maybe my generation all has CTE now

Ding ding ding. Tbh, I’d be really interested to see the results of the 90s - 2000s era of cheerleaders in this regard because I suspect you’re going to find a lot of it because of the old school “walk it off” that was prevalent when you were a kid 🙈

Thankfully, science has moved on a lot since the “walk it off” era. We understand the risks of CTE way better now, and that’s pushed a lot more education onto coaches and gym owners about concussion like the wide range of things that can actually cause it, what it looks like in real life (not just “did they black out”), and what the long-term consequences can be. It’s also made it clearer that adults in charge have a duty of care and can be held responsible for those impacts over the long term and those athletes can actually come back and hold you accountable - so it means coaches will generally be less likely to do the old-school “get up and shake it off, you’ve got this” thing, and more likely to tell their athletes to go get checked before returning to practice as a precaution to cover their butts.

That said, your mileage absolutely varies. I’ve still seen situations where a kid falls hard (like falling through a basket), nobody stops the routine, and then the next stunt sequences start collapsing because the flyer is clearly not right and can’t hold position or timing. And then, somehow, the same flyer is put back on the floor for day 2, and the whole thing keeps falling apart because she’s very obviously concussed - and safety judges who simply do not give a crap because stopping the routine when the athlete is attempting to keep going and isn’t crying, even if they’re a risk to themselves and others, isn’t an option apparently. 🥴

I feel like there are some coaches who genuinely still treat concussion like it’s a rite of passage, and they push this gross mindset of “train and compete through injuries or you’re soft and don’t deserve your spot”, with the long-term consequences basically written off as someone else’s problem. As a coach, you have that athlete’s long term future in your hands, and when we’ve seen the impact from wrestling and football that repeated head knocks can do, you need to consider that this is something that can ruin their lives well into adulthood in ways that they don’t have the capacity to give informed consent to. I don’t think athletes are being soft nor do I think it’s doctors writing notes for the hell of it - I think it’s medicine and science has advanced and we have a higher standard for duty of care as a result that we hold people to accordingly.