Michael Lipman - Concussion

Michael Lipman was born in England and raised in Sydney. He represented Australia in rugby union at under-19 level as a flanker before playing for the England national team. Michael played professionally in both England and Australia for Bristol, Bath and the Melbourne Rebels. In 2020 Michael was diagnosed with probable CTE and early-onset dementia. His goal is to change concussion protocols in contact sports.

Frankie Lipman is a mother of two and supports her husband Michael in his journey. With a communications degree majoring in journalism, Frankie has worked in media and PR at News Corp and Nova Entertainment, and is now a voiceover artist, voicing many national ads youll hear on TV and radio. Together Michael and Frankie also own a paint-and-sip studio in the Hunter Valley called Pinot & Picasso.

First published in 2022

Copyright Michael Lipman and Frankie Lipman 2022

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or 10 per cent of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to the Copyright Agency (Australia) under the Act.

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THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED TO:

Our two beautiful kids, Summer and Joey! All the families that suffer silentlydont be afraid to put your hand up and ask for help, because there is help and there always will be.

Want to, as they say, change the narrative?

We have to see and understand stories that are powerful enough to make key players in the narrative behave differently now and forevermore, leading to an entirely different outcome.

This book contains precisely that: a deeply moving and compelling tale of two people caught up in the consequences of repeated concussions to one of thema tale so strong that it will help to change the whole nature of contact sports.

And things must change.

So far, the narrative on concussion in sport has been a strange one, starting happily and getting incrementally worse as the decades rolled by so that, as we speak, it is no less than an existential threat to entire sports.

In the beginning there was sport, and it was good and it was great, with only the occasional problem emerging through boxers being KO-ed or having their bell rung. They got punch drunk. The rest of us could get badly concussed and only have temporary issuesor so we thought. We could get knocked out on the football field, a bloke would come out with the magic water and a sponge, and wed be good to go!

Knocked out a week or two later? More magic water. Or, more bizarrely, wed have smelling salts waved under our nose, in the belief that somehow a quick sniff of something acrid could actually help heal our brains.

I speak for many old footballers now: WHAT WERE WE THINKING?

The answer is, we werent.

We simply didnt understand that each and every concussion and subconcussion was nothing less than brain damage, and there could be a cumulative effect for some of us that would be devastating. That understanding would come bit by bit as retired footballers and people from other contact sports started struggling, and research revealed this thing called CTEchronic traumatic encephalopathya brain condition found in people who had suffered repeated concussions, leading to consequences such as early-onset dementia.

Did things change immediately in all contact sports because of it?

They did not.

Yes, various concussion protocols were brought in, but while it was one thing to have protocols, it was quite another to have a culture that actually embraced them. More than anything, this book is a close-up account of the damage that can be done by repeated concussions when the protocols are inadequate or non-existent, and the culture is appalling.

I first came across Michael and Frankie Lipman in November 2020, when I agreed to help out Dr Rowena Mobbs of Macquarie Universityone of the guiding forces of the National Repetitive Head Trauma Initiativeto research the impact of repeated concussions and subconcussive impacts in sport. My contribution would be to interview a couple of former sportsmen about the effect that multiple concussions had had on their lives since their sporting career had finished.

One of the interviewees proved to be 40-year-old Michael Lipman, a graduate of St Josephs College and former professional rugby player whose career had included ten Tests for England on the flank as well as a couple of years for the Melbourne Rebels. He came with his wife and business partner, FrankieWhats doing with her, I wondered idly as we shook hands, and why does she look so troubled?who is also the mother of their two young children. She had also agreed to be interviewed. In the course of our chat, as the cameras rolled for a video release that Dr Mobbs was making, Michael noted that in the course of his career he was knocked out a staggering more than 30 times, observing that he was part of a culture whereby If I wasnt completely knocked out, I played on.

He was a nice bloke, if slightly withdrawn as he discussed difficult subjects. Like all of us in our early years, he had felt bulletproofand unstoppable on the rugby field. He had heard of problems with repeated concussions but was sure it wouldnt happen to him. And yet, not long after he stopped playing, both he and Frankie noticed changes in him. He became very forgetful and moody, and he could get very agitated very quickly over trifling matters. Yes, he would quickly apologise, but both she and he sensed that this change in him was not within the parameters of normality.

And it was hard for her.

Sometimes, youre just walking on eggshells, she told me with haunted eyes, as everyone in the room leaned in to listen. Consulting medicos, they found their way to Dr Mobbs at Macquarie University, and Michael agreed to be tested. Frankie joined a circle of wives and family members of similarly afflicted sportspeople to give each other support and discuss how to cope.

There were lots of tears, she said. And once we talked about the effects of concussion, and probable CTE, it was like a light went on. We had all of these answers for everything we had been experiencing.

And now to the shocking part. Frankie told me that Michael had scored 77 out of 100 in his cognitive tests, which is equivalent to mild dementia.

As you might imagine, I was reeling when I came away from the interview, and I took Dr Mobbs aside in the foyer. Doctor, hes forty years old, and getting scores equal to mild dementia from concussions in rugby?