What a lifetime of playing football can do to the human brain (CTE) (coach, hockey)

[Suburban_Guy]

Pretty scary reading.

Sure, I know the players know the risks. And not every player will suffer CTE.

But still a sobering thought.

Aaron Hernandez was said to have the worst case of CTE ever seen in someone his age.
I read an article about him recently and they talked to someone that knew him when he was playing for Florida, and the person said Aaron was an 'idiot' and inferred he was slow mentally. I think we know now why, Aaron had been playing football since he was a kid.


What a lifetime of playing football can do to the human brain

[Mike from back east]

An article in today's WaPo about some Redskins who played in Super Bowl VII (7) and now are having brain issues. SB-VII was 45 years ago, January 1973, played in L.A. on an 84-degree day (warmest SuperBowl to date); Miami Dolphins 14 - Washington Redskins 7; capped the 1972 season with Miami going 17-0, the only 'perfect season.' This Redskins team was George Allen's "Over the Hill Gang" of players.

Excerpt: "It wasn’t until 2002 that forensic pathologist Bennet Omalu identified chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a degenerative brain disease, in a former NFL player — and it took many years after that for the significance of Omalu’s findings to take hold."

Players highlighted in the article are these:

- Ray Schoenke, offensive lineman, 12 seasons, now 76, aka The Mummy for how he taped himself up for games. "...I used my head as a battering ram..." ... lives in Montgomery County, Md., went on to build a lucrative insurance business.

- Paul Laaveg, offensive guard, 6 seasons. Now 69, "my memory is not what it used to be," "... 9 surgeries since he retired — 3 knee, 2 shoulder, 1 back, 1 hernia, 1 ankle and 1 hip replacement — all of them related to football and not the home-building business he ran post-NFL...."

- Pat Fischer, aka The Mouse, cornerback. Now 78, a very popular guy, my wife's grandfather knew him. After football he was "a stockbroker ... also had a successful real estate business ... raised race horses in Leesburg, Virginia." "... resides in a Northern Virginia assisted-living facility. The NFL pays the bills as a result of the 2013 concussion settlement that provides up to $5 million each to players with dementia, Parkinson’s and other neurological conditions."

- Ron McDole, aka The Dancing Bear, now 78, still holds the record for interceptions — 12 in all — by a defensive lineman.

- Larry Brown, running back, 8 seasons, now 70, works commercial real estate, lives in the Potomac, Md.

- Rusty Tillman, a reserve linebacker. Now 71. An assistant coach for the Seattle Seahawks for 16 years, where he coached special teams, tight ends, linebackers before becoming defensive coordinator. "I had 22 concussions with the Redskins I forget things a lot, to tell you the truth. I don’t know how I couldn’t have it (CTE).”

[Mike from back east]

New info has arrived. A very good interactive article in the NY Times today on CTE. This link WILL get you in past the paywall to read it.

A few key excerpts:

Wyatt Bramwell started playing football in the third grade (age 8 or 9) and was a star play in high school. He committed suicide at age 18, his parents had his brain studied and it had CTE. Wyatt was part of the first major study of chronic traumatic encephalopathy in athletes who died before turning 30. The findings present an uncomfortable truth for other football families: Even the young get C.T.E.

They all died young. Most played football. Only a few came close to reaching the pros. But like hundreds of deceased N.F.L. players — including the Pro Football Hall of Famers Mike Webster, Junior Seau and Ken Stabler — they, too, had C.T.E., the degenerative brain disease linked to repeated hits to the head. For now, it can be positively diagnosed only posthumously. The brains of Wyatt and 151 other young contact-sport athletes, both men and women, are part of a study recently released by researchers at Boston University.

Of the 152 athletes studied, more than 40% had C.T.E. Most played at no higher than the high school or college level. Of the 63, 48 played football. The main sports for the other athletes in the study who had C.T.E. included hockey, soccer and wrestling.

Lots of pictures and videos of the kids who died . . . .

[Labonte18]

And yet.. Dick Butkus who just passed away. And played a VERY violent game at probably the most violent position... Seemed perfectly healthy at 80. Well.. At least until he died.

[Pitt Chick]

Originally Posted by Labonte18

And yet.. Dick Butkus who just passed away. And played a VERY violent game at probably the most violent position... Seemed perfectly healthy at 80. Well.. At least until he died.

A bit old, but informative!
https://www.bu.edu/articles/2019/foo...-and-dementia/

[Mike from back east]

Originally Posted by Labonte18

And yet.. Dick Butkus who just passed away. And played a VERY violent game at probably the most violent position... Seemed perfectly healthy at 80. Well.. At least until he died.

I know. A lot of players never get CTE. Makes me wonder why some do some don't. I'll hazard a guess that CTE starts in some youngsters and can progress through NFL careers, and if a young player doesn't have CTE by reaching adulthood then he won't get it, IOW, for an NFL player to have CTE he needs to already have at least a bit of it when he arrives in the NFL. Just a guess on my part, but at this point, who knows all that much for sure.

[OutdoorLover]

Fortunately, medical science is learning more about the long term effects of brain injury, and perhaps more importantly, NFL teams, coaching staffs and trainers are revising their thinking about brain injuries. It used to be that if a player was knocked out, they really didn't think much of it - if the player regained consciousness, it was "you're fine". If you're knocked unconscious, that *is* a brain injury, that's why you lose consciousness. Now at least they have a concussion protocol, and some diagnostics that they do, and mandatory time off the field, etc. Maybe less important, but still important, is for fans to have some awareness of the seriousness of these things, as clueless fans that throw a tantrum when such measures are used and lament "the sissification of the sport", that sort of thing - they're just not helping the league to make progress, with that kind of pressure.

[Mike from back east]

Here's a helmet used in training camps to reduce injuries.

What the Cowboys are wearing.

[RMESMH]

Originally Posted by Mike from back east

An article in today's WaPo about some Redskins who played in Super Bowl VII (7) and now are having brain issues. SB-VII was 45 years ago, January 1973, played in L.A. on an 84-degree day (warmest SuperBowl to date); Miami Dolphins 14 - Washington Redskins 7; capped the 1972 season with Miami going 17-0, the only 'perfect season.' This Redskins team was George Allen's "Over the Hill Gang" of players.

Excerpt: "It wasn’t until 2002 that forensic pathologist Bennet Omalu identified chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a degenerative brain disease, in a former NFL player — and it took many years after that for the significance of Omalu’s findings to take hold."

Players highlighted in the article are these:

- Ray Schoenke, offensive lineman, 12 seasons, now 76, aka The Mummy for how he taped himself up for games. "...I used my head as a battering ram..." ... lives in Montgomery County, Md., went on to build a lucrative insurance business.

- Paul Laaveg, offensive guard, 6 seasons. Now 69, "my memory is not what it used to be," "... 9 surgeries since he retired — 3 knee, 2 shoulder, 1 back, 1 hernia, 1 ankle and 1 hip replacement — all of them related to football and not the home-building business he ran post-NFL...."

- Pat Fischer, aka The Mouse, cornerback. Now 78, a very popular guy, my wife's grandfather knew him. After football he was "a stockbroker ... also had a successful real estate business ... raised race horses in Leesburg, Virginia." "... resides in a Northern Virginia assisted-living facility. The NFL pays the bills as a result of the 2013 concussion settlement that provides up to $5 million each to players with dementia, Parkinson’s and other neurological conditions."

- Ron McDole, aka The Dancing Bear, now 78, still holds the record for interceptions — 12 in all — by a defensive lineman.

- Larry Brown, running back, 8 seasons, now 70, works commercial real estate, lives in the Potomac, Md.

- Rusty Tillman, a reserve linebacker. Now 71. An assistant coach for the Seattle Seahawks for 16 years, where he coached special teams, tight ends, linebackers before becoming defensive coordinator. "I had 22 concussions with the Redskins I forget things a lot, to tell you the truth. I don’t know how I couldn’t have it (CTE).”

In the early 2010s, occasionally, on weekends, I hung out with three older guys at a particular Starbucks in The Woodlands. It’s terrible that I don’t remember the names of the other two guys, but one of them was Jim Beirne. Jim was a super nice guy (as were the other two guys). Jim was a former wide receiver who had been an All-American at Purdue, and then played 9 seasons (overall) with the Oilers and the Chargers in the 60s and the 70s. I remember when I first met him, he’d lose a bit of continuity in conversations, but over time that got markedly worse. We always sat in these four comfy chairs that were arranged like the corners of a square. The last time I saw them, I was the last to arrive, and a young black girl working on a laptop was sitting in a regular Starbucks table chair that had been pulled up next to where Jim was sitting (this was probably in 2012 ?). The girl didn’t say a word for the longest time, and then she tapped Jim on the shoulder and said they needed to go, and we said our goodbyes. I always sat in one of the two comfy chairs that backed up to the room, and Jim sat in one of those that backed to an outside window. After Jim and the young woman left, I think the guy who alway sat in the other chair that backed up to the window thought I may have had a perplexed look on my face (it’s terrible that I can’t remember that guy’s name, but I remember that he’d known Jim for about 20 years and I remember that he’d also been a scholarship guy in college, but that it was a golf scholarship (at the University of Southern Mississippi, IIRC). I’ll call him golf guy. After Jim and the young woman had left the building, golf guy told me that the NFL was paying for the young girl to ‘help’ him, and I got the impression that if there was a settlement, Jim would be getting some of that money. I looked at Jim’s Wikipedia entry, and at some point he left the Houston metro. He died in 2021 in Kerrville, TX and lived in Fredericksburg (in the Hill Country). Perhaps his son lived up there. One thing that his Wikipedia entry doesn’t mention is that he had a successful career as building contractor after his football career. Wikipedia also doesn’t mention any ‘brain issues’.

[WK91]

Aaron Hernandez was a heavy drug user in addition to playing football. His main drugs of choice were PCP and marijuana, along with heavy alcohol use.

So to imply that football was the sole reason for his CTE side effects is disingenuous.

Junior Seau is another high profile CTE sufferer. But he had a long history of depression and was also prescribed Ambien, which shouldn’t be given to depressed people because it can cause suicide.

So to sum up, here is what I believe. CTE is kind of like Covid, and if you have a co-morbidity, CTE can be exacerbated.

That explains why many people, like Dick Butkus, can live a long life without any side effects. I’d bet if you cut open his brain, it would look similar to someone who was diagnosed with so called CTE.