Junior Seau and the Head Trauma Tipping Point

On April 19 of this year, former Atlanta Falcons safety Ray Easterling committed suicide by gunshot. Easterling had suffered from dementia for years and had a host of physical problems. He was vocal about the danger of concussions and was one of the main plaintiff’s of one of the many current lawsuits pending against the NFL for covering up knowledge of the potential damage of repeated head trauma.  Easterling was 62 years old.

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There had been no details released except for the bare, tragic, minimum:

Former San Diego Charger’s Linebacker Junior Seau had committed suicide.

Two things happened as soon as that information got out: first, a massive outpouring of grief and remembrances for a man that was universally thought of as one of the “good guys” of the sport. A man with his own charities, a man closely tied with his community, a great player who by all accounts was a great man off of it. If anyone had an ill word to say about Seau, nobody heard it.

Then people everywhere started connecting this tragedy to the NFL and its current head trauma crisis, myself included.

Now, at this point, there is no evidence whatsoever that Seau suffered from Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE). There had been no public reports of him suffering from dementia or any other neurological condition. All that was known was a 43 year-old man had committed suicide. However, simply because his profession was “former professional football player” masses of people immediately leapt to the conclusion that this was another concussion related tragedy. Now, whenever a former NFL player dies, the most likely cause of death in the court of public opinion is trauma from repeated head injuries. If the NFL doesn’t get a handle on this issue and finds ways to keep the athletes safe, fans will start to walk away, unable to rationalize enjoying the violent spectacle of a football game, knowing all too well what lies in store for so many of these men in the not too distant future.

And, sooner rather than later, I will be one of them.

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On February 17, 2011, Dave Duerson, former safety for the Chicago Bears, fatally shot himself in the chest in his home in Florida.  He shot himself in the chest because he wanted his brain to be studied by the University of Boston, the leading researchers into CTE.  In May of 2011, it was confirmed that Duerson’s brain had suffered from CTE. He was 50 years old.

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Football was my first love.  At 3 years old, my Christmas present from Santa Claus, that I asked for in detail, was a set of action figures consisting of at least a dozen players from the Cincinnati Bengals and San Francisco 49ers, the participants in Super Bowl XXIII. I asked for every player specifically by number, and every 49er player I asked for I knew by name. I was trotted out as a show pony by my parents to show off my ability to rattle off every offensive starter for the 1989 San Francisco 49ers, including the offensive lineman (Just for kicks, I tried to see if I still could do the o-line off memory. Nailed Bubba Parris, Guy McIntyre, Jesse Sapolu, and Harris Barton. RG Bruce Collie slipped my mind.) Since I could speak in full sentences, I’ve been a 49er die-hard.

I never played football, cutting a deal with my parents that I would wait until high school to play, only to suffer a brain injury in 8^th grade, which precluded me from playing.  Missing out on playing football has always been a melancholy what-if for me. Now, I’m not so sure it wasn’t all for the best.

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Andre Waters was a safety for the Philadelphia Eagles from 1984-1993. Waters died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head on November 20, 2006. His brain tissue was sent to the University of Pittsburgh to be studied for potential CTE diagnosis by Dr. Bennett Omalu.  Dr. Omalu found that Waters’ brain tissue had deteriorated to that of an 85-year old man with early stage Alzheimer’s. Waters was 44-years old when he died.

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While my football career never got off the ground, my younger brother had a fairly successful interscholastic career.  He was the starting Left Tackle on Varsity, and only gave up one sack in his senior season. He was undersized, but was quick and had good technique, and was tough as nails, wrapping a mangled right hand in a knee pad and about 2 rolls of athletic tape, turning it into a “flipper” as he called it.

Even though he never touched the ball, I loved watching my brother play, just like I’ve loved watching every sport he’s ever played.  Seeing him come flying around on a trap and blowing up a d-lineman and creating a gaping whole was way more fun than it should have been. Multiple coaches told me that if he had the desire to, he could play Center at lower division college because of his solid technique and great brain for the game. My brother never had that level of love for football, but I always wished I would have had the chance to see my baby bro play college ball.

Now? I’m just glad he made it out with (hopefully) limited wear and tear, playing only 1 season of Varsity, praying that there will be no lingering effects down the road.

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“Iron” Mike Webster was the Center for all four of the Pittsburgh Steelers Super Bowl championship teams.  He was inducted to the Pro-Football Hall of Fame. Many consider him the greatest Center in the League’s history.  After retiring from football, Webster suffered from amnesia, dementia, depression, and acute bone and muscle pain. Webster was proven to be legally disabled before he retired from the NFL.  He lived out of his pick up truck or train stations for the last few years of his life. He died in 2002 at the age of 50 and after his death was the first person to be diagnosed with CTE.

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I’ve had a bit of an un-easy relationship with football for about two-and-a-half years now.  In October of 2009, I picked up GQ magazine to read while on my lunch break and help pass the time. In it was an article titled “Game Brain” about concussions in football.  To this day its one of the best pieces of investigative journalism I’ve ever read, and simultaneously one of the most horrifying and emotionally draining things I’ve read in my life. If you are even a casual football fan, you have to read it, if nothing else to have a firm grasp on the severity of the issue.

After reading that article I felt incredibly conflicted.  I loved football, but how could I enjoy a sport knowing what happens to so many players once they retire? I felt dirty and thought about giving up the sport I ever loved.  Over time, the feelings of that article faded.  The NFL reversed its previous stance and started making progress in at least attempting to keep players safe.  My fears were assuaged, and I resumed my place as insane 49er fan. But that nagging, uncomfortable feeling never went away for me.

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Chris Henry was a Wide Receiver with the Cincinnati Bengals from 2005-2009. Henry only played in 55 games in 5 professional seasons. He had 119 career receptions.  On December 16, 2009, Henry passed away after falling out of the back of a moving pick-up truck following a domestic dispute with his fiancé.  Henry died of blunt force trauma to the head. In June of 2010, the Brain Injury Research Institute of West Virginia announced that Henry had developed a case of CTE.  He was 26- years old.

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I can say with a reasonable amount of certainty that if the NFL season started tomorrow, I would have absolutely no interest in following it. While the Junior Seau case may very well have nothing to do with any of the other tragedies, it still brings up the question of “what-if” and brings the thoughts and emotions connected with the other cases of CTE back to the forefront. I feel a certain level of disgust with myself for my fandom, and that is a feeling I absolutely do not like.

Speaking realistically, I doubt that this is the incident that puts me off of football for good. The season is still over four months away, and like after the GQ article in 2009, the passing time will cause all these emotions to fade into the background, and I will go back to anxiously awaiting the start of the season and a hopeful deep playoff run for my 49ers.

But there’s no telling if the next death will be the one that does it.  Whether it’s a somewhat obscure player or one of my childhood heroes, I could see another tragedy of this magnitude being the straw that breaks the camels back.  At some point in the relatively near future, the consequences will be too much, and I’ll have to give up football and focus my time on other pursuits.

The question the NFL should be nervously asking, is how many fans might be turning away with me?