Maximus F. Transcript
Hello. My name’s Maximus Fisher, and I am an English teacher.
So I think throughout my time in athletics I’ve had three concussions, and each of them brought different challenges. I think for me it’s both as an athlete and as a person.
So the first one was playing football. They all were playing football. But the first one, I didn’t really know what a concussion was. As a high school athlete, you sort of think you’re invincible until you get that first severe injury, and you realize like, okay, this is a different level of competition, of athletics.
And when I got that concussion—my first concussion—it was like, okay, this is serious now. This, the sport that you love, the sport that you continue to play, can have real side effects down the line. And so that first concussion for me was really, hey, we have to understand the risks of playing a contact sport and know there might get to a time where you have to give up because your health matters more.
The second one, which probably impacted me the most—I was out for a seven-week span. It was my first year on varsity football. So you wanna make that impact. You wanna show the coaches that you can play at that level. And that’s what I was trying to do.
And I got a concussion and I thought it was gonna be one to two weeks, I’d be out, I can get back to practicing with the team, I can re-earn my spot. But it ended up being seven weeks of just attempting to return to play, return to play, but still having symptoms of headaches.
And that time was pretty difficult because as an athlete, I think all you wanna do is play. You want to try to get to the field, try to help your team. But when you’re in a position where you can’t play and you see your teammates practicing, you see them playing every weekend, you sort of—you feel left out, but you also lose.
You doubt yourself that like—you doubt that like you’re healing, like you doubt everything about you. In those moments when you’re hurt, especially when you can’t see it—like it’s not like you’re wearing a leg brace or you’re wearing a boot—you can’t see a concussion.
If someone walked down the street when you had a concussion, they probably wouldn’t know unless you told them or were like, hey, I have a concussion. And that doubt really, I think, affected me ’cause all I wanted to do was play. And that’s what I enjoyed. I enjoyed playing, but the concussion was more important.
Then the third one was, I remember giving my coach the call. It was my junior year. I was in Latin class, regular day, but I just had this pounding headache. I’m trying to translate this Latin passage, and I can’t. I can’t focus, which as someone who loves school—that was my strong suit.
And now I’m in this moment where I can’t even read what’s on this worksheet because I have a pounding headache and have to put my head down. And I remember calling my coach and it was a weird phone call. It was like, you don’t want to have to tell your coach that you’re injured because all you want to do is play, and you feel that this injury may let the team down in the long run.
But I called him and I was like, hey coach, I have a concussion. And he was like, okay, you’re okay. You’re good. Just go to the trainer. We’ll work through this. We know what we have to do. And he gave me that support that in that moment I needed.
And I think that’s probably the one where I realized that there will be people around you to step up when you have to take a step back. Because the following game, when I had to not play, when I couldn’t play, the offensive line stepped up. They moved people around. And to me that was like, okay, although having a concussion—which stinks—there are people around me who will support me, who understand that having this injury is not only the fact that I can’t play, but it has that psychological effect of feeling alone or out of place in the team setting.
Advice to Others:
I would say first, don’t doubt yourself.
You know, if you’re an athlete, if you’re not an athlete, you know your body, you know your mind better than anyone else. If you feel off, chances are you are off in that moment. And don’t rush yourself to push through that—like you feeling off—because it will just extend your recovery.
So trust yourself, and know that you have doctors, friends, people around you who will be there for you.