TORONTO, Sept. 21, 2011 − Legendary CFL quarterback Matt Dunigan will speak to York University athletes, trainers, coaches and scientists, as well as parents and members of the public during a symposium on sport concussion on Monday, Sept. 26.
Blow by Blow: 2nd Annual Donald Sanderson Memorial Symposium on Sport Concussion is being held in honour of the York kinesiology student and promising hockey player who died Jan. 2, 2009 as a result of a head injury during a Whitby Dunlops game.
York’s School of Kinesiology & Health Science will host the two-hour evening event which will bring sports medicine and brain researchers together with athletes to discuss an injury that continues to impair the careers and health of both amateur and professional athletes − most recently, hockey champion Sidney Crosby.
Dunigan, a game analyst with TSN since 1996, played football for 14 years on five Canadian teams and was inducted into the Canadian Football Hall of Fame in 2006. He retired from football in 1996 after suffering at least a dozen diagnosed concussions, and continues to struggle with the long-term effects of those concussions. He will speak about the post-concussive symptoms he has experienced since retirement and the effect of concussion on himself and his family as well as the importance of reporting concussion and taking it seriously. A champion of research on sport concussion, Dunigan announced last spring that upon his death his brain will be donated toToronto’s Krembil Neuroscience Centre.
Dahna Sanderson, who established the Donald Sanderson Memorial Trust Fund in memory of her son, will also speak during the symposium. A sports mom and fan for 20 years, she coached professional figure skating, and is passionate about sports and sports safety.
A sports medicine specialist and neuroscientist who studies concussion will also speak at the symposium.
Dr. Paul Echlin is a primary care sport medicine specialist, certified in family and sports medicine inCanada and the U.S. Currently practicing inBurlington, he has been a Junior Hockey team physician for the past decade in bothCanada and theU.S. He is a Research Chair at the Hockey Neurotrauma and Concussion Initiative Research Committee and is primary investigator of the Hockey Concussion Education Project.
Lauren Sergio, is a professor in theSchool ofKinesiology and Health Science inYork’s Faculty of Health. A neuroscientist, she studies the effects of age, sex, neurological disease, head injury and experience (elite versus non-elite athletes) on the brain’s control of complex movement. She works with a wide range of adults, from NHL draft prospects and Alzheimer’s disease patients, using behavioural and brain imaging techniques.
The Hon. Roy McMurtry, Chancellor of York University and a former Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the Canadian Football League, will deliver opening remarks, and award-winning reporter Teddy Katz will MC the event.
The symposium takes place in the Price Family Cinema, Accolade East Building, at York University’s Keele campus, from 7 to 9pm. Building 92 on MAP of Keele campus.
Admission is free, but registration is required. To register and for more information on speakers, visit the Blow by Blow symposium website, www.yorku.ca/health/kine/blowbyblow.
York University is the leading interdisciplinary research and teaching university in Canada. York offers a modern, academic experience at the undergraduate and graduate level in Toronto – Canada’s most international city. The third largest university in the country, York is host to a dynamic academic community of 55,000 students and 7,000 faculty and staff, as well as 240,000 alumni worldwide. York’s 10 faculties and 28 research centres conduct ambitious, groundbreaking research that is interdisciplinary, cutting across traditional academic boundaries. This distinctive and collaborative approach is preparing students for the future and bringing fresh insights and solutions to real-world challenges. York University is an autonomous, not-for-profit corporation.
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Media Contacts:
Wallace Pidgeon, Media Relations, YorkUniversity, 416-736-2100 ext. 22091, wpidgeon@yorku.ca
Janice Walls, Media Relations, YorkUniversity, 416-736-2100, ext. 22101, wallsj@yorku.ca
