Cindy Parlow Cone is a soccer legend, known as one of the best headers in the game. Her career is one many soccer enthusiasts aspire to—she is a four-time honored All-American, two-time winner of the Hermann Trophy, and winner of two Olympic Gold Medals. Yet, Cone’s career hasn’t been without injury and pain, the unanticipated consequences of a world-class athletic career. 

Today, Cone experiences headaches, fatigue and moments of imbalance that are caused by post-concussion syndrome, a condition that led to her retirement in 2006 after nine years of professional play. She suffered two diagnosed concussions during her career. But her symptoms come from a lifetime of sports-related head trauma, often undetected by herself and others.

And that’s the huge problem she’s trying to solve with a new wearable device startup called ImVere. ‘Im’ means “impact” and ‘vere’ means “true”, representing the Chapel Hill company’s mission to provide accurate, true head impact data for athletes.

ImVere has an innovative device that accurately and reliably detects head impact and rotation. The device is being tested by some groups, but is not currently available to the public. That’s because a significant amount of funding is needed to bring the device to market, investment Cone hopes to receive after a year of mentorship and networking provided by the local SoarTriangle program for female founders.

Although Cone is famous for heading the ball, she is far from an outlier with her symptoms. According to a study conducted by McGill University, more than 60% of college-level soccer players report symptoms of concussion during a single season. Only 12.6% of those soccer-related symptoms are a result of head-to-soccer ball activity. Head to player, ground, post, wall, etc. also account for the head trauma reported. Those events happen so frequently in a game that it’s almost impossible to know of head injury. 

“When you watch youth or professional sports it is hard to detect who should undergo further concussion testing,” Cone says. That became more apparent years later when she worked as director of coaching for the Triangle United Soccer Association and then as head coach in 2013 for the women’s professional soccer team in Oregon, the Portland Thorns.

There’s more to the story. Read it at:

http://exitevent.com/article/soartriangle-mentee-olympic-gold-medalist-cindy-parlow-cone-imvere-150817

Plus: Watch a YouTube video interview with Cone at: