Scarsdale Forum Sunday Speaker Series

March 20th, 2011

Knocken ’em Straight: Football’s Collision with Head Injuries

Alan Schwarz, a reporter for The New York Times, has twice been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize for his dozens of high-profile articles that have exposed the epidemic of sports-related concussions. His stories have helped uncover the high rates of dementia among retired National Football League players, unsafe conditions on high school fields, and concussion-related disorders among female youth athletes in soccer and basketball. His 2010 investigation into the dark cave of football helmets led immediately to ongoing investigations by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission and the Federal Trade Commission. A graduate of Scarsdale High School, Schwarz used his Scarsdale math education to unearth one of the biggest sport stories of the decade.