NFL commissioner Roger Goodell will be honoured in Jacksonville, Fla. for his work with high school programs in the region.
According to The Florida Times-Union, Goodell will receive the Jacksonville Sports Medicine Program Leaders in Sports Health, Safety and Research Award for his work in helping setup the Project 17.
Goodell accepts this award on the heels of the NFL acknowledging that concussions can cause CTE after many years denying it.
Project 17 is a partnership between the NFL, the Jacksonville Jaguars and Jacksonville University’s sports medicine program. The goal of the program is to place "17 full-time athletic trainers in all 17 Duval County public high schools by 2020," according to the Times-Union.
"As a partnership with the Jaguars and NFL through Project 17, we identified that we wanted to create an award for leadership in sports health safety and research," said Bob Sefcik, executive director of the Jacksonville Sports Medicine Program, "Part of that inaugural effort for that award, we wanted to honour Roger Goodell for doing that for our community schools and getting athletic trainers in there. Ultimately, it was an idea we came up with and shared with the Jaguars."
According to the Times-Union, the program has been well received by players and programs in the area.
