2026 Awardee – Andrew Staker – Weber High School HS

My Life

I have suffered from severe brain damage for a long time, and if you know anything about this then you know that after the first one you’re more susceptible to getting another one. My first concussion came while I was in Third grade. It wasn’t too severe, but it would have a lasting effect on my life.

Growing up I always enjoyed playing sports. Any major sport I tried, but my favorite was soccer. I dedicated a lot of my time to this sport, and as I continued to grow up my love for the game did the same. At a certain age they allow you to start heading the ball, I couldn’t do this because every time I would do this it would mess up my head for the rest of the day. I had to make the tough choice between doing something I loved and ruining the rest of my life or giving it up and not having head problems everyday. If you can see where this is going you can see that I gave it up because I didn’t want to struggle profusely for a single activity.

You may think that this is the end of my story, but it isn’t. I started to learn how to cope with the constant brain damage and headaches, and I thought that I would finally have a semi-normal life. I got another major concussion. It was about a month into my eighth grade year and I had high hopes  I was just hanging out with my friends not expecting anything bad to happen when suddenly I got tackled and nailed my head on the ground. I went in and told my parents and they were concerned as they should have been, but they didn’t expect what was to come.

The next day I slept for the majority of the day. Which was a sign that something was really wrong with me because they knew that I would never take naps. When the weekend was over they took me to the doctor and their suspicions were confirmed. I had sustained a pretty major concussion. So I was taken out of school and had to do it from home. We thought that I would be out for just a week, but I was out for over half of the school year. This was a really rough time because I could do nothing. Lights and sound caused my head to hurt, but the visual stimulation and hard thinking was the worst. I couldn’t do anything. all that I could do was sit in a dark room and listen to audio books for the whole day.

This was a really hard time and I was put on the home and hospital schooling system where somebody would come in twice a week and help me with homework, but doing homework was a struggle. I could only do it for half an hour and then I would have to take an hour long break between every time I do homework. This tried me. I struggled. I had no idea how long this was going to last.

This went on for over six months. We were trying everything to see if we could help me heal quicker. We eventually found a brain doctor down in Provo who said he could help. He had all these different tests that could tell which section of your brain is damaged. He would give me certain tests that seemed weird, but helped solve my brain injuries This has given me a chance to live a more normal life and not have to freak out every time  I bump my head.