I’ve compiled some of the most powerful Benne Omalu quotes.
Benne Omalu was born on September 30, 1968. He is a Nigerian-American physician, forensic pathologist, and neuropathologist who, while working at the Allegheny County coroner’s office in Pittsburgh, was the first to discover and publish results on chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) in American football players.
Omalu went on to become the chief medical examiner for San Joaquin County, California, and is now a professor in the University of California’s department of medical pathology and laboratory medicine.
11 Benne Omalu Quotes
- “We are members of one another. What binds us together is far greater than what separates us… because of our interconnectivity, what happens to the least of us happens to all of us. Whatever you do for the least of us, you do for all of us.”
2. “All the NFL players I have examined pathologically, I have not seen one that did not have changes in their brain system with brain damage.”
3. “There is no safe blow to the head, especially for a child.”
4. “Actually, I’m for football. But I’m for intelligent football that enhances us rather than football that steals away who we are.”
5. “When I read Mike Webster’s file before I began his autopsy, I knew he was more than a 50-year-old heart attack victim. His file and the television reports of the death of the former Pittsburgh Steelers center described a long, steep fall into bizarre behavior. I suspected he suffered from some sort of brain disorder.”
6. “Will Smith’s acting reaffirms my belief in the American perfection.”
7. “The fundamental issue is not concussions but repeated blows to the head–with or without concussions, with or without helmets. We must mitigate the exposure of our children’s brains to all types of blows to the head.”
8. “A child who plays a game of football for one season without any documented concussion – several months after that season, if you subject his brain to sophisticated psychological testing and radiological testing, functional MRIs, there is evidence of brain damage.”
9. “I am a spiritual person. I’m a Catholic. I treat my patients, the dead patients, as live patients. I believe there is life after death. And I talk to my patients. I talk to them, not loudly but quietly in my heart when I look at them. Before I do an autopsy, I must have a visual contact with the face.”
10. “I grew up in Africa, in Nigeria. I never knew, I never had any reasonable encounter with football. I saw football on Sky News. I thought there were people dressed like extraterrestrials, you know, like they were going to Mars or something, headgears and shoulder pads. And I wondered why, as a child, why did they have to dress that way.”
11. The science has evolved. We have evolved as well. And in evolving, we are becoming more intelligent. For example, we used to use asbestos, but now we don’t, we’re not the NFL. This is just a bunch of moms.”
My favorite Benne Omalu quotes are, “There is no safe blow to the head, especially for a child.” and “Actually, I’m for football. But I’m for intelligent football that enhances us rather than football that steals away who we are.”