Former Penn captain who killed self had C.T.E.
Yours truly at CBS. Harrowing stuff, to be sure. Yes, there are thousands upon thousands of football players who do not kill themselves every year, and how many of the current players don't contract CTE is something we won't know for decades. But it's undeniable that it's happening to players right now, and they don't have to be worn-out shells of men after long NFL careers. They can be just 21 and juniors in I-AA ball, just like Owen Thomas.
So where does football go from here?
over 1 year ago
Adam Jacobi
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I'm watching Ray Lewis just destroy people on Monday night, and I ask myself
What exactly did we think would happen?
I have the same fashion sense as Tom Arnold.
I was watching the Big Ten's Greatest Games.
A game from 1989 – Illinois @ USC. My first thought was, “Man, Jeff George stinks.” Then I noticed several players leading with their protective helmets. And it’s been going on for a lot longer than 20 years.
I have no idea what’s going to happen to football. Or the players.
"Now you put a Pamper on him and send him back out here." - Ray Isom, 1987 Fiesta Bowl
by ReadingRambler on Sep 13, 2010 10:09 PM CDT up reply actions
Definitely disturbing.
I, one of strong opinions, have no idea what to do or advocate now, but I don’t think the status quo will or should remain.
I'm gonna give her my "D" face. Deeeee, deeee, deeee!
---Norm Parker
How ridiculous was it to see Stewart Bradley of the Eagles go back out after his incredible knockout.
Kid was staggered, down. Clearly not with it. They let him within ten, maybe 15 minutes real time. Luckily, they took him back out, and he was done for the game. When I saw him go down, my first thought was, “How many weeks will he be kept out?” not “How many minutes til he’s back in?”
My god.
In the past 10 years, just four team owners have not paid a luxury tax and are not on pace to pay one this year: Donald Sterling, Jerry Reinsdorf, Chris Cohen (Golden State), Bob Johnson (Charlotte).
Two owners’ teams averaged an operating income of over +$10 million per year while their teams have lost over 60% of their games: Donald Sterling and Jerry Reinsdorf.
Off-topic: Moeaki just got his first NFL TD.
w00t
In the past 10 years, just four team owners have not paid a luxury tax and are not on pace to pay one this year: Donald Sterling, Jerry Reinsdorf, Chris Cohen (Golden State), Bob Johnson (Charlotte).
Two owners’ teams averaged an operating income of over +$10 million per year while their teams have lost over 60% of their games: Donald Sterling and Jerry Reinsdorf.
Obviously, I can not dismiss CTE as a possible reason this happened.
However, a couple of quotes from the story make me slightly skeptical:
Owen Thomas was a third generation college football player. His grandfather Frank Thomas played for Millersville (Pa.) University in the 1930s, and his father played four years at the University of Virginia in the late 1960s.
Dr. Perl added that C.T.E. typically impaired a person’s short-term memory — which in a college student approaching exams would be harrowing — but that the relatively mild C.T.E. in Thomas’s hippocampus did not suggest severe memory problems, though that was possible.
Personally, I never got that nervous over tests in high school or college. But, some people do get pretty nervous about them, and while it might not be the lone reason for suicide, some people do go that far from the stress of academics (and for a football player, you can imagine the demands on this kid’s time. Add to the fact that he is preparing for final tests in one of the more renowned business schools in America, and I’m assuming the academics were pretty demanding.)
Also, his father and grandfather played the game in times where less precautions were taken, and less attention was payed to head injuries. I don’t think either of them committed suicide, and they probably had several genetic similarities.
Check out this article, and it sounds like Thomas’s situation was more like a process, not a completely sudden event with no warning signs (he was “intense” and that intensity had “spiraled out of control.”)
From that article, it definitely sounds like a process with warning signs:
“Obviously, we should have gotten those signals but we never personally thought he would ever kill himself,” she said. “He was so full of life. He did say he was working so hard but not doing well, and we said, ’We’ll deal with it.’ He was worried about getting a job in the summer. He was made captain so now he felt responsible to set high standards for the team. I never imagined it would suddenly turn so bad.”
The economy looks bleak, and it would be tough for him to find a job over the summer. This is yet another stressor.
I apologize if this comment makes me sound like a dismissive douche. But, I still believe that football is less dangerous than many things that most of us do each day/week: drive a car, eat a bad diet, drink a bit too much, possibly spend many hours in places with questionable air quality. And since I am living in Waterloo, simply walking in specific parts of town at night seems pretty dangerous, anymore.
I've sentenced boys younger than you to the gas chamber. Didn't want to do it. I felt I owed it to them.
-- Judge Smails
While you have a decent point
I think you’re sort of overlooking the take home message. Playing football can lead to conditions that severely damage a players brain, young or old, and despite any outside stressors, can lead to abnormal behavior that can lead to extremely heartbreaking events, such as this.
Like it or not, this is yet another removed piece of the Jenga tower that is the brain injuries/damage issue in football today. I see it blowing up very soon.
by Smokin Herb Grigsby on Sep 13, 2010 10:41 PM CDT up reply actions
It can
but it is impossible in this case to draw a straight line from football, through CTE to suicide. To try and draw that line is just bad science, and bad science never helps solve a problem
The real takeaway here is that a guy without an extensive career at a high level playing (read: where the hits are the hardest), and no history of concussions, had CTE.
"If you need a rah-rah speech at halftime, you’re playing the wrong sport." - Pat Angerer
(read: where the hits are the hardest)
I don’t think they even know enough about CTE to know that playing at a high level matters. They are still building their brain bank trying to figure it all out. I recall from the article in esquire that CTE was found in someone who played at small 1AA schools, who don’t have a history of head trauma.
by Buckeye Bobo on Sep 15, 2010 11:53 AM CDT up reply actions
So let me get this straight
You think a junior in college with evidence of brain trauma is more likely to kill himself because the economy’s bad rather than the effect of the brain trauma—the type of which has been linked to several instances of destructive behavior?
I understand the desire to play devil’s advocate, but you’re not really thinking these things through very well.
Ceci n'est pas un blogue.
by Adam Jacobi on Sep 13, 2010 11:06 PM CDT up reply actions
Not to get into the issue, because I with most of what you said at the top...
But considering this…
“You think a junior in college with evidence of brain trauma is more likely to kill himself because the economy’s bad rather than the effect of the brain trauma”
Well, yeah, that could very well be the case, at least it’s something not necessarily silly or can be dismissed out-of-hand. Granted, I dunno about the “economy” itself, but general trying situations (nurture) most certainly can play a greater role than the initial onset of this disease. There is probably thousands of journal articles out their by sociologists and psychologists that show different socioeconomic links to suicide. Some are very central to the person, some are very general and some are very powerful.
People are very different and what they latch to and what matters to them can be quite varied. Something else could have driven this to a greater extent than the disease is possible. Probable? No idea.
@ OPS
Obviously, his suicide can not be blamed on “the economy being bad.” But, I know a bad economy makes a lot of people (even people with jobs) worry a lot. And this kid was in business school, so he has an interest in business. Maybe it worried him a bit more than we think it should.
And of course, the real point (that perhaps I didn’t really spell out well) is that this worry was merely a piece of the puzzle. Add to it his flagging academics, a stressful time of year on the academic calendar, his increased responsibilities, and possibly other issues we don’t know about (girl troubles?)
Personally, I know I have a personality and/or the genetics to be a bit more nervous or depressed than the average bird. I get worried or nervous or anxious about crap that I probably shouldn’t. Especially when several stressors build up. And I’m not even in college anymore.
Smokin’ Herb Grigsby made a comparison of the future of football to a Jenga tower. Well, some people are like that too. When you add too much weight to the top of the tower, or when you remove enough supports that people rely on, then you risk a collapse. Sadly, I think that is what happened here.
Finally, I’m not dismissing the dangers of football. I suffered two injuries while being on the team in high school (and almost never playing), so it is obviously risky. But, I also think it is slightly irresponsible to blame football brain injuries for every suicide, or serious criminal act, or strange accidental injury that happens to someone who happened to play football and happens to have CTE/too much tau protein. Sure, there probably is a role. But, by that logic, we should never use alcohol, or break off a relationship with a loved one, or drive a car, or fly a plane, or drive/fly a flying car.
Yes, I’m being too unfunnily glib. I apologize. Go Hawks!
I've sentenced boys younger than you to the gas chamber. Didn't want to do it. I felt I owed it to them.
-- Judge Smails
by WaterlooChazz on Sep 14, 2010 9:41 PM CDT up reply actions
While I think you have a point, Chazz
I think you worded it incorrectly. I agree that we can’t attribute specific traumas like a college kid’s suicide to any particular stressor. That kind of blanket statement is what got Lyle Alzado doing PSAs for the last years of his life because he was convinced it was the steroids that gave him brain cancer. Not everything is a causal event.
That said, I think your overall intention is incorrect and Jacobi is more on the point. This will be a hugely divisive issue in the future, and will test whether we really want to continue organized tackle football as a society when the stats become ever more clear and ever more drastic. CTE is only the tip of the iceberg, once they start also piecing in extremely early death rates and much higher levels of all kinds of societal disorders (substance abuse, suicide, depression, etc), then football will become much less attractive.
I guess hindsight is 20/20, but I’m surprised it has taken this long for us to acknowledge how horrible football can be on a man’s body and brain. I have to think the explosion of boxing’s popularity a century ago, followed by its decline in popularity soon after the explosion of “punch drunk” former boxers is an ominous warning for football’s future. Boxing changed a lot of rules to protect its members, I think we’ll see the same in football. What those will be remains to be seen.
I spent half my life's earnings on wine, women & song. The other half I wasted.
by therealCatnuts on Sep 13, 2010 11:41 PM CDT up reply actions
There will be some new helmet designs. Some rule changes, the refs will be told to focus on calling the head shots. Probably some official policy on how long players have to sit out after a concussion. Stuff like that that helps, but doesn’t fix the root cause…. which is the game itself.
There will be more stories like this, but after awhile they’ll become old news because, we already knew that. The big networks won’t want to report on it too much because they make too much money…. and oh look the NFL takes it really seriously. PLAY BALL!!!
And there will be no shortage of young men wanting to play.
It’s a cynical view but frankly, the money is too big and too many people enjoy the game and either don’t really care what happens to the players or are ignorant of how badly they get messed up.
"If you need a rah-rah speech at halftime, you’re playing the wrong sport." - Pat Angerer
Unfortunately, I tend to agree with this.
There are simply too many examples already of financial gain and public appetite for whatever given thing outweighing its potential/proven health detriments for football to just go away any time soon, or for it to be changed in any truly drastic way (e.g. going no-helmet & instituting more rugby/Aussie football-style rules or whatever).
"We'll outfit ya for free, but we get to choose the pants."
by Bucketochicken on Sep 14, 2010 6:00 AM CDT up reply actions
Christ
I’m suddenly a lot more okay with my unborn sons playing soccer.
We want to build a university our football team can be proud of. -- Dr. George Lynn Cross
Laugh/chide if you'd like
but I will never let my children play football. Well, OK, nature will never let them play because they’ll max-out at 5’6", but who’s counting.
Less memorable than Sam Okey's Hawkeye career.
by Kyle McCann't on Sep 14, 2010 2:20 AM CDT up reply actions
Ray Rice can't be too much taller then that
from watching the game last night, he has to be 5’8" or 5’7"
Not so fast...
There is just as much concern that regularly heading a soccer ball causes neurological damage as there is about contact in football.
Yup
Like cturtle said, there was a big deal a while ago about soccer and head injuries.
The soccer stuff was debunked a few years ago
Heading a soccer ball does not cause brain damage, at least not any damage that can be traced in the spinal fluid of soccer players.
Google it and you’ll find several related stories
Well, isn't what LeBron did last night the living embodiment of The Secret, leaving millions on the table and turning himself into a hometown villain, all for the sake of winning?
Neil Paine, basketball-reference.com
I stand corrected
But it just goes to show how little is really known as fact about this stuff. A few years ago there was all this worry, now it’s apparently not true. Maybe the same is true of football. I gues that’s the worrying thing. No-one really knows.
Glory, Violence, History and Future:
Once upon a time, I was playing left tackle, we weren’t moving the ball that night and then, the QB throws an interception. For some reason I was insanely angry and charged the guy who picked off the ball. We were headed right at each other, full speed, heads forward. Somewhere in the back of my mind, just before we were about to have a cataclysmic collision at the left hash, something told me to break off it. I did, but we still hit with the sound of a gunshot, my upper body jacked backwards but I somehow got hold of the guy by the shoulders and we both went to the ground. I was out of it for about ten seconds, then walked off.
The game film showed a 230 pound guy flung back like a rag doll. It was wound back a couple of times at film session and at that moment I saw what could have happened. One of us would have had a bad concussion, damaged shoulder, or worse. The coaches were surprised I didn’t have a concussion anyway. Then, within a year Nick Bouniconti’s son was rendered paraplegic in a big hit. When I saw that film knew I had seen it before, but with a different outcome; I backed off. As sobering as it was, next year, my freshman year at Iowa, I remember yearning again to be playing on Friday night.
We understood it was a violent game, but we all thought we were indestructible. Our parents saw the character building aspects as outweighing the physical risks. We didn’t wear helmets on skates or bikes, either.
I love the game. I love the work ethic and team lessons it teaches. I wanted my son to play and for a couple of years, he did. But he didn’t have the fire for it. Also, the size and the speed of the game has risen almost exponentially. He was done with football, and it pains me to say that I’m glad he did. There is something which just doesn’t compute about a 17-18 year old kid who is 6’2, 280 and runs the 40 under 5.0. My son, 6’1, 190, does martial arts, which actually seems safer in many ways.
Meanwhile, the open field in a lot of neighborhoods has been replaced by the video screen and headset. The kids do connect with each other, but in such a different way. I don’t see the same number of YMCA or Pop Warner teams as before. The future looks to have fewer people who want to play, from a pool of fewer parents, after the last remnants of the late-boomers, and those parents have fewer children. There will still be pockets of places, some in Iowa, where the sport will still flourish for some years to come, but they will be fewer.
My 17 year old son doesn’t watch football. A lot of his friends don’t. Their dads do, either at home or at sports bars, when the family gets tired of us aging maniacs who yell at the television. They look at us and shake their heads. Growing up, this would have been unthinkable.
Bigger, faster, stronger has led to collisions which nobody thought through for the human body. And, while better gear helps, it also adds to a false sense of greater security. It enables simulated car wrecks. It is hard to accept the possibility that the game I love could be slowly taking the faculties of more than a few of its players. It’s not as hard for the generation that follows. Fewer of them have the emotional, void-of-logic investment. They’ll turn to something else. To me, the golden age of football is right now. Ten years from now, I think we will see a decline, caused by the convergence of creeping apathy and scientific discovery. In the end it may become somewhat mercenary, a contest of guys who just want to “get paid” regardless of the consequence. Till then, despite all I suspect, I will continue to watch. Sorry, I can’t help it…
In Norm we trust.
by Mr. Grizz on Sep 14, 2010 1:07 AM CDT reply actions 10 recs
Nonsense.
That post should be on the front page. Well done.
Tom Bradley's fortune cookie says: "Best defense is good offense."
Beat Kent State.
by ReadingRambler on Sep 14, 2010 7:02 AM CDT up reply actions
i agree with rambler
well said
"Stats from the spring," he said when handed the numbers. "I can take those down to the spare bathroom in the house. We can put them to use down there."
- Paul Rhoads
Is the equipment a factor?
When I was younger I did some travelling, and I’ve seen high level rugby, and australian rules football, played in person. The hitting is no less physical but uses a very different tequnique because the players don’t wear pads or helmets. A lot of the concussions are caused by players leading with the helmet, or helmet to helmet contact. If you take away the pads and helmets, players have to lead with their shoulder. It’s just my theory, but I see the equipment as a major contributing factor to the type of injuries we’re seeing. That, and the guys are freaking huge.
I think
That we are all underestimating the difference that the size of these football players makes. The game is faster and more violent every year and even with improved equipment it becomes more dangerous. As terrible as it is, I must admit that much like many of you here I don’t see myself stopping my following of football anytime soon.
by SaturdayMorningKegStanzis on Sep 14, 2010 7:43 AM CDT up reply actions
The collisions are actually a lot different.
I played football at a fairly high level and have been playing rugby at a fairly high level, too. Just this past weekend, we played one of the 15 best men’s rugby teams in the country. When I dated a Canadian, I had to explain to her and her friends why football players weren’t [weak] for wearing pads… and I came to the conclusion that it’s because football collisions are generally more violent and happen a lot more often.
One illustration: in rugby, you’re taught to tackle at an angle and with your head BEHIND the runner. In football, it’s always with the head in front if you’re at angle, with the preference that you take the ball-carrier head-on. In football, you can lay a guy out with a shoulder charge, flattening him. In rugby, that’s specifically against the rules. You have to wrap a guy up and take him down. It changes the dynamic.
The reasoning behind this is simple (yet not obvious to someone who doesn’t know both sports): in football, literally “every inch counts.” Teams can succeed or failure by progress measured in mere inches or centimeters. Therefore, it is to the tackler’s advantage to stop all forward progress at nearly any cost, to his health or the other player’s.
In rugby, however, forward progression is not nearly so critical. There is no first-down, and the movement is much more fluid. Possession changes hands often, with TO’s being frequent. On any tackle, the ball becomes “live” (like a fumble, sorta), so the object isn’t to keep a player from progressing, but rather repositioning him – which takes skill, technique and patience – so that he presents your team with the best opportunity to grab the ball. It’s better to be in control than to be violent.
There are concussions and severe collisions that still happen in rugby, to be sure. I’ve been both the giver and receiver of them. I don’t know how the incidents would stack up, though. I do believe, however, that the ends are different and thus the means are as well, and it seems likely to me that the collisions aren’t, generally, as numerous or severe.
In the past 10 years, just four team owners have not paid a luxury tax and are not on pace to pay one this year: Donald Sterling, Jerry Reinsdorf, Chris Cohen (Golden State), Bob Johnson (Charlotte).
Two owners’ teams averaged an operating income of over +$10 million per year while their teams have lost over 60% of their games: Donald Sterling and Jerry Reinsdorf.
It's a cause/effect thing
You don’t stick your head in front of the guy you’re tackling in rugby because you’ll get a knee in the face if you do. So the tequnique is different. I’m not saying the game wouldn’t change dramatically if you took away the equipment. What I’m saying is, is the equipment defensive (ie, injury preventing) or offensive (ie, it allows players to be more reckless with their bodies)? I think the fact that helmets allow players to be aggressive with their heads mean they get many more small, non concussive blows to the head over their career.
That, and the guys are freaking huge…
Unfortunately
one of the big take aways here is that we still don’t know anything. Many, many years ago (because I’m old), I was taking neurochemistry (neurobiology? I don’t remember). I was very frustrated at the time because the majority of the information we had boiled down to “We’re not sure. We think this, but we really don’t know”.
Flash forward to now and I’m struck by how this is still the case. Researchers have seen many examples of CTE in players from different levels and at different age ranges. It’s been seen in football, and also boxing, and alleged in baseball and soccer. We all agree that’s bad. But we don’t know the extent.
The game is bigger, stronger, faster now, but remember, 25 years ago, guys hit directly with their heads frequently. Look at hits on old NFL game film and the brutality that we celebrate is just as evidenced then as now, only the limited precautions that we have to protect players weren’t available. 70-100 years ago you had flying wedges that killed guys. It was gladiatorial then. It still is now. It probably will always be that way.
The scientist in my laments the lack of data. Every time I see an article about CTE or other long term effects, my first question is not why, buy why not. Why do some guys NOT show effects? Sure, the average kicker doesn’t take as much abuse as a MLB. Is a RB more at risk than a WR? I don’t know. None of us do. We don’t know if there’s a trigger. I have to believe there is a genetic component, only because we’re learning there almost always is, but what about other factors? If a guy falls off his bike at 5 and takes “a good knock on the head” is he going to be more susceptible to CTE effects, or does the brain bounce back in the formative years? Is a single violent blow enough to start the progression? How about a series of minor blows? Why does it appear to be both and possibly neither. And do things like steroids or other supplements increase the risks?
I hate not knowing. We can’t really protect these guys without knowledge, and we just don’t have it right now.
I guess the takeaway is that I’m glad I don’t have boys, so I don’t have to worry about them playing football. But that’s just self centered, and not really any help.
It never gets to be easy
by chitownhawkeye on Sep 14, 2010 8:37 AM CDT reply actions 2 recs
It's the brain
It’s just a big box o’ mystery. It is an organ so complex, within a system so complex, within an organism so complex, that I don’t believe we’re even close to fully understanding how, exactly, the brain does what it does.
Science in the field certainly improved, but we’ve got a ways to go.
Its the most thermodynamatically ordered thing that we know about in the universe
Even the computing systems that reach the brain’s level of computing power still require 100K times more energy.
So yes, people of earth, we are badasses!!!! People rulz, animals/machines droolz!
by meatybob on Sep 14, 2010 10:21 AM CDT up reply actions 1 recs
OR maybe we're already in the Martix...
KOK, you might be a genius...
by hawkeye_heartattack on Sep 14, 2010 11:26 AM CDT up reply actions
I couldn't believe they put Bradley back in during the Eagles game.
Looks like they are under fire for it. Deserved. He couldn’t even walk after he got hit. Turns your stomach.
We have a family member who is a freshman
in high school who has been injured the last two seasons. Season before last he injured his knee and last year broke his elbow. Thankfully he has had no head injuries. He playes middle linebacker on defense and fullback on offense. There is no talking him out of playing….he will not give up on a game he loves. I just hold my breath until I see him get up from the pile of players after a play.
They have improved the helmets but obviously it’s not enough. How do you make the game safer?
A lovely story:
One day, long, long ago, there lived a woman who didn't whine, nag or bitch. That would be me....
But that was a long time ago and it was just that one day.
The end
Part of the problem with that is...
They are discovering that players are getting the head trauma and its not necessarily from a diagnosed concussion. Having played football through high school and a little bit in college your family member is playing two of the most violent positions on the football field. Just because he isn’t showing signs of injury now doesn’t mean that there isn’t an injury there. That’s the trouble with C.T.E., it’s an out of sight out of mind problem. If you don’t see the staggering and glazed eyes he must be o.k. For his sake and yours I hope the future is trouble free.
Who's leg do I have to hump to get a drink around here?-Brian
Thanks, I hope so too.
A lovely story:
One day, long, long ago, there lived a woman who didn't whine, nag or bitch. That would be me....
But that was a long time ago and it was just that one day.
The end
Maybe the NFL should look to MLB for guidance...
As weird as that sounds. Look at how the Minnesota Twins have handled Justin Morneau’s concussion. In a MUCH less contact intensive sport, Morneau has been out since July and there is no set schedule for his return beyond when he’s ready. All of this despite the fact that he was putting together an MVP caliber season for a legitimate World Series contender in the thick of a pennant race. The Twins are on the verge of the playoffs and they still won’t push Morneau to return to the field. As hard as it is for a fan, there’s no doubt it’s the right approach.
From what I’ve read, the experiences of Corey Koskie have had a direct impact on the way Morneau’s concussion is being treated. Koskie was not a member of the Twins when he experienced a concussion, but remained close to the organization. When he was rushed back to the field, the ongoing effects essentially ended his career. It seems like the Twins organization truly does care about the wellbeing of their guys, results be damned and that is truly refreshing to see.
Fuck tOSU
Interesting read in the Chicago Tribune by ex-Iowan Matt Bowen
"Have you ever had the Hot Pocket Hot Pocket? It’s Hot Pocket inside a Hot Pocket. Tastes just like a Hot Pocket."
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