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On February 17 former Chicago Bears football player Dave
Duerson killed himself with a gun shot to the chest.
Doctors later found that Duersonhad a condition in common with
more than 20 other dead football players in the U.S.: Chronic
Traumatic Encephalopathy or CTE, a degenerative disease linked to impulsive behavior, depression and dementia. And Duerson thought he had it. Which is why he took great care to leave his brain intact for study.
And concerns have been growing that the concussions and other
head injuries that are common in the NFL might be to blame.
The other week the Canadian Sports Concussion Project announced
the results from brain autopsies of four CFL football players.
Bobby Kuntz, a former Toronto Argonaut and Jay Roberts, who
played for the Ottawa Roughriders, showed classic signs of
CTE. But Peter Ribbons, a Winnipeg Blue Bomber, and Tony
Proudfoot, from the Montreal Alloettes, showed no signs. All
four played when it was common to spear opponents head-first
tackles.
The Canadian Project seeks more brain donations from former
contact sport athletes. To try to find out why some seem able to
avoid CTE, while others tragically are not.
—Christie Nicholson
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3 Comments
Add Commentthe nfl is very afraid of this issue. before the facebars and then the cage-type faceguards players did not lead with their heads. i dont know what can be done about the head to ground concussions
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis problem was explained -- with an interesting twist in the book -- "Why Things Bite Back: Technology and the Revenge of Unintended Consequences".
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHard football helmets were originally invented in response to the high number of head injuries that players received while wearing leather helmets.
The hard helmet made players feel invincible, giving rise to the tactic called "spiking" -- and also resulted in a dramatic rise in neck injuries. Spiking was made illegal, but the practice continued.
Now we find that even hard helmets can't prevent head injuries for players who feel they are invincible. Obviously, there are limits to the benefits of technology -- most of all, human nature.
A fellow I know who was a professional boxer AND a professional football player said that football seemed to be rougher on him physically boxing was. As a fullback, he often was targeted by more than one player at once and was very vulnerable, taking punishing hits many times during each game. Though medical science is starting to catch up, there remains the athletes who are bigger, stronger and very capable of delivering life-altering blows to their opponents and even themselves, without realizing it. We owe it to the players at all levels to continue to study and modify the game, if necessary, so that the athletes who play can live without the fear of becoming incapacitated by the vicious hits they once gave or received.
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