When four players on the Simon Fraser University football team sustained season-ending concussions in 2008 that left them with lingering headaches, Clansmen coach Dave Johnson decided there had to be something he could do.

"I had a couple of guys weeping because they couldn't even ride the bus, let alone go to school and to lectures, and certainly not attend practice," Johnson told CTV's Canada AM Thursday from Vancouver.

"I just felt we demand so much of our players that if there was a better product out there that we needed to go the extra mile to make sure they were protected."

The issue of concussions in football, and how they affect even non-professional players, has become a pressing one. Neurologists at Boston University have been sounding the alarm about the long-term danger of concussions sustained by football players, linking the injuries to a debilitating brain disease called chronic traumatic encephalopathy.

The disease has been diagnosed post-mortem in more than 20 former NFLers. Recently, the illness is being found in its earliest stages in young players, including those who likely sustained their injuries in high school and university.

So Johnson went on a search, thinking there had to be a helmet that could do a better job. What he found was the most expensive helmet on the market, made by a company called Xenith.

The Xenith X1 is billed as a whole new kind of helmet. Instead of using foam for protection, it uses 18 thermoplastic air cell shock absorbers distributed around the helmet.

So whereas the foam in a traditional helmet can become stiff and hard over time, reducing its ability to absorb impact, the air pucks in the Xenith helmet keep springing back.

Blaine Hoshizaki, a researcher at the University of Ottawa's Neurotrauma Impact Laboratory who helped develop the helmet, explains that the air cell shock absorbers offer unparalleled three-dimensional protection, dispersing the impact over a greater area.

Coach Johnson says the new helmets also fit his players' heads better.

"With a traditional helmet, the head can move around inside the helmet," he said. "With the Xenith, inside the helmet, there's a bonnet that pulls tights around the head so that it's the helmet that moves around the head."

Johnson decided that the new helmet had to be an improvement on what his players were wearing. But when he presented it to his SFU players back in 2009, many seemed reluctant.

"Initially, there was some resistance because it looks a little different and it feels a little different," Johnson said.

"But all the protection inside the helmet is adjustable, so this should be the most comfortable helmet our players put on, because it can be customized to their individual size and shape of their head."

Eventually, 20 Simon Fraser players tried the Xenith helmets in the 2009 season. All of them avoided concussions. This season, 70 of the team's 98 players are wearing them.

Johnson says in the last year, there have been nine or 10 concussions among his players. But none of those players were wearing a Xenith. This year, Johnson has told his players that if any of them sustains a concussion, they've got to switch to a Xenith helmet when they return to play -- no negotiation.

Coach Johnson says he'd recommend the helmet to any university football team, saying he's been nothing but satisfied with it. And while Johnson may sound like a pitchman for Xenith, he assures that he is certainly not.

"I don't get paid for this and we don't get free helmets, interestingly enough. And with my budget, we could use a couple!" he said with a laugh.