By Taylor Nigrelli
Sports Editor
For the second time this school year, a men’s rugby player has withdrawn from St. Bonaventure due to complications stemming from concussions suffered while playing the sport.
Just a few months after senior Ryan Brennan was forced to leave school, junior Evan Meister followed suit after being diagnosed with cognitive impairment due to multiple concussions. Because of this and financial reasons, Meister was unable to return to St. Bonaventure for the spring semester.
Meister is a nine-year veteran of the sport, including playing two and a half years at St. Bonaventure. He was named to Empire Rugby’s all-conference team at the flanker position after the fall 2013 season.
In addition to his near-decade-long rugby career, Meister also wrestled and played football in high school.
This prolonged exposure to contact sports took its toll – Meister estimates he suffered somewhere between 10 and 15 concussions in his playing career. However, the effects of these concussions may have been amplified as Meister said he didn’t take them very seriously and, thus, didn’t sit out of games. Even after he learned how dangerous they were, he still didn’t take much time off.
“Before I knew what concussions were, I wouldn’t think much of them,” Meister said. “But after I learned what they were and how dangerous they were, I would sit out for about a week or less.”
According to Meister’s former teammate and roommate junior John Sullivan, he had suffered from headaches for roughly a year before being diagnosed.
“He’s been getting headaches for a while before he ever started getting real symptoms,” Sullivan said. “Probably (for) a year or so, he’s been getting headaches for a while.”
Although Meister no longer attends St. Bonaventure, he’s been able to remain in school. He attends Erie Community College and plans to eventually transfer to Buffalo State.
While Meister admits his condition isn’t as serious as his former teammate Brennan’s, it has added some difficulty to his life. He’s on four medications and seeing doctors regularly. According to his Facebook page, he’s sensitive to light and sound and gets periodic headaches.
In an attempt to cut down on such severe injuries, the St. Bonaventure club sports program has begun to adopt baseline concussion testing procedures. Baseline testing begins with a preseason test. This test measures an athlete’s memory, ability to concentrate and problem-solving skills among other things.
If an athlete suffers a concussion, he or she sits out until they are symptom-free. Then, the athlete will re-do his or her baseline test and won’t be cleared to play until previous levels are reached.
Rob DeFazio, director of club sports, said the club sports program works with the Wellness Center to determine when an athlete is ready to return to action.
“We work with the Wellness Center, and there is a step-by-step process before a player is cleared to resume light exercise, sport specific exercise, practice then eventually participating in games,” DeFazio said in an email.
According to DeFazio, members of the staff of the campus’s health and welness center oversee the concussion protocol while members of the Medical Emergency Response Team administer the baseline testing.
Men’s rugby Head Coach Clarence Picard is hopeful that this new system will cut down on the career-threatening injuries that have plagued his program of late.
“I think it’s going to be a real positive move for us,” Picard said. “Everyone I’ve spoken with says it makes their life a lot easier for gauging that kind of thing. It’s honestly just the right thing to do. We want to provide the best service possible for our students.”
Meister said he believes his teammates began to take concussions more seriously after the baseline procedures were put in place.
“When the new testing started, people were more aware and handled them more accordingly,” Meister said.
DeFazio said club sports follow the same protocol as Bona’s varsity sports. However, there’s some evidence this may not be the case for every club sport athlete.
According to Head Athletic Trainer Christopher Hobler, each varsity athlete undergoes a preseason baseline test administered by a health care professional, as per standard baseline procedure. Thus, concussion protocol depends on preseason testing to create a standard by which to judge individual athletes.
According to junior wing John Sullivan, some members of the rugby team didn’t undergo the preseason test. Sullivan said he wasn’t aware he was supposed to do it.
“I don’t think anyone actually did them, to be honest,” Sullivan said. “I didn’t know we were supposed to. I didn’t do it.”
Sullivan has noticed some more caution among his teammates regarding head injuries. He said that players are sitting out for longer and, in most cases, sitting out until they are symptom-free.
Yet, he believes that concussions are intrinsically related to playing rugby and described his own procedure in dealing with them, which don’t appear to be up to the standards of baseline testing.
“If it’s bad, I’ll go out and make sure I’m not too dizzy or anything,” Sullivan said. “If I kind of just hit my head, I’ll be like, ‘ah, that sucked’. I probably wouldn’t even go out.”
Baseline testing procedures are a new concept to the club sports program. As such, they will likely take some getting used to.
It’s too late for Meister and Brennan, but, if taken seriously, these procedures may be able to prevent similar cognitive damage to those who play St. Bonaventure rugby in the future. Meister has a message for those very people.
“Always get checked out, don’t let your ego get the best of you. There is nothing wrong with getting out of the game.”
