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
CTE & Black Athletes: The Hidden Dangers of Football & Brain Trauma | Broken Brains Podcast
In this thought-provoking episode of Broken Brains with Bruce Parkman, we take a deep dive into the long-term effects of brain trauma in contact sports, with a particular focus on CTE (Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy) and its disproportionate impact on Black athletes.
Joining host Bruce Parkman is Alexis “Lexi” Alston, a dedicated pre-med student and advocate, who is passionate about raising awareness around CTE, brain trauma, and the socioeconomic factors influencing youth sports participation.
🔹 Why Are Black Athletes at Greater Risk? – Exploring the systemic issues and cultural factors that increase CTE risks for young athletes in underserved communities.
🔹 The Role of Football & the Need for Reform – How youth sports culture shapes communities and what can be done to make football safer for future generations.
🔹 Mothers on the Frontlines of Change – Why education, advocacy, and informed parental decisions are crucial in protecting young athletes from long-term brain trauma.
🔹 Breaking Barriers in Organ Donation – Tackling the cultural stigmas in the Black community and the importance of understanding how CTE impacts brain health and mental well-being.
This episode is a must-listen for athletes, parents, medical professionals, and sports advocates seeking to understand the risks, push for reforms, and protect the next generation from the devastating effects of repetitive brain trauma.
👉 Tune in now and join the movement for safer sports! Subscribe, like, and share on Spotify, YouTube, and Apple Podcasts to help spread awareness and drive change.
Broken Brains with Bruce Parkman is sponsored by The Mac Parkman Foundation
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Chapters
00:00 Introduction to Repetitive Brain Trauma
01:28 Meet Lexi: A Passion for CTE Awareness
04:06 The Disproportionate Impact on Black Athletes
08:49 Socioeconomic Factors in Sports Participation
12:35 The Role of Football in Communities
17:02 Addressing Safety in Youth Football
22:19 Towards a Safer Future for Football
23:08 Cultural Perspectives on Organ Donation
24:31 Awareness and Education in Sports
25:54 The Impact of Contact Sports on Mental Health
27:43 The Role of Mothers in Sports Decisions
29:52 Community Initiatives and Education
31:11 Passion and Advocacy in Research
33:03 Making Football Safer for Future Generations
39:09 Current Research and Future Aspirations
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LinkedIn: Alexis Alston
https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexisalston4/
Instagram: almostdoctoralston
https://www.instagram.com/almostdoctoralston/
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Produced by Security Halt Media
Hey folks, welcome to another edition of Broken Brains with your host, bruce Parkman, sponsored by the Mack Parkman Foundation, where we look at the issues of repetitive brain trauma whether it's repetitive head impacts from contact sports or repetitive blast exposure for our military veterans and we look what these impacts are doing to the brains of our veterans, kids and athletes and the outgoing torrent of mental illness that's affecting our society up to the point of suicidality. And the reason is that these issues are not understood, they're not trained and they're poorly understood by stakeholders in our children's and athletes' lives wives, mothers, kids, as well as our military veterans and spouses. So every time we're out there, we're looking for advocates and researchers and scientists and authors, journalists, patients and fathers and mothers of children that are no longer here to talk to you about these issues and how they're impacting, how they've impacted them and how they could be impacting you. And you might not even know it, because you must be informed. That's the whole purpose of this whole podcast is to get you informed on these issues so you can make better choices for you yourself, your kids and your loved ones.
Speaker 1:Today we have a remarkable young lady, ms Alexis, or Alexi Alston, and she's attending JMU University up there in the state of Virginia. She's currently a senior pre-medical student aspiring to continue her medical education in Boston. As she works towards her goal of becoming a family medicine physician, since the age of 16, she's been actively involved in CTE research and awareness, with a particular focus on the intersectionality of black athletes and their height and risk of CTE. Alexi is passionate about spreading awareness and bringing this knowledge back to her home community. In her free time she loves to attend rock concerts, going for runs and spending quality time with her cat, keith. That's a pretty unique name for a cat, so Alexi is Alexi, okay, or Alexi?
Speaker 2:what do you want? No, alexi is great, alexi's great All right.
Speaker 1:So, Alexi, welcome to the show and give us some background, because I think I remember you from our conference last year.
Speaker 2:Hi Bruce, thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited and passionate just to be able to talk to you and really just spread awareness. As my bio said, and thank you so much for that introduction I've been passionate about CTE since a high school project, my junior year of high school, where I discovered it for a psychology class and I was talking to some of the football players from my high school and I'm thinking a lot of them kind of line up with these symptoms. This just isn't right. And then, moving forward, when I went to, as my time passed at JMU, being able to really understand what CTE is and what it looks like, and then I was doing the data for actually the research that I was able to present last year in Tampa at the conference, and I was thinking this isn't really something that's being talked about and I was kind of looking for where the black athletes are.
Speaker 2:I was really looking for you know where that gap is, and I'm thinking, okay, I'm scrolling through the Google page, okay, where's the rest of it? And there was no rest of it. And so just kind of spreading awareness to a gap and a specific group of people that seem to be impacted a little bit more but not really talked about as much. That just kind of is part of my why when it comes to medicine and so moving forward, you know, becoming a family medicine physician where I can really just make an impact, starting at a very young age, and those players and my patients that may have a concussion, I think that's just what I'm here on earth to do and I just thank you guys so much for giving me this platform to continue just talking about and just spread awareness to those who really need it the most.
Speaker 1:Absolutely no, and I think it's fascinating that you became involved with such a complex subject at such an early age and decided to follow this, because I'm 63, and I'm just starting to figure out what my purpose is. Actually. I'm 62. My wife tells me I exaggerate, but I'm starting just figuring out what my purpose is. So I mean, your passion is obviously about athletes of the African-American race, and why do you feel that they're more disproportionately affected than other, than than other nationalities?
Speaker 2:I mean starting off. I mean it all can go back to systemic racism. I mean something that's always been kind of an underlying topic when it comes to just America as a whole. But really looking into it, I feel like there's a variety of factors that goes into play. I recently just finished my senior capstone that really talks about these topics specifically with high school and collegiate football players and you know a socioeconomic background whether they're the first one you know in their family to go to college and they come from a lower background, lower, you know, economic class, which means they have to play football because it has to help them get to the next level. Or even, you know, on the NFL league, on the NFL level, you know they have to keep playing, not just because this is their passion but because it helps out their family at home and it's their only way to making it out.
Speaker 2:I mean talk to these players and knowing them personally, football gave them a male figure, a male role model in their life that they may have been lacking. I mean football also gave them a place. Instead of therapy, they would go to the field and take their you know frustrations out there, or just a sense of camaraderie, a sense of belonging. I mean there's a lot that goes into play. I mean it all goes back down to racism. But I mean the bottom line is they're playing more football because they have to and not because you know they want to, but they're playing more football as a way to survive and of course we all know that more football exposure, more playing time, unfortunately you know those hits, those concussions over that extended period of time which does increase their CTE risk later on in their career.
Speaker 1:No, that's a very good point Now. So your point is not that, as Africans versus other, you know football affects them all the same, that's not the point.
Speaker 1:But your point is, because of the socioeconomic disadvantages that a lot of African-Americans come from, that they see football as a way out. And that's a very, very poignant point when we talk about this, because we wrestle with this a lot, you know at the foundation because you know it shouldn't be so. Know at the foundation because you know it shouldn't be so, and that is, I think, more or less. It's kind of. To me it's more or less a myth that's propagated, that and I think it denigrates our African American population. Like, oh, you can't be a doctor, you can't be a nurse, you can't be this, you have to go play football. And I don't agree with that at all. I think a lot of these young men are coerced or pushed into this, maybe by their parents, maybe by society and maybe by. You know the bling, the bling. Hey, man, you know if you're walking around. You know Dion Jones, dion Sanders son's driving around. You know a six hundred thousand dollar Bentley truck, right, I mean, there's some. You know who doesn't want this lifestyle.
Speaker 2:Right, but to your point.
Speaker 1:I think that there is pressure put on these young men to go the football route and to stay there when they're no longer interested or passionate about the sport.
Speaker 2:Exactly, and I agree with that wholeheartedly. I mean it's very rare that you know we see black male athletes in. You know the safer sports, the swimming, the tennis. You know the sports where there's less, the baseball even. I mean, even though we have black baseball greats, it's very rare that you see a lot of black players be rising to stardom when it comes to the MLB versus the NFL or NBA. And a lot of times that comes from again where these black players come from, where their homes are.
Speaker 2:Because I know, for me, at least in my school district, I mean, the only two sports that you could count on for certain were basketball and football. Other than that, you know there was a very low chance for them to get out and play. And even you know, with basketball and football, or even football specifically, you know you'd have to go and pay for these expensive camps and it adds up a lot. And a lot of the times you know the parents don't have this money for that or they can't afford to take off work to go and, like, introduce their kids to other avenues and other athletic avenues.
Speaker 2:I mean one example of this, who is very much the exception that really stands out to me, is the former NFL player, dr Myron Roll. I mean, he played at FSU and he had a very, you know, brief stint in the NFL, but he was also a Rhodes Scholar when he was in college and so it's possible out there for and now he's a neurosurgeon and it's possible for, you know, players to thrive academically and athletically, especially in the sport of football. But it's very much my role once in a lifetime, you know dime a dozen kind of thing, and I think you know part of the Matt Parkman Foundation part, you know, while we're even having this conversation, so that you know that can stop being such, you know, an abnormality. It can totally become the norm and it's going to take time, but I think it's, I know it's possible. It's just getting the education out there really.
Speaker 1:You know, I often think that you know, like here in Manatee County we converted the local police activity league from tackle to flag and you know we discussed, you know, and of course a lot of parents are kind of fired up. But you know we found out that flag football is not available here in our inner city, that is, out in the suburbs, where you know indigenous, you know economically challenged populations, and these are largely Latino and there's a lot of challenged white populations here in our town, here in Florida, but they can't get out there, they don't have bus service, they don't have, you know, vehicles, they can't, you know, just go out there and look. Yet tackle football. They're teaching boxing to these children. Eight-year-olds are boxing and that's another big problem, especially, you know, in our socioeconomic. That's another sport that's promoted to, you know, heavily minority communities, right, I mean, that's a way out of the hood.
Speaker 1:Yet we're punching these kids in the head and I think you're on to a huge problem here and because I feel, I feel it's grooming, I feel it's targeting, I feel that we are being made to accept the fact that you know that our ethnic minorities have this only way out. And I hear it over and over again and I constantly tell people I said you are denigrating your child If you do not think that that kid can be a doctor. And we have so many programs to get loans to get up there. You don't have to be wealthy to go to school anymore, okay, you just, you know, have to desire like you did, right. I mean, you chose the path of a physician, right, and what's your background? If I may ask, my background.
Speaker 2:I'm a first-generation college student. Neither of my parents went to college. My parents went straight from high school to the workforce. I am a triplet, so I have two other twin sisters that are also in college and my parents worked very hard I mean 20 something years working, you know, in the manufacturing industry to be able to provide for us. But I am at J&B on scholarship. I know I would not be able to my twins, we would not be able to go to school, especially three kids at the same time without scholarship. And I do have an older sister and she was able to graduate college, but again, she had loans and scholarships.
Speaker 2:And my high school back home, I mean it was predominantly Black. When I say it was 99.8% Black, it was all Black students. That's very Black, I mean, and very, very black. And then the football team predominantly black. We had our one white quarterback but all black football teams in all four schools and my school district back home. Very similar demographics. I mean we were not and I love that is my hometown. Shout out Hampton Roads. Shout out Hampton Virginia.
Speaker 2:Hampton Roads that is my hometown. Shout out Hampton Rose, shout out Hampton Virginia. But but I mean, I saw it firsthand and that is why I am so passionate about it, because I mean they're telling these things, you're either going to be on the football team, and you'd be great, or you're going to be on the street or in jail, or just the worst thing imaginable. There is no in between, where it's, yes, you can play football for now, and that can be the stepping stone for you to, you know, get some, you know, be grounded and really learn some discipline. And let's still further you academically, it's either you play football and then you just keep your 2.0 or 1.0, whatever the minimum bare minimum GPA requirement is, and then that's it, and we just hope and pray that.
Speaker 2:And then we all know the statistics. I mean not a lot of high school kids even make it to that next level. So then it's like what are they doing this for? Doing this? For they don't have any backup plan, except for I'm going to make it to the league, and no one is saying, ok, but let's really. You know there's other options to greatness than that.
Speaker 1:So, ma'am, you need to meet. I've got a senator here in Florida that's actively blocking our legislation, corey Simon, and he has come out saying that this is how I got out and this is how you know African-Americans have to get out, and he is blocking any legislation to inform parents on the risk of damage to their child's brains and, of course, and he's involved with Pop Warner. And so I'm like come on, you know, senator Simon, I'm talking to a lawyer lobbyist. Like you know, this is not the way out for our children. They have brains, they can use them and they're every good as good a brain as God made in other nationalities. So we need to provide these children a chance and to give them the hope where this is not the only way out. It's a fun way.
Speaker 1:Everybody likes to play sports. I'm all about it, but we've got children right now playing at sixth. Pop Warner is actively promoted and PAL are only in the big cities. You don't have PAL in a lot of towns. And guess who plays in these leagues? All right, our economically challenged citizens. And they keep playing because, you know, not only are they playing, the dads might have played, or the dads live in vicariously through them, or you know, the dads just don't know and they really don't care. It's kind of cool, right? So yeah.
Speaker 1:But I think you're, you're absolutely on an awesome mission to educate, as a, as a, as a, as an African-American female, you know that has the power and the credibility of being from that race to go ahead and educate these folks on this issue. And you're a shining example of what you can do when you want, when you understand that there is no limit, okay, that you can do what you, what you want to do, and and if it's coming down to hurting your children, let's wait. Let's promote flag football and all this Exactly.
Speaker 1:Did you have a lot of like when my son was in high school. We had female wrestlers. They were letting the girls play football. They weren't letting them play football, but there are other leagues where they allow the women to play football. I mean that weight disparity. It does not sit well with me. I mean, what's your position on just women in these men's sports, other than like you know what I'm saying like physical sports where you're're getting a hundred pound female lining up against 175, 200 pound man.
Speaker 1:It's just. I don't think it's safe to tell you the truth.
Speaker 2:It's truthfully not. I mean we can take everything, we can take the political correctness, we can take the societal things out of it. I mean just by my biologically I mean I am a hundred pounds, I would not, you would never catch me. I guess, proving a point or pursuing my passion in that way, by playing up against men, if anything, I would just see it's safer. I mean, even like wrestling, I will say, for example, with wrestling they have the weight classes. You know they have the. I wouldn't go up against a girl two times. I saw they put me with someone else, my size for comparison.
Speaker 1:So I do understand why you know, and I'm you know, the women that are out there playing the football, the female kickers. That is so cool. That is so, you know, bad. I'll give you that, I'll give you that, I'll give you a kick, Me personally.
Speaker 2:I would not let my. I just know me personally. I would not let my daughter do that. I would not let my daughter go out and risk her brain. I wouldn't let my son do it. I wouldn't let my son do it. So I just I don't see if they're not playing up against, it's not a fair playing field, essentially. I mean I don't think it's fair when they have the, I mean technically, I mean even for high school, you know you'll have kids that are a little bit underdeveloped. They'll have the 113-pound, skinny-pound, you know kid and varsity, because he has to be going up against players that are again now D1 prospects that are like five-star athletes, 300 pounds, and they're going to what? Because of a gender thing. I mean truthfully, in the future, in a dream world where we don't get rid of all football, we can still have it. I mean high school football should be instead of JV University, weight class should be, you know, kind of a limit there to say, if you can even play if it's even safe.
Speaker 2:At that point you know the coach is straight up, say no, you can't make the team until you, you know, bulk up, or but now the way you know things are looking, that may not be a conversation a player can have with the coach or vice versa, but I just don't think that it's safe at that point. I mean just it's not. I mean we see the speed that they're being hit at now and the kids are getting bigger and bigger. I don't know what's in the school lunch now or what's in the mail, but these kids don't look like kids anymore.
Speaker 2:It's like car crashes every single day. It's just insane.
Speaker 1:My boy was lined up against guys with mustaches, I was like dude and they just ran over the whole team. I'm like I said, son, what was up with number 75? He. I'm like I said, son, what was up with number 75? He goes. Dad, that guy had a mustache like a full one. He's like a sophomore or something right.
Speaker 1:But so I mean, where do we, where do you think we can start? I mean, you have identified and you vocalized a problem. This is very, very hard for most people to understand that this is absolutely ingrained in our socioeconomically challenged communities, that this you got to play football. Whether you're black, if you're in a Latino town, or a white guy, you got to play football. You got to get out of here and and there's no really. And then you know, because they're tough towns, they practice tough, they play all the time. And here we have the NFL, who has no practices during, you know, their football season. We have the Ivy League colleges no practices during the contact season. Yet a lot of colleges and all of our high schools and Pop Warner practice every time they get together on the field and their football season is five days a week. Why do we do this? We have the nfl setting the example. How do we get that down in the name of, you know, just saving brain health? What are your thoughts there?
Speaker 2:I guess my first step, the first step with everything, would just be addressing a problem and everyone being on the same page when it comes to this problem, and so if we're not all on the same page with that, really nothing will get done.
Speaker 2:So the first thing, when it comes to this problem, and so if we're not all on the same page with that, really nothing will get done so the first thing is just going to be adjusting the problem and then, immediately after saying my goal, right now, I can't change the world and I'm not getting rid of football. That is with every presentation I do, I always say I am not trying to get rid of football because when you go into those communities, the black community, you know the socioeconomic challenge communities. If your first thought is I am smarter than you, I have these degrees, you don't. I think football is bad, I'm going to get rid of it the very next thing they're going to do is walk away and say this lady is not in touch. I don't care that she's my skin color. Skin folk isn't kin folks. She does not know what she's talking about and ignore they're going to.
Speaker 2:So the first thing is just saying I'm just here to educate and I'm not trying to get rid of football Because, truthfully, I've seen the good that football has had on my community. I've seen personal people I know personally they would not be where they are without football. And the second thing would just be education. And I say educate the Black community specifically on these dangers at that young age. But then it immediately goes my future physician, brain and scientist brain kicks in and say okay, well, I'm looking and I'm seeing thousands of CTE studies, but I'm not seeing that same number reflected in those marginalized groups. So then it's saying educate not those who look like me, but educating those who don't look like me, the ones that are, you know, the high reps that are making these decisions now, that are having the million billion dollar studies right now, that are actively practicing medicine now, that are actively seeing patients who have concussions now, educating them because they can do that right now, here now, and then going back, kind of working in reverse I guess, then going back and saying, okay, black community, okay, you know marginalized group, okay, you know poor communities.
Speaker 2:Here's the dangers right now. Here's what we see. Here's the data. Statistically, football is a dangerous sport. There's no safety helmet or safety collar. There's no way, truthfully, to make tackle football an entirely safe sport, because I think we've all seen that. You know, with the safety helmets and safety collars, safer football equals harder hits and that's just always been the correlation.
Speaker 2:You know, we get something safer, then immediately the players get bigger, the hits get harder, to kind of prove a point. I mean, it's nothing but testosterone flowing 24-7 in these groups. It's just going to happen. We just have to be realistic with ourselves here, going back and saying, ok, we can't make football the safest in this way and we can't make tackle football a safe thing. So then let's look at, ok, from these age groups, how about, instead of tackle football, you know, at such a young age, let's lean towards flat football. And then, you know, migrate to tackle football, Just kind of giving baby steps, just kind of not breadcrumbing, but just kind of one step at a time and kind of handholding the entire way and saying, okay, we won't give it a tackle football, but let's kind of gear you towards that when you're in tackle football.
Speaker 2:Kind of fostering, and that's my goal as a future physician. I want to be able. And why I'm going into family medicine? Because I want to be the doctor that fosters an environment where a player says, doc, I know this is going to be on my record. A player says, doc, I know this is going to be on my record, I know I may have to sit. You know, the next few games out I have a concussion and then I then say, okay, let's look at it further. How many truthfully are you not telling me about and really having that you know relationship and say you're not going to be in trouble and I'm not going to stop you from playing the game, but thank you for telling me and we'll move on from there. And that's the biggest thing we can do is just letting them know that at least me personally, me just letting them know I'm not in my lifetime. Football is not going away. I'm not.
Speaker 1:It'll never go away. It's a religion. You can't change the world.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and so you know, because there's some scientists out there saying, okay, we're just going to get rid of football and CTE is going to be cured and it's going to be rainbows and sunshine. That is not at all the case. That will not happen anytime soon. So just saying, okay, we can't change football, but how can each step of the way we can make it safer for everyone involved?
Speaker 1:For everyone, and I think you know one of the issues that we have. So let me ask you a question and I'll have to check the ratio of white to black in the CTE grain bank. I'm not sure. So you're saying and I've read a lot of studies and you're right, it really I don't know. I guess they do have demographics broken out in those studies. So you're saying that a lot of the studies were done with higher socioeconomic football teams that don't have a higher percentage of African-American athletes.
Speaker 2:I can't even say's, not even that, because I mean it's about 50-50 when it comes, a little over 50-50 with the NFL and about 50-50 with NCAA. It's not that I mean also corporately, which is something that I'm also, you know, one step at a time, but culturally in the black community it is not normal to be an organ donor. There's a very big distrust with the Black community and medicine as a whole, and so it's not normal for Black people to sign up.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm going to be a brain donor. Yeah, I'm going to be an organ donor, because a lot of it comes from the fear and the things that have happened in the past where it's like, oh, they treated Black patients poorly.
Speaker 1:I don't even think they know that kind of thing.
Speaker 2:I don't think they even know it's an option. It's, they don't. I mean it's not. I mean other than when you know that you check the box on your driver's license. But for me I didn't know I could sign up to be a brain donor. So now I am, because they need the control brain, so my brain's going to ct research. I won't be using it when I'm gone, but even now, with my most recent study, my capstonestone, I was able to interview 263 athletes from across. You know it was four high schools and then 30 college institutions, d1 to D3, coast to coast. And you know, at the very end it was all anonymous. So at the very end I gave the link to you know, said hey, even if you don't want to just check this out, here's how to become a brain donor.
Speaker 2:When it comes to this kind of research, because the players are passionate about it a good amount of them, at least a good amount of ours like. They want to know more, they want to be. They don't want to, you know, be a statistic or end up, you know, like aaron hernandez or antonio. But they don't want that. That's not. That's their biggest fear. But also they don't, they don't want to stop playing. So it's just that little thing, just knowing that, okay, I can donate, because that is something you know when you look at the statistic. That's something I did keep in mind. I said, okay, well, the data might not be out there because they're not donating their brains, because they don't know about it, because they don't want to. So it's not that, that's a thing.
Speaker 1:No, the data exists that football does harm. Right, it harms everybody. There's no racial lines on whose brain gets hurt. More than that, you know, I'm absolutely agree with you and and I do think that the studies that have been done on repetitive head impacts, I mean they do break it out by demographics, but they're all designed to prove that we have a problem here. You know, as human as humanity, right as a as a society, we got a big problem.
Speaker 1:Now we look at a segment of society that is particularly challenged here and it bothers me when I watch you know the few times I'll watch a college game and people have no idea that these young men, most of them, a lot of them African-American, depending on the university have played football since they were six years old. We are in touch. I mean, I don't know if you know, uh, ray Lewis, famous African-American linebacker, bad dude right. Well, his son, uh, he lost his son, you know a lot not too long ago, and his wife we were talking and she goes Bruce and she's coming on the podcast, but she says I have, we're a football family, we started at six and now I have two more sons that I have to be concerned about because we did not know what we do. And I think that you know, when we look at incarceration rates, right, we look at mental illness rates across America and we start, you know, going into these, you know, and evaluating people, for have they been exposed to this? Not just contact sports, but domestic abuse, right? Family, inter-family violence? Did they also box as well as play football? We might have an entire and I will tell you this. We have a huge segment of our incarcerated population that's incarcerated because they are aggressive, hostile, you know, impulsive because of contact sports. And I will say that right now that I don't care, you know what their race is, but if they started out with violence in the family, regardless of their race, and they played contact sports since they were young and there is a good chance that, like my son who committed suicide, that they didn't get to that point but the activities that got them in jail could have been a result of their brain, and their brain has not been touched, they've not been assessed and they're merely in jail because they played too much contact sports.
Speaker 1:And I think you're one of the. You know, gosh, you could make such a difference, spreading this message around so that you know moms, right, nobody messes with mama bear. I don't care how big your husband is, right, nobody messes with mama bear. But we had a lady on the podcast is talking to mothers. They're like give me information, cause my husband is telling our sons they are playing football and we need to educate these moms because they are the ones that are defending and the dads, right, the ones that will listen. But you know how crazy. You know you know people can get about these sports, man, I mean exactly.
Speaker 2:I mean it's, it's like you said, it's a culture. I mean I can't imagine going down to Texas and trying to have the same conversation that we're having now and saying, hey guys, stop playing football. And I know you said the age of six, but I mean a lot of times it starts younger. As long as they can walk, the kid can hold football and the kid can win.
Speaker 1:If that helmet fits. They're out there playing man.
Speaker 2:I mean it's such a crazy thing and I'm glad you mentioned the ray lewis and his situation, unfortunately with the sun.
Speaker 2:I mean, I talked about the ray lewis, the rl3 foundation, I talked about the foundation at my most recent conference tatiana's amazing the stuff that they're doing and the way it really stood out to me because they're doing it, for it seems like it's really is catered towards educating the black community. I mean their, their most recent, their upcoming activities weeks that they have, and I think the last week in May and June they have, you know, hbcu bands, so historically Black bands, and Divine Nine historically Black, you know sororities and fraternities coming in and educating and doing things for the community, and where it is in Florida, it's like okay, this is good, this is great stuff. But again, I found their foundation. I think I was scrolling through the Mac Parkin Foundation likes. One day their foundation came up and I said, oh wait, who are they? I've never heard about them. So again, it was just their information isn't out there, which really, really stinks. I mean, even right now there's a conference going on about black men, health and football and it's hosted, you know, by a former NFL player in New Orleans and I didn't even know about it until yesterday when I saw, I think Boston BU CTE center reposted it.
Speaker 2:It's like the education's out there, people that want to talk about this kind of thing is out there.
Speaker 2:It's just getting the, you know, the awareness out to everyone who needs it and the people that need the most, and then just have them turning on their listening ears. Because, you know, a lot of times we're talking about it and because we're passionate about it, we know about it and it's the people that need it the most that may just turn a blind eye and you know they, because, again, it's a very depressing and sobering topic, truthfully. So, of course, those players don't want to hear about how their brain could become a statistic, because what does that then mean for them? I mean, I feel like at that point, it could lead to even identity crisis. Okay, well, this is my future. What does that mean? Next, I'm now freaking out about it and how you brought up the incarcerated population. Again, I didn't even think to think of those. I mean, I didn't think to think about that kind of population, and now you brought it up like well, the data's not out there.
Speaker 1:We need to start researching, because we need to get in, we need to get in and it's just, I mean, all it takes.
Speaker 2:I think it's like this for everything in science it just takes one person to be very, very passionate about something to really make a difference and get their voice heard. Because I mean, all the researchers out there that came out of Boston, especially when it comes to those groundbreaking CTE studies, they were just very, very passionate about CTE, and that's great. And then you go to me and it's I'm very, very passionate about this specific niche Avenue because it impacts me personally and you know you can tell me right now, do a paper report on lung cancer. Lung cancer sucks and I'm going to do it and I want to, you know, help change it. But that's not my passion. I won't really have that drive and so it's just going to take more people like you and I just having that one thing and hopefully not a personal story, that really with a sad ending, but just hearing.
Speaker 2:You know our passion through the screen and through the events that you host and the fundraising. Then they say, okay, why, I see how, why I see how she's so passionate. Let me figure out why this is. Why is she just yapping for no reason? Why is she posting CCE fun facts and how to look for a question every single day on Instagram. Why is she always wearing green? Why should I have that green pin on? You know little things like that, to just get people's interest piqued.
Speaker 1:So that's all you can do, and feel free to offer up the book. We got the app now. It's on the Google Store.
Speaker 2:I mean we're together.
Speaker 1:I mean because we need more voices in the African-American community, because it's muted there. And it's muted because of just the pressure to to succeed. And the storylines aren't good. I don't like it and every time I hear it I come a little unglued. I'm like do not talk about our children like that. I don't care what color they are. They deserve the same chance. And maybe you know they weren't born with a silver spoon. But that does not mean that they're you know uh, they're, they're, they're got this burden that the only way out is through these contact sports and they're going to damage the brain. And now that you know that the brain's going to damage, you're going to insist that this is their path.
Speaker 1:No, we're trying to get to snoop dog right now. Snoop dog has a massive, a massive tackle league in California and here is a famous guy who thinks he's doing good for his community and he's hurting them. And so we met with Martha Stewart. I guess she's buddies with him now. So I gave her the bracelet. I was trying to get this. They haven't called me back. So if anybody knows Martha Stewart, get a hold of me. We need to talk, lexi, and I need to get with Snoop Dogg and help him understand that there's a safer path forward. Because your point, lexi, it's not about banning these sports. We only want to make them safer. And they can be made safer If we took contact.
Speaker 1:If we took contact out of practice and made football about fun and sportsmanship. Yeah, whoever wins wins. All right, who cares? We got out there, we got sweaty on game day and the rest of the day we drilled. Guess what? You're not going to stop the talent that gets into the NFL. If you're that guy, you're Deion Sanders, you're Ray Lewis, you are Lamar Jackson, you're going to the NFL and there's not anybody that's going to stop you. And guess what? If you didn't start at six? The fact that you're going to be in better physical condition with less injuries, less scars and less bad habits.
Speaker 1:If you started in high school, we say 18, but we're not going to get football out of it. But if we got football to say no more practice, just like the NFL in high school flagged to 14, 14, four years of no contact practice, guess what? These guys are going to get drafted. They can learn how to play in the, in the, in the ncaa, and then they're going to be stars in the field. They're gonna make all this bling and we're not going to have the tragedies that we have. I mean, the percentage of african percentage of football players doesn matter unless they're quarterbacks or kickers. Right that are suffering from mental illness right now is through. If you heard Mike McGlynn at our thing, 90% of his friends are a mess and it just doesn't have to be this way, and I'm so glad that you're speaking out on this, because we need more voices now we do.
Speaker 2:Thank you. I mean because even when you say like the in the um, ncaa now, you think, especially now that nil deals brought into everything, where I mean these 17 year olds, I mean alabama's quarterback, what seven? I think he just turned 18, like his freshman, his first semester. He's walking around with the same chain that jalen hurts is kind of wearing, making these millions. As a kid, I mean he's a baby. And then I'm thinking like I'm seeing you know the tiktok edits and how great he is. I'm thinking he's a baby, like he is 17 years, like he can't even vote easy child and I can't imagine the pressure that he has on or drinking.
Speaker 2:I can't imagine when the pressure you may have on him to be that young and to be kind of the face of the dynasty now that you know their coach has gone to so much pressure. And then also, I mean I talked about this in my last presentation. You know one of the pressures they have is the fact that if you are a star player like, say, jalen Hurts, somehow gets a concussion between now and Sunday, they're not going to practice. They're not going to practice but say you know, first quarter Jalen Hurts not even because again, they can't diagnose a concussion on the field. But say he gets a nasty hit and he's not laid out like Tua, he's able to get off and walk it off. They're not going to take Jalen Hurts out of the game on Super Bowl Sunday. How?
Speaker 1:many times has Patrick Mahomes been jammed on the field in a playoff game and was allowed to keep playing right? Exactly, I mean even tula.
Speaker 2:I mean, I'm a dolphins fan myself and so seeing tula say in that press conference, I'm gonna, I would die in the field, and it's like we know this. We have almost seen it a few times. We've seen you take those hits where surgeons are going on cnn the next day saying that is not normal we. And then they have this conversation after a big hit, after a big play, and then it's okay, we have the doctors come on the news and then that's it, that's. And then they just wait until it happens again. And that should not be the case.
Speaker 2:I mean, I mean, because what does this mean for our kids, you know, or the kids that are watching us at home? Yeah, we saw him get that bad hit. He got back up and he was allowed to come back the next game, or he's allowed to get back up and play the rest of the game. I mean, what kind of message is that really sending? And so I mean, yes, it does start with the NFL, but we've also known, historically, the NFL has not been great when it comes to listening to the real data.
Speaker 1:The NFL is a business and it's horrible what they do to these football players. They groom them, they take care of them and they get them in the sport and then, when they're done're just discarded. Man, I mean, it's, it's they. They need to do a much better job, recognizing the damage that that sport causes these young men a thousand percent.
Speaker 2:But I mean, once you recognize that sport again, what is that going to mean? So we can say right now, say there's a magic test, magic brain scan that comes out today telling the nfl players hey, if you take this brain scan, we would tell you right now how bad you're C, if you have CT, how bad it is and what this means for the rest of your life. Do you think those players are going to do it? Do you? Or do you think they're going to say you know what's in the dark?
Speaker 1:I've got friends that have reached out to NFL players to go through brain treatment and they don't even want to get scanned. They.
Speaker 1:They don't want to know because they're committed, they have to, they're on this plan, they've got to give, they've given it all. But you know what, lexi? What you and I are talking about is that football can be made safe. And it's not going to be helmets, it's not going to be gizmos, it's not going to be nothing more than reducing the total amount of exposure that these young kids have from their early age until they die, and that's it.
Speaker 1:That's the only thing that we can do to make the sport safer. And that means it's not about winning. It's going to be about practicing and having fun as a team. My son played sports to be with other boys and have fun. He didn't click the one, he lost most of his wrestling match, but he gave it his all man, I mean, he was in there until, but, you know, the coach put him against these big kids, whatever, right. But my boy was in there with heart, but his biggest, his fun was being on the school bus, going to a match or hanging out with these guys and wearing the shirts to school, right, you know, with the, with the ties and all that stuff, and being one of the boys, right.
Speaker 1:That's why these kids play. They don't play to get hurt and and we've got to stop this and where the messaging is poor, like if in our African-American communities, in our Latino communities, in our poor white communities, same message goes on, but it's more prolific in African-American communities, I do believe, because I keep hearing it over and over again. It's our only way out and I'm like I'm done with this. It is not. You are not going to denigrate these young souls. You're not going to, you know, enslave them to a life, to a sport that's going to harm them, only because you feel that they cannot become a doctor, lawyer, architect or whatever.
Speaker 2:So that's what.
Speaker 1:I would like to see, and I think you're going to be the voice that carries that message. I absolutely believe this. So tell us a little bit about where you're at right now with your research studies. What are you planning to present? I think you should probably get a spot at the Mack Parkman Conference this year, you know, but this is amazing. So what's going on with Lexi Alston right now?
Speaker 2:So thank you so much. So recently, like I said, I finished my capstone. So my capstone, which is one of the hardest things I think I've ever done, because I decided to start my research where I was able to talk to, you know, almost 300 football players from coast to coast I started in August, I finished August, I started in August of 24. And then I was able to finish December of last year. Why I decided to start in August I thought that was me getting ahead of the curve. Then I remember the football season and the timeline, and so you can imagine it was a lot of no's, a lot of ignoring, and also a lot of the programs themselves wouldn't reach out. So it then took me to DM and email, I mean, thousands of football players. So I'm glad I was single at the time, because my DMs on Instagram, my emails I mean it was just verified checks and hey, I'm Alexis, this is what I want to do, please get back to me and a lot of yeses and then a lot of hey.
Speaker 2:I don't want to do your research, but you know it was a fun time, very hard time, but it was fun. And so I was able to recently present the students for Student National Medical Association, or SNRA. It's Student National Medical Association, or SNRA it's a national organization basically helping and creating a platform and environment for future Black and brown and underrepresented minorities in medicine, and so they had a regional conference last weekend where I was able to present at the University of Virginia and I won the poster for best pre-med poster which I was not expecting at all.
Speaker 2:It was just one of those things where I didn't think I was doing the most or doing. You know, I didn't think I was not expecting at all. Um, it was just one of those things where I didn't think I was doing the most or doing. You know, I didn't think I was extraordinary, but I I do believe that my passion about what I was talking about kind of, you know, shine through and I was able to answer all the questions. And so in April yeah, it's February now in April I'll be going to the national um convention and St Louis and I'll be presenting as the national convention in St Louis and I'll be presenting again that research, just highlighting, you know, those disparities from what I found personally with the data I was able to collect and be able to present.
Speaker 2:You know, with other black and brown doctors specifically, you know family medicine doctors, and I had a lot of people come up to me at the end of this last conference. You know asking do you want to do neurology, do you want to? You know focus. You know asking do you want to do neurology, do you want to? You know focus. You know on. You know psychology Like what do you want to do? Do you want to do neurosurgery? And I was thinking, well, no, I mean, those fields are great and I love the academic side. But then I want to be a doctor to help people and see the change I'm making in those day-to-day lives. And I know that you know, with family medicine one, there's not a lot of family medicine doctors anyway, but with family medicine, I can see my players and the patients I'm seeing Over time.
Speaker 2:they can come to me, you know, when they're not playing tackle football. Hopefully by the time I'm practicing medicine at the age of six. I can see them at six and then at 12 and at college. I can just see them throughout their lives and see, you know, and also just have that documentation. Well, they're acting very strange versus before. So that's what's going on for me and, of course, if the spot is open, I would love to talk and speak at the Matt. Hartman conference.
Speaker 1:It's very exciting. We're definitely going to have a poster presentation this year. So, Adam, I'd love to have you, you know, maybe on a panel or come down and talk about this because you're very passionate. You're obviously researching. We need this new generation. You know I mean we need, you know, a younger generation. All the researchers are getting on. You know they're thinking about retiring. You know me, I'm still.
Speaker 2:I still got decades on this one, I'm not giving up, and it's going to take folks like you, lexi, to pick up the torch and keep it going.
Speaker 1:So I cannot thank you enough for coming on this program. God bless you. God bless you on your journey and I wish you all the luck, and please stay in touch with the foundation. You are an amazing young woman with an amazing message that this world needs to hear. Thank you so much.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for having me. I just I can't wait to keep following the foundation and making everyone I know know about the foundation. Guys, you guys, it's February, it's CTE Education Awareness Month, so please stay, you know, in contact, stay up to date, because the data is out there. It's growing. So just thank you so much.
Speaker 1:Absolutely A great closing message. And for all you out there, don't forget that we do have a free book, youth Contact, sports and Broken Brains that you need to read. Download it from our website. We have the HeadSmart app now on the Google and Apple store. Go out there and get that. Educate yourself.
Speaker 1:Remember, the second international conference on repetitive brain trauma will be held in Tampa this September Dates to be announced. We're going to have a town hall for veterans here in March and we're going to start doing seminars for NFL players and for military veterans to educate them on this issue so they can make better decisions about what to do, because what they don't know is that they can be healed. There is a path back from the damage done by football and all these sports, and we're seeing it with veterans, we're seeing it with these ballers. We can get them back and they need that message of hope and that's what we're going to start offering them. So thank you so much for paying another attention to another episode of Broken Brains. This is Bruce Parkman signing off. We'll see you soon. God bless you all. Take care, let's eat. Thank you.