Becoming UnDone
156 | The Concussion That Changed Everything: Dr. Shawn Eagle's Path to Purpose
03 May 2026
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
This is Becoming Undone. My senior year in camp, I had a pretty severe AC joint separation in my shoulder. I was out for six or seven weeks of my senior year and, you know, not, I'm not going pro. That's all you get. So I have at least six games. I was captain of the team.
I was really, you know, upset about that, but I focused on getting better and, and, uh, setting up a plan so that I could come back and make the most of the last three or four games. And, uh, I put on my helmet when I was coming back, went out to practice that first time back, had a head-to-head collision, and got a concussion.
Chapter 2: What personal experiences shaped Dr. Shawn Eagle's journey to becoming a concussion expert?
I struggled a lot with that. I was going to miss at least another game. I kind of spiraled in anxiety and depression. I can't believe this is happening. The story of how I got here is very interesting because you're right, this doesn't happen very often from an MAT degree. You know, I went the typical route. I ended up getting a athletic trainer position at my alma mater high school.
I was pretty miserable. You know, eventually the AD comes to me and is like, I don't think this is a good fit. So, you know, you have two more weeks. I think this is a big part why I'm so passionate about the CTE side of things is I don't know what, I had great parents, but I don't know what I would be without football.
And it was so foundational to my life and the character and the person I want to be. And I don't want that to go away for so many young men who are searching for something. I'm Sean Eagle and I am Undone.
Hey friend, I'm glad you're here. Welcome to yet another episode of Becoming Undone, the podcast for those who dare bravely, risk mightily, and grow relentlessly. I'm Toby Brooks, a speaker, author, professor, and performance scientist. I've spent much of the last two decades working as an athletic trainer and a strength coach in the professional, collegiate, and high school sports settings.
And over the years, I've grown more and more fascinated with what sets high achievers apart. and how failures that can suck in the moment can end up being exactly what we needed to propel us on our paths to success. Each week on Becoming Undone, I invite new guests to examine how high achievers can transform from falling apart to falling into place.
I'd like to emphasize that this show is entirely separate from my role at Baylor University, but it's my attempt to apply what I've learned and what I'm learning and to share with others about the mindsets and stories of high achievers. Y'all, it's been a remarkably cool and dreary day here in Central Texas. The kind of gloomy gray that takes me back to where I grew up in Southern Illinois.
Those long winter months of no sunlight, that low, depressing ceiling of clouds, and a kind of quiet heaviness that just seemed to hang in the air for months at a time. And I don't know about you, but those early seasons of life have a way of coming back at unexpected times. And today was one of those days.
Now, I won't bore you with the details, but it's been one of the more challenging stretches that I can remember.
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Chapter 3: How did injuries impact Dr. Eagle's identity as an athlete?
The work has come hard. The lessons have been painful. And the pace at times has been relentless. But I'm still standing, and it's Friday night at 10.20 p.m., and I'm still grinding, still working away. Sometimes that's the best we can do is to just show up. That said, there are days when it feels like I'm limping through life on two or three cylinders.
but maybe those are the days that we need to give ourselves a little grace and recognize that doing your best doesn't mean perfect it just means giving all that you had and maybe that's enough today's guest has had days like that too dr sean eagle he'll be the first to tell you there are moments in life that don't just change your path
They change you, not all at once, not in some dramatic, even cinematic way. Sometimes it's just one hit, one injury, one moment where something shifts and you don't even fully understand it at the time. And for high achievers, especially athletes, we're taught to push through those moments, to grind and to fight and to ignore what doesn't feel right and just keep going.
But what happens when the thing you're pushing through is actually changing you? Not just physically, but mentally and emotionally. Even at the level of your identity. This episode is a personal one for me. Because it's not just about concussion. It's not just about sport. It's about a young man I had the chance to teach early in his journey.
Whose story stayed with me long after he left my classroom. And as a further alert, I got a little choked up more than once in my attempt to apologize for what I thought in the moment some 15 years ago was the best way to encourage a student.
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Chapter 4: What role do athletic trainers play in managing concussions?
This episode is about what happens when a setback doesn't just derail you, but it quietly begins to reshape the direction of your life. Today, Dr. Eagle is one of the leading voices in the world on traumatic brain injury, with more than 150 peer-reviewed publications, and a work that's changing how we understand, treat, and recover from concussion.
But long before that, he was a captain, an athlete, a competitor, and like so many others, his story didn't unfold the way that he thought it would. What you're about to hear is not just a story about injury. It's a story about identity. And if we get real honest about regret and redemption and ultimately about what it really means to become undone.
I hope you'll enjoy my conversation with Dr. Sean Eagle in episode 156. Let's get into it. Becoming Undone is a podcast for those who dare bravely, risk mightily, and grow relentlessly. Join me, Toby Brooks, as I invite a new guest each week where we examine how high achievers can transform from falling apart to falling into place.
And I will tell you, today's episode is a special one for me because I get the chance to reconnect with someone I've known for a long time. And I've had the privilege of teaching early in his journey, and it's been really exciting to see how he's grown since those days. So joining me today is Dr. Sean Eagle.
He's now an assistant professor and researcher in the Department of Neurological Surgery at the University of Pittsburgh. He's a renowned traumatic brain injury expert. He's got more than 150 papers to his credit and counting. I'm sure there's several in the opera right now. Yeah.
He's considered a global expert on concussion, but his journey today traces all the way back to his experiences as an athlete. So, Sean, Dr. Eagle, it's great to have you on the show. Welcome to Becoming Undone.
Thank you so much for having me.
Well, you reached out to me and I was super excited because your story was one that stuck with me. In a given year, we would have 100 applicants for one of the student positions in our program. And there was an essay associated with that. And I distinctly remember yours, even to this day, how you were...
a leader on your football team in college and how concussion had really kind of derailed your journey. And I recall us having conversations about how that was influencing you even then. And to see what you've done with it since then is even more exciting for me. So I always start with a little bit of a softball to begin. What did you want to be growing up and why?
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Chapter 5: How has concussion treatment evolved over the years?
And I went to college and they actually had an athletic training major at Denison University. It's a very small liberal arts school in Ohio. And I had six other people in my class. And the combination of football and maybe being on my own for the first time led me not to perform as to my, to my best.
And my grades were fine, but that was right when physician's assistant school was like really getting hot and the criteria to get in were, were strict. And so that, that wasn't, that was quickly not becoming an option for me. And it was my mom who said, you know, you have this athletic training degree, you should try to get a master's in it and practice.
And I thought, you know, that's a pretty good idea. I should try to do that. And that's what led me to apply. And at the time there were very, there were only like 15 programs or something like that across the country. And,
I had gone to a big high school in a very small college, and I wanted to feel what it felt like to be a student at a big program with big-time sports, and Texas Tech was the best option of those. That's how I ended up in Lubbock.
Yeah, that's great. I know you were a collegiate athlete. Briefly talk me through your journey from high school sports to college. I mean, you kind of alluded to the master's degree, but really the core of this show is how setbacks that we face along the way can really help set us up for success.
So kind of talk me through that process as a high school athlete and beyond and how that maybe set the stage for what was later to come.
Yeah, sometimes things just kind of line up in an interesting way, and hopefully we'll get to this, but you've had an influence on my life, whether you knew it or not. And let me go back first. So we were the third biggest high school in terms of student population in Western Pennsylvania.
Western Pennsylvania is a big time for high school football, sports in general, but definitely football overall. area. Um, you know, I'm not sure it quite lives up to Texas, uh, high school football, but some, some of the all time football grades have come out of Western Pennsylvania and, you know, football was a big deal and it felt like a really big deal to us.
And, you know, thousands of people would come watch us play our games. And, uh, you know, you don't know this at the time, but I played tight end of defensive end. And when I lined up at tight end, the person to my left,
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Chapter 6: What are the long-term effects of concussions on athletes?
played for the Green Bay Packers for several years. And the person to his left played for the Minnesota Vikings for several years and blocked for Adrian Peterson. we had big time athletes all over the place and, um, you know, it, it felt very, you know, especially to a young kid, it felt very important to me.
Um, and you know, I had had a series of injuries my senior year in high school and I had a converse, I had a conversation with my parents was like, I don't know if I want to do this anymore. Like I was pretty broken down by the end of my senior year. Like, I'm not sure I want to do this and college and, They both pushed me into doing it, and I'm glad they did.
I landed at a small Division III school for football and went from Friday Night Lights, where it felt like this big, huge event in the center of the town, and playing for... 40, 50 people on Saturday afternoons at a small school. And, you know, I was like, what did I do here at first? And then I kind of fell into it. You know, I got invested in changing the program to ways.
We were very middle of the road for a long time, and now they're consistently in the top end of their conference, which is something I'm proud of because... I helped, at least from a student-athlete perspective, lend my recommendations to a board that hired the coach that coached my senior year and is still there. His name is Jack Hadam.
Wow.
A great guy. But in terms of how football led me here, my senior year in camp, I had a... Pretty severe AC joint separation in my shoulder. I was out for six or seven weeks of my senior year, and I'm not going pro. That's all you get. So I had at least six games. I was captain of the team.
I was really upset about that, but I focused on getting better and setting up a plan so that I could come back and make the most of the last three or four games. And I put on my helmet when I was coming back.
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Chapter 7: How does Dr. Eagle's work contribute to understanding CTE?
went out to practice that first time back, had a head-to-head collision, and got a concussion. I realized after the fact that nobody, including myself, had thought to blow up the air in the pockets of the helmet for the last seven weeks. And maybe that was what happened, but... I struggled a lot with that. I was going to miss at least another game. I kind of spiraled in anxiety and depression.
I can't believe this is happening. It's my last season.
In a story that is all too familiar, Sean shares his own experiences with injury and how they shaped his journey and his path. It started with a severe AC separation in his shoulder. That's especially problematic in a pass-catching tight end like he was, who was also frequently blocking big, quick defensive ends. That initial injury cost him two-thirds of his senior season by itself.
And as he reflected, that timeout might have also made him more susceptible to the injury he'd suffer next, a concussion. Sean's helmet was most likely under-inflated, leaving him vulnerable.
And when he sustained a helmet-to-helmet blow, not only was he likely wearing an ill-fitting piece of protective gear, he probably also was not as strong in his upper traps and the surrounding musculature as he would have been, had he been playing that whole time. Regardless, the impact led to a concussion, and what's worse, his symptoms lingered.
Even though Sean was at a small Division III school, his team had an athletic trainer. And one of the things I love most about the profession of AT is that we get to really know our athletes. Being embedded in the team, we're a perfect example of preventative upstream healthcare.
Sean's AT knew him because he'd worked with him in rehabilitating his injuries or maybe even just being in the locker room, the training room or the weight room. So when Sean's personality changed and those lingering symptoms of concussion triggered anxiety and mood changes in him, his AT noticed. And that matters more than most people might realize.
At the college level, especially within organizations like the NCAA, access to ATs has thankfully become the norm. The vast majority of NCAA programs have dedicated sports medicine staffs assigned to their teams, and that kind of coverage is expected today. Now, admittedly, many staffs tend to be overextended and underfunded, but at least someone's there.
But if we zoom out for a second, we realize that Sean's story could have easily happened a few years earlier in high school. And that's where the gap becomes impossible to ignore. Across the U.S., nearly 8 million high school athletes compete each year through the National Federation of High School State Associations. That's millions of kids. Same collision, same risk, same stakes.
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Chapter 8: What insights does Dr. Eagle provide on resilience and recovery?
Unfortunately, that's not a universal standard. For millions of young athletes, it's an exception. Nobody's tracking their baseline. Nobody's recognizing when something seems off. No one's connecting the dots between injury, behavior, and mental health.
And when you start to see it that way, Sean's story stops feeling like an isolated case, and it starts to feel like a glimpse into a much bigger problem. Lucky for Sean, his AT not only noticed, but he took action. And it was a step that likely changed his life, not to mention his life's work.
And it took an athletic trainer, our team's athletic trainer, to pull me aside and say, You're not the same person right now. You're acting differently. And we know concussions can do this. And let's figure out a plan. And it's something that, you know, after the fact seems so obvious that a concussion was causing the anxiety for at least three or four days. I was shocked. I was losing it.
I wasn't sleeping. I didn't understand what was happening. And so thank God for him. His name was Eric Winters. He was an athletic trainer at Denison University. And that stuck in my mind. And I wanted... Even through our time in Texas Tech, we didn't have very much at our disposal for concoction.
Learning about that more at Texas Tech and then more as a research assistant with the military, or focused on military populations rather, that led me to where I am today.
Yeah. And I have to say, Sean, I was so happy when you reached out to me because over the years, I've looked back over my career. You know, it's kind of what old men do. We sit in our chair and we think back about things we could have done better or things that went great. And As I said, your story stuck out to me. You were a leader.
And I remember conversations with you where you said how hard it was to think that coaches were questioning your character, like you weren't tough enough or you were somehow faking this or this was lingering on longer than it should have. And I feel like in some ways I did the same thing to you because there were moments in your academic career where I knew you were capable of so much more.
And I had a coach who often said to me, sometimes we need a kick in the pants and sometimes we need a hug around the neck. And if I give you the wrong one, I send exactly the wrong message. But if I give you the right one, that's precisely what you needed. And since you went on, and I've seen what you did as a professional, the research that you're doing, you're honored at Texas Tech as an alum.
I remember just the regret of thinking I kicked you in the pants when you needed a hug around the neck. And I wasn't trying to... Enable poor behavior. I was trying to encourage you and inspire you to be the best that you could be.
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