Concussions and Our Kids by Robert Cantu

Author:Robert Cantu
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Mariner Books

The CSTE has three main areas of emphasis. One is a brain donation registry to which professional and amateur athletes from all sports commit to donating their brains after death so that they may be studied for disease, especially CTE. It is overseen by Dr. Stern, as is a longitudinal research grant from the National Institutes of Health in which athletes at high (such as NFL and NHL players) versus low risk of CTE are followed in the hope that we might find a reliable way to diagnose CTE in living patients. Among the tools that we are using for this purpose are biomarkers and advanced MRI imaging studies.

Finally, the third area of focus, and the one that has received most of the publicity to date, is the VA/BU CSTE Brain Bank, which, under Dr. McKee’s leadership, is the world’s largest athletic brain bank. In her lab, brains are studied.

In a way, these remarkable efforts owe their existence to a person who did not live to see them. His name was Andre Waters and he was an All-Pro defensive back for the Philadelphia Eagles and Arizona Cardinals from 1984 to 1995. In November 2006, Waters put a gun to his head and pulled the trigger. He died in his home in Tampa at the age of forty-four. After retiring from the NFL, Waters tried to catch on as a coach with a pro team, but nothing worked out, so he spent many years as an assistant coach with various small college squads.

As Alan Schwarz later reported in the New York Times, Chris saw a report of Waters’s death that same day on the Sports Illustrated website, SI.com. He knew nothing about Waters the person. He knew a little about the player, mostly of his reputation as a hard hitter who gave out punishment and absorbed a lot too. Chris began researching Waters’s career, with special interest in his head trauma. He discovered a 1994 newspaper article in which Andre was asked to count the concussions he had suffered. “I think I lost count at 15,” he replied. “I just wouldn’t say anything. I’d sniff some smelling salts, then go back in there.”

Again, circumstances at the end of a football player’s life pointed to CTE. The only way to be certain was for an autopsy to be performed and for Andre’s brain to be examined. Chris had never met any member of the Waters family. Yet he was so convinced that Andre’s long history of head trauma had contributed to his death, even was the primary cause, that he picked up the phone and called Andre’s mother, Willie Ola Perry. It’s difficult to imagine the thoughts rushing through Chris’s mind. He described it to the Times as “the most difficult cold-call [he’d] ever been a part of.”

Chris received a return call from Andre’s sister. He explained his belief that there was a connection between the deaths of Webster and Long and the violent end of her brother’s life. After researching Chris’s

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