Chris Nowinski said he has splitting headaches, doesn’t sleep well and is no longer able to work out intensely.
And this is 3 1/2 years after his last match inside a World Wrestling Entertainment ring.
Nowinski parlayed a stint on the Tough Enough reality series into a promising WWE career as the snooty Chris Harvard, a character that played off his legitimate Ivy League education. But Nowinski suffered a concussion during the annual Royal Rumble in January 2003 and continued to wrestle for six months without knowing the damage he was causing.
Plagued by post-concussion syndrome, an ailing Nowinski struggled through his matches before finally failing altogether to gain WWE medical clearance. Nowinski said the effects of his problems still linger today as he works as a consultant for a Boston-area pharmaceutical and biotechnical consulting company.
“It’s reached a point where I can work at a regular job, but it’s not ever going to be what it was,” Nowinski said in a recent telephone interview. “My memory is mostly back. When I don’t have headaches, I don’t ever think about it. When I have to try and slog through the day, I can’t help but wish it hadn’t happened.”
Nowinski now hopes to give football players a heads up to avoid the same fate.
While researching his medical problems, Nowinski became enough of an expert on the subject to write Head Games: Football’s Concussion Crisis (The Drummond Publishing Group; $14.95). Nowinski tells his own story while also documenting alarming statistics about the impact of concussions on football players.
“When you watch a game, you sometimes see multiple cases of players being put back in when they’re obviously impaired, which is absolutely not the way a guy should be treated,” said Nowinski, who was unaware until properly diagnosed that he had suffered at least four previous concussions while playing football at Harvard and during wrestling training.
“At the youth level, the biggest problem is not so much the treatment they get but many of them don’t have access to it. The majority of schools don’t have medical people. … Research shows that most players at that age don’t even know what the injury is or what a concussion means.”
Nowinski hasn’t completely severed ties with WWE, as he serves as a “political correspondent” for the promotion’s Smackdown the Vote campaign. Aimed at raising voter turnout among 18- to 30-year-olds, Nowinski has interviewed such personalities as California U.S. Rep. and House Minority Leader Barbara Pelosi, White House spokesman Tony Snow and comedian Carlos Mencia about “issues that were important to young people in the elections.”
While grateful for the opportunity to remain affiliated with WWE, Nowinski admitted his view of wrestling and football has markedly changed from when he competed in them.
“I can’t enjoy the big hits of football like I used to before I understood the downside to them,” Nowinski said. “I don’t necessarily enjoy some of the stuff we do in wrestling as much just because when I was younger I was all about high-risk stuff. Now that I’ve kind of gotten burnt by it, I want to look out for the guys doing it now. I hate to see guys getting hurt.”
For more information on Head Games, visit or www .chrisharvard.net.
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