THE DAWNING ERA OF SPORTS MEDICINE : THE MOUTH : The Set of His Jaw Might Provide the Real Clue to Athlete’s Confidence

UCLA lost its opening football game of 1977 at Houston because the Bruin kicker, Frank Corral, was not wearing his mouthpiece.

Think that’s overstated?

Corral had kicked field goals of 36 and 31 yards in the first quarter, and the Bruins were leading in the second quarter when Corral punted for 47 yards and then was leveled by a Cougar tackle and suffered a broken jaw. UCLA lost, 17-13, when Corral’s backup, safety Michael Coulter, missed field goals of 23 and 27 yards in the fourth quarter.

For want of a mouthpiece. . . .

Spiro Chaconas, the UCLA team dentist, was on the sideline and said he knew immediately that Corral’s jaw was broken. He rushed out to see why the mouthpiece he had made for Corral hadn’t helped him. “I found his mouthpiece in his sock,” Chaconas said.

Since then, Coach Terry Donahue never takes fewer than three kickers on the road, and he makes it perfectly clear that mouthpieces should be in the mouth, not the sock.

No one argues whether the mouthpiece is important for injury prevention. But does it enhance performance?

There are those who believe that proper positioning of the jaw, through the use of a specially designed mouthpiece, can add to an athlete’s strength and stamina. There are others who contend that any increase in strength and stamina with the use of such devices would be psychological.

“You will find as many articles saying that they (mandibular orthopedic appliance or MORA) do increase strength as you will find saying that they don’t,” Chaconas said. “That’s why we’re testing. We’re doing research on that right now at UCLA.”

John Stenger, the team dentist at Notre Dame, was reporting success in preventing concussions and other types of head and neck trauma through the use of an “acrylic splint” mouthguard in the early 1960s. He wrote: “It is my firm belief that the relationship of the mandible (jaw bone) to total head posture is the answer to the beneficial results observed.”

And when Richard Kaufman, an orthodontist in practice with Harold Gelb in Oceanside, N.Y., fit members of the 1980 United States Olympic luge team with the MORA designed by Gelb they found that the athletes had fewer headaches and were able to make more practice runs. As a result, more athletes began asking for the device.

As more athletes reported improved performance with mouthpieces that adjusted their jaw positions, there was more and more controversy.

“At one of our symposiums a couple of years ago,” Chaconas said, “a sports psychologist was asked if he thought the improvement was more a result of psychology than physiology and he said--’What difference does it make?’ ”

Indeed, the athletes who feel stronger with the mouthpieces are not nit-picking.

Chaconas, who is president of the Academy of Sports Dentistry, and Dr. John Flocken, also a professor of dentistry at UCLA, presented results of their recent research at the international symposium held last weekend. They found that by adding material to the MORA, which fits over the lower teeth and sets the jaw slightly open, there would be more protection for the mouth and also the jaw would be set at a more comfortable position.

“If the muscles don’t want the jaw where it is, you get muscle spasms,” Chaconas said. “Kinesiologists say that one muscle group can affect another muscle group, very distant. The improper use of one muscle group can drain the energy from the other.”

The adjusted position reduces the tension on the jaw and facial muscles and, for those who had an incorrect placement before, rids the athlete of jaw pain and headaches.

Chaconas and Flocken concluded that athletes who had been suffering from bad positioning of the TMJ (temporal mandibular joint) did enjoy greater strength with the jaw in the proper position. They also have been studying whether better jaw positioning gives athletes better balance and, therefore, better performance.

“Bill Bergey (linebacker for the Philadelphia Eagles) had never worn a mouthguard in his life until I made him one,” Chaconas said. “After a year, he said, ‘I don’t know what it is, but I won’t even walk on the practice field without a mouthguard any more. I don’t know why, but when I line up across from somebody, I feel that this thing makes me stronger.’

“A lot of track athletes have reported better performances with mouthpieces, even though they don’t need them for contact.”

Dr. Angelo Caputo, an engineer and professor of biomaterials sciences at UCLA, presented research on new mouthguard materials that allow dentists to make thinner and more comfortable mouthpieces. The new material could lead to a mouthpiece that covers both the upper and lower teeth to provide better protection for sports such as boxing and hockey.

Boxers are interested in better mouthguards not only to protect their teeth, but to prevent concussions and knockouts. The mouthpiece can cushion the blow so that it does not transmit signals into the brain.

Better materials for better comfort is important, Chaconas said, so that mouthpieces don’t end up in socks.

“Thinner materials also keep players from saying that they have the feeling they can’t breath if they have something in their mouths,” he said. “But we haven’t come up with an answer for the players who say they won’t wear a mouthpiece because they can’t chew gum.”

UCLA basketball player Reggie Miller was one of those.

“I think it should be a rule that basketball players wear mouth protection,” Chaconas said. “Basketball is definitely a contact sport, and they don’t have face masks or anything.”

Chaconas makes mouthpieces for basketball players, but he can’t make the players wear them.

In his office, he has several drawers filled with stone molds of mouths and teeth--a pretty unsettling sight.

When Chaconas started making mouthpieces for UCLA athletes, in 1971, it was at the request of Bob Horn, the water polo coach. He didn’t start making form-fitted mouthpieces for the football players until 1973, after Coach Dick Vermeil asked. Until then, UCLA players were wearing the kind of mouthpiece that most Pop Warner and high school players wear, the kind available in sporting goods stores that are softened with boiling water and then fitted over the teeth by the players themselves until they cool and harden.

The more sophisticated mouthpieces are made by having a dentist take an impression of the teeth with a quick-hardening clay-like material, make a permanent mold of the teeth with a harder, gypsum material, from which to make the plastic mouthpieces.

In his file drawers, Chaconas has all the molds labeled, so that he can make replacement mouthpieces at a moment’s notice.