Author shares story of Nigerian scientist’s battle against NFL
WAYNESBURG — It was in his family home in Nigeria that Dr. Bennet Omalu’s story began. It was in a morgue in Allegheny County that he unknowingly altered his entire life with his own curiosity. It was in his Pittsburgh apartment that the brain of an ex-NFL football player vaulted him into the spotlight.
And it was in all of these places that author and journalist Jeanne Marie Laskas found the story she knew she must tell, no matter the consequences.
Laskas, an award-winning writer and professor at the University of Pittsburgh, visited Waynesburg University on Monday, Feb. 29, to tell the story of how she and Omalu, a neuropathologist, took his ground-breaking research from anonymity to a movie starring actor Will Smith.
“Concussion,” a movie based on the nonfiction book by Laskas, details Omalu’s journey from examining one NFL player’s brain to discovering a serious brain condition brought about as a result of repeated football injuries.
Omalu’s research shows a protein in the brains of deceased football players that should not normally be present. The protein clogs neural pathways and results in varying degrees of neurological disorders, which causes affected NFL players to display violent behavior before their deaths, many of which are suicides.
Omalu first published his research, backed by several other scientists, in a journal called Neurosurgery. The NFL immediately demanded a retraction. Scientists on the NFL’s payroll attacked Omalu and his claims. The NFL and others worked to push Omalu into obscurity.
Eventually, the story reached an editor at GQ magazine. Laskas was assigned to write about it. Through extensive research, she eventually reached Omalu and wrote a long-form article for GQ entitled “This is your brain on football.”
“What that story basically did was pluck (Omalu) out of nowhere,” Laskas said. “He had really been cast aside. I thought it was a valid story.”
When Laskas’ article brought the issue onto the public’s radar, she began to realize there was a larger story. She explained during her lecture that other ex-football players had been experiencing symptoms described by Omalu’s research. At least one player’s wife realized what was wrong with her increasingly violent husband by reading Laskas’ article.
“That’s not right,” Laskas said. “I got to know some of these families and I was wondering, what are we going to do about this and all of the implications? If we keep pretending this doesn’t exist, we’re going down a wrong path here.”
Eventually, Laskas discovered that the real story was in Omalu’s journey. She traveled to Nigeria with him, met his family and got to know him. Then, she wrote the book “Concussion,” which she calls a character study of Omalu.
“My real work was just telling stories,” Laskas said. “That’s what I do. I tell stories.”
The story of the damage football injuries were doing to players’ brains became more prominent with Sony Picture’s production of the movie “Concussion,” with a star-studded cast.
And so too did the backlash.
According to Laskas, Omalu is a joke to the NFL and scientists associated with it.
“It got worse after the movie came out,” she said.
But Laskas and Omalu have no plans to give up. Omalu, who now works as a neuropathologist in California, continues to study the brains of deceased players. The Bennet Omalu Foundation was also formed to seek out funding for scientists looking to advance the field of neuroscience and work toward a living diagnosis and subsequent cure for the disease.
“Maybe if we can figure out a diagnosis in a living person, we can figure out how to cure it so that we wouldn’t have to worry about our kids,” Laskas said. “We don’t know when this thing starts.”
For facing off against the NFL, Omalu was kicked out of Pittsburgh, out of the morgue where he worked, taken to court and forced into obscurity. But Laskas said he has never doubted the necessity of telling the truth about his findings.
Omalu’s full name is Bennet Ifeakandu Onymelukwube. His last name means “if you know, come forth and speak.”
And speak, he has.