We’d like to invite you to partner in a new education program designed to help us better identify concussions.

We’ve designated Tuesday, Sept. 13, as Team Up Day, and we plan to Team Up and Speak Up to Fight Concussions. We are asking coaches around the country, along with their captains and medical team (if they have one), to give a short speech to their team before their practice, game, or workout on Sept. 13 that makes 3 simple points:

1. We’re a team.
2. A teammate with a concussion is a teammate that needs your help.
3. It is your responsibility to speak up to an adult if you think a teammate has a concussion.

This is a message that athletes do not hear enough today, but ironically it is inspired by a speech given to the Harvard football team in 1905, chronicled in the journal of head coach Bill Reid, in which the team doctor told the players that if anyone “gets hurt by a hit on the head so that he does not realize what he is doing, his teammate should at once insist that time be called and that a doctor come onto the field to see what is the trouble.”

This speech has been lost to history, and together we’re going to bring it back. The speech utilizes the validated bystander model of intervention now taught in successful anti-bullying campaigns. 

Participating is easy, and is detailed in the attached “How to Participate” one-pager. Please join the initiative by:

1. Signing up your organization at TeamUpDay.org
2. Speaking up by making sure this speech is given to the teams you care about.
3. Spreading the word on social media.

Thank you for your help in this effort!