Morrison, IL, native and 1979 High School graduate Robert Rumfelt described himself on Thursday, March 17, 2016, as an “Inventor-Business Owner.” Now married and living near Auburn, AL, he played Mustang football under Coach Larry Stewart.
“That season was the turning point for Morrison football,” Rumfelt believes. He was a linebacker and held the MHS tackles record for a year. “I was knocked out Senior year against Fulton[, IL,] and suffered at least three–probably four–concussions, all in the late 70’s to the mid-80’s.” One was due to boxing.
As an adult he worked in radio and always followed sports; he has been “a sports maniac my whole life.” Following six years in the U. S. Navy, he coached youth football in Auburn in 2002. He said his goal was to work for a company that had something to do with sports. As former Service Manager at CoachComm, he was in charge of quality for NFL-quality, sideline headsets this company produces. They currently are used by 117 of 121 FBS schools. Rumfelt also repaired equipment after it was damaged, usually by a coach in anger. “I got to repair Steve Spurrier’s almost weekly!” Rumfelt chuckled.
Rumfelt shares a philosophy similar to Sir Winston S. Churchill. The latter stated, “No idea is so outlandish that is should not be considered with a searching, but at the same time with a steady, eye.”
He “designed a completely new type of football helmet. It doesn’t just merely reduce concussions. It may completely eliminate most of them. Preliminary tests show that it reduces g-forces to the head 70% better than the top-rated helmet currently on the market.”
Watch the 4.5 minute video (robrumfelt.com).
Rumfelt has done what the entire football community, sports equipment industry, and parents have craved since late 2011. That is when a fervent concussion discussion emerged on the National level. The PBS program “League of Denial” alarmed viewers. Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) was coined to describe the progressive, degenerative disease caused by severe and/or repetitive blows to the head. Brain anomalies were found during 2000 autopsies. Additionally, “to date, 87 of 91 former NFL players whose brains were studied at the VA-BU-CLF Brain bank have been diagnosed with CTE.”
So, it was natural that in 2011, his “wheels started spinning. I enjoy solving problems,” he stated, “and have always been an analytical, investigative person. I enjoy thinking outside the box.” He focused on “how to build a better helmet” for six months, using a conventional helmet. In 2012 Rumfelt had an epiphany.
“One day I realized that a conventional football helmet was never going to solve the concussion problem!” Conventional helmet design, he felt, had followed an “erroneous approach that was 123 years old,” dating back to 1893 when the first helmet was used.
Since the late 1940’s, when helmets were mandated, they have been designed to protect the skull–not the brain. Yet an average of six-to-eight high school players die each year from traumatic brain injury (TBI.) Why? Damage occurs when kinetic energy on impact transfers from the helmet to the brain inside the skull.
Over 20 million helmets are sold worldwide each year to football and winter athletes; military and civil personnel; motor racers; riot police; bomb squads; for other applications. Despite industry improvements, not one helmet is able to “prevent all direct impact from reaching the [wearer’s] head.”
What motivated this father of ten to design something innovative, revolutionary, and spot-on effective?
- His sons, left-to-right, Zach, 14; Jordan, 25; Joe, 19; Gabe, 21; Jonathan, 6.
- Devastating effects of brain concussions and deaths of football players.
- Increasing, successful lawsuits against the National Football League, National Collegiate Athletic Association, and high schools.
- A threat to the sport of football.
“It’s not just a game changer. It’s a life changer,” Rumfelt states. “Concussions are a multi-billion dollar problem….The NFL office in New York as well as a few former NFL players have shown interest in my design.” His equipment also protects the fragile neck and spine.
“Our business model is to develop and market the helmet and then license [manufacturers] to buy the rights to make and sell them. The helmets will be lighter than a conventional helmet. We do not anticipate” the new construction will reduce a player’s head range of motion. As for costs to schools he said, “We hope to scale the helmet to fit the market, so that they will be affordable to schools and peewee leagues that have to operate on a limited budget.”
Internal tests that employ a battering ram have shown a 70% improvement in initial impact, in comparison to the top-selling helmet now on the market. This is perhaps on the low end Rumfelt feels; “more like 70 to 100% energy absorption. This revolutionary design eliminates all direct-impact energy.” He would like to have an independent endorsement from one of these labs. “Virginia Tech has been a leader for years in helmet testing. Stanford, Penn State, the Universities of Nebraska and Washington” are possible labs he will pursue. Once the g-force reduction is proven to be significant and lab-proven, “word will get out to the NFL.”
“My goal is to identify investors, so that I can get this helmet to the market as soon as possible. No more players, especially youngsters, need to suffer permanent injuries or death due to football. I genuinely believe this helmet will save many from those outcomes in the years to come. We need to get it on kids as soon as possible!”
Funds are needed to build and test the prototypes of Rumfelt’s new protective system. He projects that it will take six months to design and build a non-working prototype, plus three-to-six months to build field-testable equipment for a lab. He urges interested persons to “partner with us” by emailing robrumfelt@gmail.com.
Goethe believed “daring ideas are like chessmen moved forward; they may be beaten, but they may start a winning game.”
Robert Rumfelt’s bold and brilliant helmet design, if allowed to move forward, will undoubtedly restart the game of football as a safer sport.