UNLV Experts Available: Super Bowl 2024

The Super Bowl: It’s annually one of the nation’s most-watched television broadcasts. And this year it’s happening in what’s perhaps the most fitting destination yet — Las Vegas, the Entertainment Capital of the World. From tourism and gaming to history and health, UNLV has experts who are uniquely poised to share perspectives on the sport, as well as the city where the Big Game is being held.

Don’t Forget Your Child’s Sports Physical!

David Winter, MD, at Baylor Scott & White Health, answers the most common patient questions and reacts to the latest medical research. How important are sports physicals? (SOT@ :14, TRT :28) What is the difference between a sports physical and…

U.S. has leg up in growth of women’s soccer

Patrick Ridge couldn’t help but fall in love with the game of soccer. He played the sport growing up, and he remained hooked by the game’s excitement when he attended matches and World Cup watch parties in Latin America and Spain while studying, teaching, and researching. “I saw the fervor,” said Ridge, now an associate professor of Spanish at Virginia Tech who studies soccer for a living.

Sports Psychologist Offers Insight on Damar Hamlin’s Collapse and the Future of Football

University at Albany’s Bruce Svare, professor emeritus of psychology and neuroscience, is an expert in sport psychology and the relationship between sport and society. We caught up with Svare to gain insight into the potential implications of Hamlin’s injury on the sport, whether the incident might incite changes to policies around player protection and how this event might influence perceptions of the sport among youth athletes and their caregivers.

Do Former Football Players Age Faster?

New research suggests that former professional football players may face accelerated aging, despite past research showing they have life spans similar or longer than the general population

In the new study, retired football players reported shorter health spans — defined as years free of disease – than men in the general population

Two age-related diseases — arthritis and dementia — were found more commonly among former football players, compared with men of the same age in the general population

Additionally, hypertension and diabetes were more common among younger former players, those ages 25 to 29, compared with same-age men from the general population.

The results warrant further study to define the biochemical, cellular, and physiologic mechanisms behind premature aging in former football players

Sports Medicine Physician Available to Comment on Concussion Following Tua Tagovailoa’s Injury

Following last night’s concussion of Miami Dolphins football star Tua Tagovailoa, one sports medicine physician is reminding sports fans and athletes alike about the dangers of head injuries.  “Watching the frightening moment when Tua Tagovailoa was violently tackled and landed…

Pop Warner: A ‘creative genius’ and innovator of football

The football programs at the University of Georgia and Iowa State University don’t share a lot in common. They’ve never played each other in the 130 years since they each started formal football programs in 1892. Their campuses in Athens, Georgia, and Ames, Iowa, are separated by 800 miles. They don’t even compete in the same recruiting pool for players. Yet in 1895, Georgia and what was then called Iowa Agricultural College and Model Farm shared the same first-time head football coach – Glenn Scobey “Pop” Warner.

New Finding Suggests Cognitive Problems Caused by Repeat Mild Head Hits Could Be Treated

A neurologic pathway by which non-damaging but high frequency brain impact blunts normal brain function and causes long-term problems with learning and memory has been identified. The finding suggests that tailored drug therapy can be designed and developed to reactivate and normalize cognitive function, say neuroscientists at Georgetown University Medical Center.

NAU researchers publish new report, recommendations to increase concussion disclosure in athletes

Psychology chair Heidi Wayment co-authored the report with Ann Huffman, Deborah Craig and Monica Lininger. The work was a result of a grant funded by the Mind Matters Challenge, which provides recommendations for increasing concussion symptom disclosure in collegiate athletic departments and military service academies.

Concussion discovery reveals dire, unknown effects of even mild brain injury

Even mild concussions cause severe and long-lasting impairments in the brain’s ability to clean itself, and this may seed it for Alzheimer’s, dementia and other neurodegenerative problems.

Clear Link Between Heart Disease and COVID-19, But Long-Term Implications Unknown, Researchers Find in Review of Published Studies

In a prospectus review published this week in the Journal of Molecular and Cellular Cardiology, Kirk U. Knowlton MD, from the Intermountain Healthcare Heart Institute in Salt Lake City, examined more than 100 published studies related to COVID-19 and its effects on the heart.

Repeated Brain MRI Scans in Football Players Don’t Show Increased Susceptibility to White Matter Changes at Younger Age

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans performed at the beginning and end of football season show significant changes in the brain’s white matter in both youth and high school football players, reports a study in Clinical Journal of Sport Medicine. The journal is published in the Lippincott portfolio by Wolters Kluwer.

2019 Cortaca Jug to Set Attendance Record

The New York City Chapter of the National Football Foundation (NYC/NFF), host of the 2019 Cortaca Jug game being played between Ithaca College and SUNY Cortland, has announced that ticket sales have set a new all-time record for a Division III football game. With just over six weeks to go, sales have exceeded 39,000 tickets for the game, which will be played on Saturday, November 16, at 1 p.m. at MetLife Stadium, East Rutherford, New Jersey. The previous record of 37,355 was set in 2017 for a game held at Target Field in Minneapolis.

Multi-institutional team to study effects of age, gender on brain injury mechanics

A team of researchers, led by Philip V. Bayly in the McKelvey School of Engineering at Washington University, plans to use MRI to study the brains of healthy, uninjured individuals to create models of brain motion to enable the researchers to predict the chronic effects of repeated head impacts in both men and women.