‘Concussion’ doctor Bennet Omalu not ‘anti-football’
Dr. Bennet Omalu, the central figure of movie that raises some tough questions about the safety of America’s favorite sport, insists he is not anti-football.
At first glance, Omalu seems an unlikely subject for a major studio movie. A Nigerian-born forensic pathologist, Omalu worked for years in quiet obscurity, performing autopsies at the Allegheny County Coroner’s Office in Pittsburgh – hardly the kind of resume that would normally attract the attention of Hollywood.
But in 2002, Omalu performed an autopsy on former Pittsburgh Steelers center Mike Webster and found signs of chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a degenerative brain disease caused by repeated blows to the head – the first such discovery in a pro football player. Omalu’s findings put him on a collision course with the National Football League, which sought to undermine and discredit him. That story is now recounted on the big screen in director Peter Landesman’s hot-button drama “Concussion,” with Will Smith playing Omalu.
In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, Omalu was asked for his views on a variety of topics, including the inherent violence in football.
“I’m not anti-football,” he said. “If as an adult you know, ‘If I play football, there’s a risk I’ll suffer brain damage,’ and you still make up your mind to play, I would be one of the first to stand up and defend your right and freedom to play. It’s like smoking. If we tell you smoking will cause lung cancer and heart disease and you still as an adult make up your mind to smoke, I will defend your right to smoke if you want to. This is a free country.”
Omalu was also quizzed about his own viewing habits.
“The last football game I watched was the Super Bowl,” he said. “After the first play, the hitting – pow! – I just had goose bumps. What was going through my mind was what was happening to their brains on the microscopic level.
“I switched off the TV and did something else. I just couldn’t take it.”
Omalu, 47, now serves as the medical examiner of San Joaquin County in California. But he did take time to watch his story on the big screen.
“It was a very unusual feeling, watching someone act you on-screen,” he said. “But really this has never been about me. It sounds weird, but as a physician we are taught in medical school to detach ourselves – yes, be empathic, but don’t get involved personally. So my approach to all this has been very professionalized.
“This is not about me. It’s about a message. “
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