“I think it’s great that he loves what he’s doing, he’s good at it and he’s in a great spot.
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“I don’t fear like his mother does and I don’t think she really fears it that much, either,” Tasker says of his son, who is heading into his fourth pro season. While Tasker admits that there is some trepidation in watching his son out there, he feels that as a former athlete, he might be better equipped to handle what comes with having a family member in the game in a way that others are not. Though Tasker has been retired since 1997, his son, Luke, is currently a wide receiver for the Hamilton Tiger-Cats. Let’s face it, they’re paid very well to play this game that some do think is a risk.” “Every guy reacts to it differently, every guy is affected by a concussion differently and they all have a different level of fear and a willingness to risk, but they all want to play very badly.
“So you’ve gotta figure, there’s a chance you’re going to have some scar tissue down the road from the game you played.”Įven with better understanding and testing, one common element remains the same between today’s game and the one played in Tasker’s day and that’s fear – fear of missing time, fear of losing a spot and even the fear of confronting what a head injury could mean for a player’s life going forward. “When you look at the old guys and even back in my day, there’s always the odd hip replacement or knee replacement,” Tasker explains. While the repercussions of head trauma were certainly not nearly as definitive during his playing days as they are right now, Tasker says that it only stood to reason that consequences could persist. As soon as you felt like yourself or whatever, they’d allow you to go back in if you answered all of the questions correctly and you seemed to them to be normal.” “Then they start asking you questions and if you can answer all of the questions and you continue to feel good and feel cognitive, that was basically it. “They would bring you off, ask you how you were feeling and give you cursory questions about if you really hurt and a lot of times with concussions, you really don’t,” Tasker explains. Tasker, who played for 12 seasons, says that concussion protocol existed in his playing days, but it was more empirical than anything else. Linebacker Darryl Talley’s battle with depression and suicidal thoughts has been well documented, while Hall of Fame running back Thurman Thomas revealed last month that a recent MRI showed the frontal lobe of his brain was “similar to someone who has fallen off the top of a house, on to the front of his head, or going through a windshield of a car several times.” The realities of a legacy of head trauma have hit home for Tasker with the famed Bills teams of the 1990s that reached four straight Super Bowls (1991 to 1994). Tasker is one of 24 inductees to the Bills' Wall of Fame at Ralph Wilson Stadium. I think it will probably take some further steps beyond that, but we’ll have to wait and see what those are.” I think that’s an enormous step and I think the fact that they’re ready to work together – and it’s such a no-brainer to do that – is huge.
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“I think now, they’ve opened it up to the medical industry and given access to neutral parties to evaluate these guys, somebody who doesn’t have any skin in the game – both for the players and for the owners. “I think they’re both moving in the right direction,” Tasker says. As for Alzheimer’s, the Mayo Clinic has identified a direct correlation between head trauma and developing the disease later in life.įor Tasker, the fact that more voices are being heard, more parties are becoming involved in talks represents a constructive move forward in monitoring head injuries, but he acknowledges that there is more work to be done. In March, Jeff Miller, the National Football League’s senior vice president for health and safety, finally acknowledged a link between the game and chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE). The “Huddle Up” initiative comes at a time when football and the larger sports world is coming to terms with the realities of head injuries and the long-term effects that they can have on players.
The seven-time Pro Bowler recently sat down with TSN.ca ahead of the group’s May 25 th engagement in Toronto. “So when he offered me the chance to help out in this way, I thought it was a great idea and jumped on board.” When he called and asked me to do it - because he knows I’m from the Toronto-Western New York area - he didn’t know that I have a family member, my mother-in-law, who’s afflicted with Alzheimer’s,” Tasker told TSN.ca. Steve Tasker was a perfect choice to get involved with “ Huddle Up for New Alzheimer's Treatments,” a campaign geared towards raising awareness in new treatments for the disease, but when his colleague at CBS, Solomon Wilcots asked him to link up with the group, he didn’t even realize why.
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