Dayton Public Schools Officials Unwilling To Be Interviewed On Football Concussions

Taylor Kerns, tkerns@kent.edu

In the 2015 film "Concussion," Will Smith plays real-life doctor Bennet Omalu, a forensic pathologist whose research on chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) rubs the NFL the wrong way. CTE is a type of degenerative brain disease affecting those who, like many football players, have sustained hard hits to the head.

Belmont High School principal
Melanie Walter declined to be
interviewed.

The same year the film was released, Dr. Omalu penned an op-ed for the New York Times titled “Don’t Let Kids Play Football.” In the piece, Omalu makes the case that given what we know about the dangers associated with high-impact sports, minors should not be allowed to participate in them.

Kent State’s High School Football Reporting Project was tasked with reaching out to high school principals and school board presidents across the state of Ohio to ask their opinions on Omalu’s recommendation via video chat and phone interviews. Public records requests for the school's concussion policies and student and parent football paperwork were also sent.

Dayton Public Schools
Board of Education president
Dr. Adil Baguirov provided
comments via email, but declined
to be interviewed.

Melanie Walter, principal of Belmont High School in Dayton, Ohio declined to be interviewed. Jyllian Guerriero, the school’s legal counsel, replied to all inquiries directed to Walter. She said that Walter would not be available for an interview “simply because she’s got a lot going on.” Guerriero also replied to the public records request.

Dayton school board president Dr. Adil Baguirov replied to interview requests via email, providing some thoughts on CTE including some of his own suggestions on addressing the issue, but ultimately declining to be interviewed.

These results weren’t unusual. Of 17 principals contacted, only six agreed to be interviewed. All but two complied with public records requests. Only four of 17 school board principals consented to an interview.

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In working on this project, I learned that getting interviews can take more tenacity than I’m used to showing in my previous experience in the journalism program. Up until this project, people have seemed eager to talk. That could be because of the nature of the question -- people don’t like conflict. It’s probably also easy to dismiss a student from across the state as just a kid working on a school project, even though I never identified myself as a student.