Quinn Beyer

Professor Ferrara

ENW 100

November 12, 2019

The Quest for the Truth on Concussions and CTE

In this day and age most people watch some sort of sport games throughout the year and

cheer on their favorite team. What they don’t know is the effect those games have on the

professional athletes they cheer and root for. Chris Nowinski helps us understand the damage

athletes take to their brain and how becoming more aware can save many lives in the future.

Chris himself was a college football player at Harvard University, so he is someone who knows

what he is talking about when it comes to football and other contact sports. After graduating

from Harvard, Nowinski went into the business of the WWE to be a professional wrestler which

was something he never expected to get into. He later suffered a severe concussion and left the

WWE, but the effects of that concussion stayed with him. Nowinski wanted to know why these

effects stuck with him and decided to go into the field of studying brains and the damage athletes

take throughout their career.

Similar to most people Chris wasn’t sure what we wanted to do with his life and spent a

lot of time trying to figure it out. Just from reading about how he went from a Harvard football

player to a WWE wrestler shows how he was willing to go wherever life took him. His life took

a turn for the wrong when he suffered his severe concussion, but this was only a minor setback
for a major comeback. After spending much time recovering Chris felt that his concussion was

never ending, so he decided to do some research and came upon the disease Chronic traumatic

encephalopathy also known as CTE. CTE is a neurodegenerative disease that is caused by

repeated or severe head injuries. Learning this after a severe head injury Nowinski was

interested, “I got injured at the right time” (Nowinski 00:02:01), shortly after his injury it was

discovered that the first two NFL players had been diagnosed with this disease after their deaths.

Due to the timing Chris decided to write about the disease and the deaths of the pro athletes, and

shockingly there was no attention by the media for either of the events. This was concerning to

Chris because the topic of his talk is supposed to reach all people, not just athletes who suffer the

head traumas, but everyone who surrounds them. The more people that understand how severe

CTE is the less the future generations will be impacted by such a harsh disease.

Chris was so devoted to his work that when he realized the media and doctors around the

world weren’t giving this disease much attention, he decided that he would have to start doing

the work by himself. Not to long after another ex-NFL player, Andre Waters, took his own life,

and Chris finding this odd wanted to acquire his brain to study it. “How does one acquire a

brain?” (Nowinski 00:03:54), what may seem like a simple task was definitely not, Chris had to

call a hospital in Florida to see whether or not they still had Waters brain. Lucky for Chris they

did, but you can’t just take a person’s brain, Chris needed permission from his mother which put

him in a tough spot. Pathos is described as having an emotional appeal to an audience, and Chris

explained this when he had to go through the process of getting the brain “am I really going to

cold call an 88-year-old mother whose son just committed suicide?” (Nowinski 00:04:54-5:05).

Chris realized that this was a hard time to reach out to a grieving family, and really brought me

down to earth because Chris is trying to do something to change the world for the better and
there are emotional obstacles he must go through. After finally deciding to call, Andres mother

was gracious enough to agree to the release of her sons’ brain because she wanted to know what

happened to her son. This appeals to the audience in a way that Chris had respect for the family’s

privacy, but out of his own gut feeling he reached out to the family and was graciously received.

This was a milestone for Chris because it is the beginning of his argument on how CTE is

a very real disease and needs to be taken more seriously by doctors and people around the world.

Over time people in sports have always brushed off head injuries, in football players could take

nasty blows to the head, come off for one play, then immediately go back into the game. Chris is

trying to change that stereotype and help show that people need help and not being ok is ok. Not

only did Chris graduate from Harvard but was a football player himself so he is a trusted person

to listen to on this topic which is why this is a perfect example of ethos. From the start of the talk

Chris represented himself as trustworthy and relatable to the topic since he too suffered a bad

concussion when “unfortunately I got kicked in the head by my colleague” (Nowinski 00:00:54).

So Chris understands how these head injuries affect people and he is a perfect representative to

back the subject of supporting the truth about CTE.

Just like any other person who is trying to build a movement, Chris needs just about

everyone he can get to support him. Luckily his fight to learn more about CTE isn’t something

that most people would be opposed to since the basis of it is trying to save both current and

future lives. The hard part for Chris though is getting athletes to pledge their brains for scientific

after their deaths to further study CTE, over time though it hasn’t been to bad because “over

2,500 athletes have already signed up” (Nowinski 00:08:24-27). This shows that these athletes

believe in Chris and what he’s trying to do and will definitely help the public understand why he

is doing this. With a project that seems like it has so much upside, there are always going to be
some road bumps especially when Chris dives into the statistics of the disease, “when we started

this only 45 cases of this disease existed in the world, and since then we have acquired 500

brains and 300 of them have had CTE, to put it into perspective the rest of the world hasn’t

studied 100 brains since we started this” (Nowinski 00:09:18-32). This a part of the speech

where Chris uses logos effectively by using real world statistics to back up his beliefs, so any

doubters of his beliefs should be proved wrong. The tough part of the speech that Chris has to

make known to people who are not familiar with the topic is that CTE is not something you can

cure overnight, and he has only started what will be a long fight to really understand the disease.

Lastly, one major thing that I think made Chris’ entire speech so persuading and

informing was the style and tone he used throughout the talk. Not once did he come across as

someone who was forcing his idea onto people, but more of a way that he was here to educate

those he felt who should be. He talked in a formal style which is not surprising for a Harvard

graduate, but was also able to keep the audience hooked by adding in small parts of his humor.

This is definitely something I think his audience would take interest in because anyone can go up

on a stage and tell a life story, but he wanted people to understand what he has done with his life

and why the fight against CTE is so important. He chose wisely where to give the audience a

good laugh or have them understand the harm this disease can cause to families and future

generations.

All in all this rhetorical analysis assignment has helped me grow as a writer in the way

that I should now be able to understand different arguments and how authors use specific tactics

to persuade their intended audience. Chris was a perfect example for me to see how ethos, logos,

and pathos can be used to persuade and audience to believe and trust in what you are talking

about. Most importantly for a rhetorical analysis I think Chris definitely left a mark on his
audience in a good way, which is something that I would want to achieve through any sort of

persuading speech or writing.

 Works Cited

Nowinski, Chris. “Can I Have Your Brain? The Quest for Truth on Concussions and
CTE.” TED, TEDxBeaconStreet, 17AD,
www.ted.com/talks/chris_nowinski_can_i_have_your_brain_a_quest_for_truth_on_con
cussions_cte#t-614783.