M2MMA Advisory Board member @docbottsny opens up on the challenges he faced after a career ending hit playing football.

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M2MMA Advisory Board member @docbottsny opens up on the challenges he faced after a career ending hit playing football. Watch the full podcast with Dr. Thomas Bottiglieri NOW on the @m2mmaofficial YouTube Channel. An athletes career coming to an end is challenge in many ways…

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M2MMA Advisory Board member @docbottsny opens up on the challenges he faced after a career ending hit playing football. 

Watch the full podcast with Dr. Thomas Bottiglieri NOW on the @m2mmaofficial YouTube Channel. 

An athletes career coming to an end is challenge in many ways, not least to their identity. Many suffer greatly and we must do better to support them during this time. 

The M2MMA M2Intel app is being designed to support an athlete holistically both through their athletic career and beyond. 

SUBSCRIBE NOW to support our work!

news_transcript (instagram_whisper)

There's something about sport and there's something about having to face
the end of
Your your ability to do the thing you want to do at the level you want to do it that is
Is a very interesting
paradox right because
Athletes are constantly challenge themselves to be the best they can be and when you can't be the best you can be
Where do you go and how do you deal with that? So?
That's the the quickest way I could summarize that experience
Well, I immediately have a number of questions, but my first one is, how did you deal with
it initially?
I was very depressed.
I spent about six months depressed.
I struggled in school.
I really didn't know who to talk to.
I would talk to my dad, and he would encourage me.
My father was amongst my biggest fans, probably my little grandma was my biggest fan, but
my father would, he had this sense that I was a genius and everything was going to be
fine.
You know, don't worry about it. You're gonna do you're gonna be fine and
There was no treatment. There were no doctors the last time I met with the team doctor, you know, he was very sort of
Adamant that it wasn't the big deal and then I met with a neurologist who told me I could die if I ever got hit in the head again
So there was this weird
Sort of cloud that lingered for for many months and I had to kind of figure out how to treat myself because there was really no support
The coach was great, Walt Hamlin, he offered me to stay on the team and act as an assistant
and help.
I, my ego and whatever else kept me from doing that, which was a gigantic mistake, I should
have stayed on the team and lifted and ran and did the other things I could have did
to be part of that social network, even if I couldn't compete.
But once I couldn't run into people with my face anymore, I was not interested in being
on the football field.