Football Helmets Research Papers

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Better football helmets are very needed. Most football helmets prevent blacking out, but not all concussions. Most get concussions and don’t know it. Most die later from a concussion disease. During football games, concussions happen a lot, but we just don’t notice them. Neither does the player. Concussions does not always have to do with passing out. Sometimes it is just a blurry vision or being a little off balance. Those concussions can lead to major brain problems. A really bad concussion disease is called the Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy, or the CTE. It is a progressive degenerative disease where you experience memory loss, aggression, depression, confusion, and finally progressive dementia. Dementia is not a disease,…show more content…
Then in the 1930’s hardened leather helmets came out and they were a little thicker. In 1939, John T. Riddell made the first plastic helmet which was simply two pieces of plastic nailed together. Although it was plastic, the plastic was brittle and it would break easily on impact.(riddell making history) It never made a show on the field. In the 1940 John T. Riddell invented the first chin strap on the football helmets. Thermoplastic was used for the new type of helmets resulting lighter weight and more impact resistant. The thermoplastic made it possible to bake color into the helmets. In 1955 a man named Paul Brown invented the single bar helmet when Otto Graham took an elbow in the face. Then Riddell invented the stainless steel face masks. Finally, the Riddell Revolution was designed to prevent concussions. It remains one of the most used masks…show more content…
Riddell was born in Georgetown, Michigan in 1885. From 1913 to 1927, he taught mathematics and was head football coach at Evanston Township High School.(genealogy John Tate Riddell) He invented the removable cleat for the football players at Evanston because he ran into the problem of not having the shoes ready by the game way too many times. Then in 1927, he quit teaching and started creating shoes. Two years later, on February, Riddell made the John T. Riddell Inc. He didn’t end with the removable cleat. He went on to track shoes and baseball shoes. The he made the seamless basketball, but because of World War II pure rubber latex became unavailable. Riddell was not satisfied with the substitute material, so he stopped going with that idea. In the early 1939, he had designed plastic helmets with webbed suspension to absorb the impact, but then because of World War II, plastic became unavailable too. Requested by the U.S. Government, Riddell gave them the license to use his webbed suspension helmets for the military. Riddell never saw his helmets become popular. He died on July 3,1945. In 1946, the Riddell company made their helmets more
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