Former BSU football player Matt Kaiserman, now a lobbyist for the National Football League, is presenting HB 632, on youth athletes' concussions, to the House State Affairs Committee. “There are many who have been negatively affected by concussion,” Kaiserman told the committee. “I can't stress enough that this is an injury that affects thousands.”

Kaiserman said, “I'm a local guy, I was born and raised in Idaho. … I dreamed of playing on the blue at Boise State, and that was a chance that I myself was fortunate enough to receive.” Before that, though, he had a high school football career, playing for Skyview High School in Nampa. He recalled, “One game when we were playing Sandpoint at Skyview, I was fielding a punt. ... I don't remember the hit. The only thing I remember is coming to while I was jogging off the field. … I shook it off and I continued to play ... because I was a product of the culture of the game at that point. The pull to be tough was simply too much.”

He said things changed when he got to Boise State, which had the medical experts and trainers to recognize when a player who's suffered a concussion shouldn't keep playing. After his first college football concussion, “I sat out for three months with post-concussion syndrome,” he said. Then he took the notorious hit at the Maaco Las Vegas Bowl. “I was knocked unconscious. My brand-new titanium face mask was broken.” That hit ended his football career.

Repeat concussions can lead to fatal injuries for young players; there was one just in the past year in Priest River, Kaiserman told the lawmakers. He said Idaho needs schools to set protocols for coaches, administrators and schools to help them protect youngsters. “What we've created is a bill that is a great fit for Idaho. … It protects schools, coaches and athletes through local control.” He said the bill is “both simple and cost-free.” Under the bill, free information on how to recognize concussions would be provided to school officials, players and parents to help schools develop protocols, and when an athlete who's been hit exhibits signs and symptoms of a concussion, he or she must immediately be removed from play; school officials who follow the protocols are relieved of legal liability. "We're simply asking people to be cognizant of the injury and act in the best interest of the athlete," he said.