'Your papers, please' must never be heard in America
Joanne Boogaard watched her son Derek duke it out on the ice with other NHL tough guys for six seasons as one of the most feared enforcers in the game, a 6-foot-7 brawler who was not there to skate or score, but to defend his teammates when it was called for.
The brain-shredding neurodegenerative disease took root in Junior Seau's brain before he shot himself in 2012. Same with Ray Easterling, who also took his own life last year. Dave Duerson pulled the trigger in 2011. Dozens of other former NFL players were diagnosed.
The Super Bowl closes a tumultuous year for the NFL.
When he ended his life last year by shooting himself in the chest, Junior Seau had a degenerative brain disease often linked with repeated blows to the head.
Junior Seau, one of the NFL's best and fiercest players for two decades, suffered from a degenerative brain disease often associated with repeated blows to the head when he committed suicide last May, the National Institutes of Health said in a study released Thursday.
Junior Seau, one of the NFL's best and fiercest players for two decades, suffered from a degenerative brain disease often associated with repeated blows to the head when he committed suicide last May, the National Institutes of Health said in a study released Thursday.
When he ended his life last year by shooting himself in the chest, Junior Seau had a degenerative brain disease often linked with repeated blows to the head.
Junior Seau, one of the NFL's best and fiercest players for two decades, suffered from a degenerative brain disease often associated with repeated blows to the head when he committed suicide last May, the National Institutes of Health said in a study released Thursday.
Junior Seau, one of the NFL's best and fiercest players for nearly two decades, had a degenerative brain disease when he committed suicide last May, the National Institutes of Health told The Associated Press on Thursday.
The apparent murder-suicide of Kansas City Chiefs linebacker Jovan Belcher, 25, is one of a series of untimely deaths for current or former NFL players in recent years:
Long a refuge from national political polarization, football recently has been engulfed in a high-profile public debate about its safety and viability, an argument that echoes previous cultural clashes over everything from cigarettes to semi-automatic weapons.
The family of former NFL star Junior Seau will donate his brain for research into repetitive head injuries.
Junior Seau's brain will be donated by his family for research into football-related head injuries.
Junior Seau's apparent suicide stunned an entire city and saddened former teammates who recalled the former NFL star's ferocious tackles and habit of calling everybody around him "Buddy."
Junior Seau's death has been ruled a suicide by the San Diego County medical examiner's office.
"Dave Duerson had classic pathology of CTE and no evidence of any other disease," McKee said, "and he has severe involvement of all the (brain) structures that affect things like judgment, inhibition, impulse control, mood and memory."
At a reunion of the 1985 Bears championship team a few months ago, he told them he was planning to get married again in April and seemed optimistic about his future.
