By DOUG IRELAND and JONATHON ZENK

NATCHITOCHES — A successful athletic career requires much more than productive practices, strength and conditioning training, and superior performance in competition.

Wednesday at Northwestern State’s Magale Recital Hall, two renowned neurosurgeons engaged NSU student-athletes and others presenting a more broad dimension to athletic achievement and good health during and after participants’ competitive careers. The forum launched a partnership with the university focusing on artificial intelligence enabled by the recently announced Lola Walker Dunahoe Endowed Chair.

About 300 Northwestern student-athletes, coaches and athletic staff took in a comprehensive but fast-moving dialog on sports science in a presentation that was also attended by some area high school coaches and medical professionals.

Dr. Julian Bailes, a Natchitoches native and a member of the Long Purple Line, NSU’s Alumni Hall of Distinction, and Dr. Neilank Jha provided compelling information to the midday audience on the university campus.

“It was a phenomenal seminar today on concussions, CTE, brain injury, nutrition and recovery,” Logansport High football coach Kevin Magee posted on social media afterward.

Bailes, a foremost expert on concussions, focused on brain health. His work was pivotal in the NFL grudgingly adopting reforms in concussion recognition and prevention, resulting in a recent marked drop in concussion rates. Bailes has also been influential as a consultant for the NFL Players Association, the NCAA and as the medical advisor for Pop Warner Football for youth.

His struggle to get the NFL to acknowledge and confront concussion issues resulted in the 2015 major motion picture Concussion, with Alec Baldwin playing Bailes and Will Smith taking the role of Bailes’ associate Dr. Bennet Omalu.

Jha, a Toronto resident who calls Bailes his mentor, provided extensive information about related topics including nutrition, motivation, strength training, supplement management, converting their college experiences into postgraduate success, and even best sleep practices to assist in athletes’ development and reduce concussion potential.

“It was important to talk to the student-athletes about concussion management,” Jha said. “Their brain is for the rest of their lives. Their sports career is short. Only two percent of NCAA athletes are going to go onto professional sports, while the other 98 percent are going to go into careers in the community.

“We were trying to give some guidance today and how they can leverage their experience as student-athletes to be successful in the community.”

Jha used motivational advice from seven-time Super Bowl winning quarterback Tom Brady, and explained routines that have keyed the remarkable longevity of Brady and all-time NBA scoring champion Lebron James. Jha explained those athletes’ emphasis on nutrition, training and restorative sleep practices in an hour-long presentation followed by a 20-minute question-and-answer session with an attentive audience.

Bailes’ work has been a major contributor to the rise of the awareness of Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) cases resulting from brain injuries, most often concussions. Arguably the most prominent case involved former Pittsburgh Steelers center Mike Webster, who was the anchor of the offensive line on the great Steelers teams of the 1970s when Shreveport’s Terry Bradshaw played quarterback and spearheaded four Super Bowl championships.

Bailes was a Steelers’ team doctor for several years beginning in 1988 near the end of Chuck Noll’s reign and continuing into Bill Cowher’s tenure as head coach, while Webster’s cognitive ability eroded after his retirement as a player. Webster, a Pro Football Hall of Fame member, died at age 50, and his story was a compelling anchor of the Concussion movie.

Bailes is credited with research and advocacy helping coaches, administrators and athletes become more aware of a continuing need for reforms to reduce head trauma. He noted that women’s soccer players have an even higher rate of concussions than football athletes.

“Teaching about concussions is so important because it is your brain and it’s an injury you can’t see,” Bailes said. “There’s no swelling, there’s no bleeding, but it is probably the most important sports medicine injury and has potentially, in a minority of players, long-term effects. If managed correctly and managed conservatively, a concussion will heal and there shouldn’t be any long-term effects.”

Dozens of NSU student-athletes visited with Jha afterward, and the entire football team and other athletes returned to hear an evening presentation by Bailes, Jha and another Long Purple Line member, artificial intelligence trailblazer Monty Chicola of Alexandria, on “Leadership in the Age of AI” open to the public and well attended at Magale.

“The (lunchtime) lecture was very informative because, as an athlete, we need to know what the signs are to look for concussions are and how to recover our bodies as student-athletes, especially with all the time we take in school and in our sport,” soccer defender Isabella Queneau said.

“It takes me take more precautions on the field after hearing that with all the stuff that happens in soccer. I just have to make sure I am communicating with my trainers and my coaches how I’m doing mentally and physically and how my brain is working as well to make sure nothing dangerous comes out of it.”

Sleeping sufficiently – duration and quality — is one main item that gets overlooked, as football linebacker Danny Sears admits.  Jha pointed out that NBA superstar James gets 8-9 hours of restful sleep nightly.

“The first thing I learned (today) is that I need to work on my sleep,” Sears said. “I am pretty bad at that and that is a good way to try to prevent concussions. If you get the right amount of sleep and nutrition plays a huge part in that. Being a student-athlete, doing those things is part of my job.”

Bailes and Jha stressed the rise of artificial intelligence as a transformative element in society – and in sports.

“AI can actually give you the data whether you should go for it on 4th-and-2 or you should punt the ball,”  Jha said. “It can help with training, as well as determine the athletic movements the players have are at risk for injury or if they need to adjust the movements to be more efficient. AI can also help the fan experience in the stadium. There are so many applications of AI all the way from student-athlete to coach to the fan experience that we can adopt at NSU.”

During the question-and-answer segment, the thoughtful inquiries from the audience impressed Bailes and Jha.

“The student-athletes had a lot of good questions and I believe were really into it,”  Bailes said. “They seemed to have a baseline knowledge, which 10 or 15 years ago wasn’t the case.”