Marion County Schools, Rockefeller Neuroscience Institute team up on brain study

Casey Turley, a Riddell employee, scans 7th grader Haiden Thompson’s head for a custom fit helmet on June 18, 2025.

Photo by Esteban Fernandez

FAIRMONT — Students at West Fairmont Middle School received the NFL treatment on Wednesday.

During this fall’s football season, middle and high school football players will provide valuable data to the Rockefeller Neuroscience Institute at West Virginia University,which will allow researchers to study head injuries in youth contact sports. The Institute partnered with Marion County Schools for the program and Riddell, a company that manufactures safety gear for football players, is providing the equipment.

“It started with the tragedy last August, when middle school football player CohenCraddock passed away,” Javier Cardenas, director of the Neuroperfomance Innovation Center at the Rockefeller Neuroscience Institute, said. “I spoke with his dad over the last year as we were looking at some policies in order to help kids be safe. Based on what happened, we wanted to launch a comprehensive program that wasn’t just going to be focused on things like helmet add-ons, but also focused on the best safety technology. A comprehensive program for keeping our kids safe.”

Cardenas said middle school athletes are often overlooked and underfunded when it comes to football. He said the Rockefeller Institute and WVU Medicine is launching a neuroperformance program as a way to protect athletes and address that. Cardenas said neuroperformance means three things — injury prevention, injury recovery and enhancing sport performance. He said the goal is to optimize sport performance, which the Rockefeller Institute does through research. Now, it wants to apply those principles to athletes on the field.

It began with a 3D scan of each athlete’s head. Representatives from Riddell arrived at West Fairmont with some skull caps that allowed an app that is run from a phone or tablet to take the necessary measurements to create a custom fit for a helmet. The helmet itself also contains pressure sensors, which will gather data as the athletes play.

Hayden Dewig, a research scientist at the Rockefeller Institute, said the data the helmets collect will give coaches and researchers insight into what’s happening while players are on the field, whether in practice or in games. By studying the hit locations and loads,researchers will be better able to facilitate an athlete’s health over a long period of time.

“This isn’t just a football initiative,” Dewig said. “It’s about concussion rates. We want to always get those done, but sometimes there are lower level hits that are happening over and over day after day. That may not lead to a big concussion, but still affect the brain.Especially at this age, where they are young.”

Dewig said repetitive head impacts may have significant influence on health over a long term. Cardenas said brain injuries can lead to headaches, dizziness, vision changes and emotional changes. The brain is particularly vulnerable to bleeding and swelling with a second impact, which is why doctors typically try to have their patients avoid a second impact during a sustained concussion.

A US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study found youth tackle football athletes had 15 times more head impacts than flag football athletes during practice or a game. Youth tackle football athletes experiences a median of 378 head impacts per athlete during a season. A study from the University of Washington’s Sports Health andSafety Institute and the Seattle Children’s Research Institute found concussion rates in youth football is 5%.

Riddell Spokesperson Erin Griffin said the company is outfitting 100 student athletes with the advanced helmets and the Rockefeller Neuroscience Institute is absorbing the cost of the program. Riddell actually has a similar program already established in Denver,Colorado, where the Denver Broncos and the Denver Broncos Foundation are trying to outfit all schools in Colorado with the same type of technology.

Cardenas, who has a working relationship with Riddell through his work in Arizona and with the NFL, learned about the program and reached out to try to bring it to West Virginia.

Griffin said a best fitting helmet is the most protective helmet, and with its technology, it can provide the snuggest fit to athletes to protect them on the field.

“Football is a contact sport, and it takes a multi-faceted approach to advance athlete protection,” Griffin said. “Riddell believes an integrated comprehensive approach, like what is represented in our smart helmet platform, including Tru-Fit Axiom Helmet Platform, as well as InSite Analytics, is a superior way to protect the athlete.”