying son, I want to shake your hand. I never knew what happened. I never knew the pain you're going through. I didn't know what you're going through. I'd seen you walk and I'd cross the road because I didn't want to catch the disease off you or catch the disability off you. No, it's that's what like. Travelling over the world was immense for that. Because off you, no, it's that's what like. The traveling traveling over the world was was immense for that. Because Ireland is so backward with disabilities and I'm always.
Speaker 2:They thought I was drunk and the way I walk and lose my balance. So I walk around like a drunk. So if walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it must be a drunken duck. I've actually been thrown out of a pub for walking around like a drunk and I don't even drink that much.
Speaker 2:You know, people ask me was it a cathartic experience writing the book? It was harder living the life than writing the book because, as it turns out, I wanted the book to be like. It's a love letter to sport and when you get the book, everything is referenced by a different game, by a different experience the Olympic Olympic Games in Sydney, which I worked at. I finally made it to my Olympic Games in a different guise of Central Operations and I got to sneak in to see Sonia O'Sullivan win silver in the 5,000 metre final. If she'd have won, I would have been arrested for wobbling across the track to hug her. It's a great experience, you know. So no, I'm delighted I've done it. I'm so. I'm not even so last year now, I'm so two years ago. But it's great to have done it and it's podcasts like these and interviews in Trinity College that keep me going.
Speaker 2:So I still think that the World Book Tour is going to happen one day, and I don't really want to say too much, but I'm writing a screenplay at the moment, so hopefully the movie gets taken by spielberg or somebody soon.
Speaker 1:Well, we, we would love to see that that's. That's amazing. I mean, what a, what a journey that you've been on and here you are, you know, full of hope, you know, trying to help, and and and and and I noticed that you just you put it perfectly when you said, you know you talked about sports. It was a love letter to sports. None of us want to see sports go away. None of us want, you know, anything other than to make sports safer and they can be made safer, learning from.
Speaker 1:You know your tragedy. You know my tragedy. You know my son took his life after playing contact sports and was diagnosed up there. He's with Nowinski's all that whole brain bank up there. You know these are all tragedies that we have to turn around and to to impact the future of our children and there's plenty of adults out there that are suffering, that were footballers for a long, long time, who have no idea that their psychological, cognitive, behavioral disorders could be emanating from that trauma that they incurred from their teens into their 20s and, if they're a professional baller, into their 30s.
Speaker 1:So we have a lot to do, phil, and you're part of that journey and you're part of our family. So we have a conference every year. This one's going to be in Orlando. We'll make sure that you get an invite. Congratulations on the book and man prayers for your movie. That would be absolutely amazing if you pull that off. And but as we close out the show, any words for our parents. If you have a website or where they can buy the book if it's on Amazon or something like that please let them know. But you know what's next for Phil. What do you got planned right now You're obviously a happy man.
Speaker 2:The book is available in Barnes and Noble, over with you guys at the moment. So if you just click onto their website and a bang on the ear, what's next for me? Well, I've been trialing an exo-pulse suit, an exo-skeleton suit minimal improvements. I just want to get the body back to some form of fitness where I can walk a bit further. My stamina is poor. The winter doesn't do me too well at all. I love being in a sauna, that sort of heat. So Orlando would be kind of cool. I suppose my kids are what keep me going, and my wife these days. So if they're progressing in their football, their soccer, their Gaelic football, hurling, that's what really strikes me. It'd be great to see them progress to a level that I know they're capable of. So hopefully one day I'll be watching down from a stand in some big arena or a stadium and cheering them on from that Beautiful Well, mr Phil, I cannot express our gratitude to you coming on the show.
Speaker 1:Take care of those kids' brains. Nobody knows this better than you and you know. Thank you so much for coming on the show, sharing your experience, sharing your words of wisdom and helping us push for advocacy and better education on the issue of repetitive head trauma and TBIs and what we have to do to successfully recuperate from them. I cannot thank you enough for being on the show, sir.
Speaker 2:Bruce, it's been a pleasure. Thanks for having me. All. Right, sir, go back to bed.
Speaker 1:Yeah, thank you so much To all. Sir, go back to go back to bed. Oh, yeah, thank you so much. So all our fans out there, viewers, thank you so much for uh participating in a podcast, listening to the podcast today. You can find us on Spotify, Apple, buzzsprout. Uh, please don't forget, not only when you go look at um Phil Quinlan's book A Bang on the Ear. Download our free book on the website so that you're up to date on the latest research and science. We'll be coming out with a newsletter this year. Please stay in touch. We have a wonderful 2025 coming up in terms of brain health. It will be better for our children, for our athletes, for our military. Thank you all for listening to Broken Brains. I'm Bruce Barkman signing off. Take care. Thanks again, phil, you, thank you.