Embedded Files
By Ryan Magill
The statue of Tommy Cutinella overlooking his memorial field at Shoreham-Wading River High School. Ryan Magill
Frank Cutinella, 51, speaks about his organization's mission in preserving the legacy of his son. Ryan Magill
A freezing-but-bright March morning. Lacrosse balls are flying through the air and into the sticks of boys who seem to be battling against their own bulky equipment just as much as they are against each other. The helmets especially stand out, as the players try to work the nuisance of how bulky they are. Anyone who’s been in that situation understands that irritation, but those helmets are a necessity.
It’s a 9:00 a.m. youth game being held on the Thomas Cutinella Memorial Field at Shoreham-Wading River High School. Frank Cutinella, a 51-year old former Suffolk County police officer, takes his place beside the memorial statue commemorating the young man he raised.
Tommy used to play lacrosse, and once upon a time he too was one of those little kids running around the field. But for Tommy, football was the sport.
“Football was his favorite sport,” his father said. “He loved team concepts, he loved the planning, the strategies and he loved everything about it.”
By every account, Tommy was one of those kids everyone knew life would bring great things for.
Gazing over at his son’s statue, Frank takes a long sigh. “Unfortunately, and sadly, that’s what took his life, but he loved football.”
On October 1 2014, 16-year old Tommy Cutinella was hit in the head during a regular season high school football game. It was hardly the “penalty flags flying everywhere” type of noteworthy play many would expect to have caused such a horrific event, but the trauma of the injury on his brain proved to be fatal, as doctors at Huntington Hospital were unable to save his life. It was enough to do the unthinkable to a young man’s life, and to the lives of everyone around him.
Tommy's story is one that is emblematic of the problematic reality surrounding contact sports. Research over the past decade brought the issue of traumatic brain injuries in sports into the public consciousness, and the discussions that stemmed from it allowed awareness to spread; simultaneously, it provided the necessary societal backing for preventive measures meant to promote safety in all contact sports.
However, from where we stand in 2022, there is a shared sentiment from researchers, journalists and those personally affected by the tragic reality of traumatic brain injuries in sports: the discussions that once promoted change have slowed down to a halt.
Boston University CTE Center Researcher Madeline Uretsky via Boston University's website
The Role of the Researcher
Madeline Uretsky is a researcher with the Boston University CTE Center. CTE, or chronic traumatic encephalopathy, is described by Uretsky as “a progressive neurodegenerative disease caused, at least in part, by repeated hits to the head.” CTE is, as the research at Boston University and other major neurological research institutions have determined, a credible and realistic long-term risk of participation in contact sports. It is a risk that, according to Uretsky and the CTE Center’s findings, is most dangerous when athletes begin contact sports before age 12 and increases in likelihood the longer one participates in such sports.
So are the multi-billion dollar sports leagues like the NFL, NHL, MLS and professional boxing circuits, who employ athletes that have trained their entire lives to have careers in contact sports that sometimes span decades, very receptive to the news about CTE and contact sports?
“They have not, and it’s mostly denial,” Uretsky stated bluntly.
And while the NFL has addressed football’s relationship to CTE and undertaken action to promote head safety in the sport of football, other major sports leagues like the NHL and MLS have yet to formally announce their respective sports’ (hockey and soccer) link to CTE. CTE Center leader Dr. Ann McKee spoke to Canadian sports outlet TSN regarding the center’s findings of CTE in the brain of former Montreal Canadians’ player Ralph Backstrom and how the NHL was responding to it.
“It’s avoidance that shows a lack of a humane response to former players, but it’s not unexpected,” Dr. McKee said. “The bottom line in sports is the most important thing for team owners. Acknowledging a link would open the league to more lawsuits and settlements with former players.”
“Acknowledging a link would open the league to more lawsuits and settlements with former players.” ~ Dr. Ann McKee
The Media’s Role
While it certainly makes sense that multi-billion dollar leagues will try to avoid hurting their bottom line (even at the cost of the safety of their players), wouldn’t the next logical step be that journalists would cover those stories to expose the truth surrounding such an underreported risk? Especially when that story involves such a massive industry like professional sports?
The answer is certainly a mixed bag. Many reporters have reported on the findings accurately and truthfully. Some, however, say that journalists/reporters fail to aid the discussions around CTE. Opinion writer Jay Caspian Kang, in his piece “We Used to Care That Football Players Got Concussions” on The New York Times website, describes the current state of in-game reporting of concussions as a “ritual”. He explains that “a player is knocked out, the TV announcers say, ‘Well, you hate to see this’; the player gets carted away or staggers off to the designated blue medical tent; the sideline reporter tells the audience that the player will not be returning to action. All this is done in somber tones with the implicit understanding that the player will probably be back in a week or two.”
Later, while reflecting on his time working for the sports media site Grantland, he details the point of view of a sports journalist trying to cover the larger general issue of concussions.
“We found that concussion stories didn’t get particularly good traffic, either,” Kang says. “While there certainly wasn’t a directive I knew about to chase views, all who work at a website want their stories to get read. At some point, it became clear to me that while every concussion story we published would get passed around by our colleagues on social media, that’s where the engagement ended. This didn’t mean that other people weren’t aware or concerned; they just didn’t seem to feel the need to learn anything more about it.”
"This didn’t mean that other people weren’t aware or concerned; they just didn’t seem to feel the need to learn anything more about it." ~ Jay Caspian Kang
The data illustrates what Jay is talking about. Google’s Trends site, which documents and displays Google search results across its existence, demonstrates how CTE search results are hardly consistent over time.
NYT Opinions writer Jay Caspian Kang via the New York Times
The Role of the People
“Discussions is a big thing,” Frank said, discussing how to bring the issue back into public consciousness. “We’re talking about Tom. He was 16 years old, a junior in high school, he was six feet tall and 185 pounds. That’s a high school football player and there’s not as much that after his death that people could talk about. It’s high school, there’s not as much resources and as for publicity countrywide, it’s all but forgotten after a certain amount of time. So it’s certainly hard to keep the topic in the front page, and to try and make improvements.”
He also realizes how much of an uphill battle he faces. “But had Tom been a superstar football player, a quarterback in the NFL, you’re damn right we’d still be talking about head injuries and deaths. But, we’re not talking about it because it’s not happening at that level. It’s happening all over the country where it’s mostly 13-18 year olds, high school and junior high school kids and that doesn’t get the airtime.”
“God forbid Peyton Manning was the one who had died, we’d be talking about head injuries and we’d be making changes and we’d be talking about improving our sport. But it is very difficult at the high school level.”
Something that cannot be undertstated is that nobody wants football or contact sports in general to go away. Madeline Uretsky stated that waiting until a child is older to start contact football dramatically increases their health for the future. Jay Caspian Kang has not stopped watching the game, saying “I am not here to scold people for continuing to love football. Like many of you, I watch the N.F.L. on Sundays, Mondays and Thursdays.” And despite losing his son, Frank continues to tell people that he would never want to take football away because it's not what Tommy would have wanted.
“And Tommy loved the sport, so it’s hard for me to wanna stop people from playing because I don’t wanna stop people. I just want people to be aware and it’s hard to do it at this level.”
But while he loved football, Tommy knew what his next step in life was going to be: serving his country by attending the United States Military Academy at West Point. He was inspired by the story of his hero, Medal of Honor and Purple Heart recipient Lieutenant Michael P. Murphy, to chase after this dream.
“Michael Murphy probably changed Tommy’s life the most,” Frank said, reflecting on the legacies of the two young men he reveres most. “[Tommy] found [Michael's] remarkable service to his country, how he formed in his whole life as kind of how he wanted to be: always putting others before himself and there’s no doubt in my mind that Michael Murphy is really, really, really, really respected and adored by Tom and it changed his life.”
It inspired Tommy to be an active member of the Shoreham-Wading River Community, volunteering his time to a multitude of clubs and organizations. In between that, he found time for practice. That's what Frank is really fighting for. Tommy was more than just a football player, and certainly more than just a tragic story. Frank and his wife Kelli, through the Thomas Cutinella Foundation, support the variety of causes Tommy championed in life and in passing. They successfully helped lobby to have all coaches in Suffolk County properly trained in concussion response protocols, they have supported organ donation groups after Tommy’s donation saved multiple lives, and they promote community service across Long Island with the Foundation’s Community Service Award that they give to deserving high school seniors.
"Tommy was the most selfless, kindest person I have ever met in my entire life," Frank said. "His short time on this Earth changed so many people, but it changed me. It makes me understand more in life, that every part of my life was meant to give and to serve as well. He taught me that at sixteen and I think that he has taught many other people that as well. He always said the greatest team sport wasn't football; the greatest team sport was life. You can't get through it by yourself, and he understood that and that was amazing."
"He always said the greatest team sport wasn't football; the greatest team sport was life." ~ Frank Cutinella
Most of all, Frank is just a father trying to keep his son’s memory alive.
“As a mission, and really as a father, my number one mission is for people to not forget my son,” he says, glancing over to the metal bust of the young man he raised. Saying it evinces a small but subtly-noticeable pained chuckle midway through the statement; a momentary personal reflection of both the irony of a father explaining the mission of an organization named for his son, as well as the unenviable experience of having done it for years now.
“That is, the most difficult mission that I can accomplish.”
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