Will Frank Gifford Autopsy Finding CTE Deliver Blow to Football's Popularity?

CNN reports:

The family of Frank Gifford says the revered sportscaster and NFL star suffered from chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a progressive brain disease linked to the types of brain injuries and head trauma common in football.

"While Frank passed away from natural causes this past August at the age of 84, our suspicions that he was suffering from the debilitating effects of head trauma were confirmed when a team of pathologists recently diagnosed his condition," the family said in a statement released Wednesday.

Gifford's family said they decided to have his brain studied "in hopes of contributing to

Frank Gifford

the advancement of medical research concerning the link between football and traumatic brain injury." And they decided to make his diagnosis public to honor Gifford's commitment to promoting player safety, dating back to his involvement in creating the NFL Players Association, a union representing players' interests, in 1956.

CTE can be diagnosed only after death.

Gifford's diagnosis comes amid a growing focus on the risks athletes face from suffering repeated concussions, and just hours after the NFL admitted its concussion protocols had failed when St. Louis Rams quarterback Case Keenum kept playing Sunday even after his head slammed into the field. 

Gifford's family said that shortly before his death, he delved into better understanding the connection between "repetitive head trauma and its associated cognitive and behavioral symptoms -- which he experienced firsthand."

...

The brain tissue of people found to have CTE displays an abnormal buildup of tau -- a protein that, when it spills out of cells, can choke off, or disable, neural pathways controlling memory, judgment and fear.  

It's not unique to athletes, but the disease has drawn growing attention in the sports world.

Dozens of former NFL players, including Junior Seau and Dave Duerson, have been posthumously diagnosed with the disease. In study results released earlier this year, 87 of 91 former NFL players who donated their brains to science after death tested positive for the disease.

It's unfortunate that the article includes the reference to Keenum's concussion.  CTE is caused by repeated blows to the head.  It doesn't require that a person ever even receive a concussion and following concussion protocols does little to stop CTE.  But unfortunately since CTE and concussions are often discussed together, they are linked in much of the public's mind.

The problem is blows to the head start in youth football and continue through high school, college and the NFL, at least for the players who make it that far. So far nobody has developed a solution.  Helmets might actually make the situation worse by encouraging players to lead into tackles with their heads, resulting in more cranial blows.

 

For years I looked back with regret that I didn't play high school football.  Instead I was very blessed to play on a state ranked baseball team that had a hall of fame coach. While I thoroughly enjoyed that experience, I was at best a mediocre baseball player.  I think I was much better suited physically for football and would have been much better at that sport.  But now looking back, knowing former high school football players who have early onset arthritis, knees replaced and other problems, including CTE, I'm glad my parents only let me play one sport and I chose baseball.