Football and Brains

The story about Dave Duerson, one of Chicago’s favorite players during their Super Bowl years with Ditka, is a story that may change the face of American sports. Or should I say the “brains” of American sports. The basic storyline is that the family is wondering if concussions and head injuries during Duerson’s football career injured his brain. So they are studying the brain at Boston College. Here’s the story, but first some questions:

What is being done? What is being done at your schools and in your community?

Football tackling has become a form of head-butting (think of rams on mountains). It is not possible to treat your head that way and not be injured, and sometimes seriously.

Last week, David Duerson, a 50-year-old former player for the NFL’s Chicago Bears, committed suicide by shooting himself in the chest. The details remain hazy, but family members believe that Duerson avoided injuring his brain so that it could be tested for disease.

In the coming months, a group of scientists at the Boston University School of Medicine will scour his brain tissue for evidence of an insidious disease among footballers called chronic traumatic encephalopathy.

“That has to take a lot of strength and a lot of courage to do that,” said Otis Wilson, Duerson’s best friend and former Bears teammate. “To donate your brain and the way that things went down. He’s always been a strong person on and off the field, and even at the end, he’s trying to help someone.”

Warner: Playing through concussion ‘part of the game’

Although Duerson did not say explicitly that he suspected chronic traumatic encephalopathy, his ex-wife said he knew that “something was not right.” Recently, his vision had been failing him; so had his ability to form coherent sentences and spell.

And there was piercing pain on the left side of his brain.

“He felt the left side of his brain was the cause of many of his problems that he was experiencing,” said Duerson’s ex-wife, Alicia Duerson.

The disease is associated with depression, cognitive problems and suicidal thoughts — all of which Duerson seemed to suffer before his death.