Mr. Threet goes to Washington

Steven Threet is used to the spotlight. It comes with the
job of playing quarterback for a major college football
program.

But those days are over. Yet the spotlight remains.

The former ASU quarterback found himself in our nation’s
capital last week speaking in front of the U.S. Senate.
“My C-SPAN debut,” he said with a smile.

Threet was in front of the Senate Commerce, Science and
Transportation Committee for a hearing on “concussions and
the marketing of sports equipment; just dealing with some
of the awareness of the issue and how some brands have
chosen to market to players and families of players who
have had brain injuries or who are trying to protect from
brain injuries.”

Threet is intimately familiar with the subject. The 22-
year-old retired from the game he loved to play because of
concussions. Against UCLA last season, Threet was knocked
out of the game by what turned out to be his fourth
concussion.

He later decided to give up football—at least the
playing part. Threet remains involved in the game,
joining Dennis Erickson’s staff this year as a student
assistant.

Last week though he got the hall pass to travel to
Washington D.C. “Coaches definitely had to give me the
okay to make that happen but I was glad I was able to,” he
said. “It worked out pretty well having the bye week.”

Threet said he wasn’t nervous (“It was a lot of fun.”)
because it wasn’t his first time speaking in front of a
group of politicians. “I testified on some legislation in
the Arizona House of Representatives. Obviously, the
United States Senate is a little bit bigger stage.”

Because of his story and his decision to give up football
Threet has been pushed under a different spotlight, one he
doesn’t mind.

“I feel like that there’s a lot of people who have had
concussions. I think I’m obviously one of the more recent
ones and kind of in the limelight because of that decison
and when it took place.”

Threet sits on the advisory board of the Brain Injury
Association of Arizona. He was a guest speaker, along
with Olympic gold medalist skier Picabo Street, at the
Arizona Concussion Summit in August. And the legislation
he testified on helped pass Arizona Senate Bill 1521 that
requires schools to educate coaches, students and parents
about sports related head injuries.

Currently, he’s a public relations intern at Banner Health
that deals with Alzheimer’s research.

“It’s something,” he said of speaking out on head injuries
and telling his story, “I’m very willing to do.”

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