How Was CTE Linked To The NFL?

Mike Webster is known as one of the best Offensive Lineman ever as well as one of the best Pittsburgh Steelers ever. Webster was honored as an All-Pro seven times and played in the Pro Bowl nine times. At the time of his retirement, he was the last active player in the NFL to have played on all four Super Bowl winning teams of the 1970s Steelers. He played more seasons as a Steeler than anyone else in franchise history.

Struggles adjusting to life after football is a common issue with former players. After retirement, Webster suffered from amnesia, dementia, depression, and acute bone and muscle pain. Webster had a tougher time than most. Bad investment deals drained his assets and his rising anger and confusion, according to his wife, led to fits of rage. That eventually cost him his marriage. Indirectly, football was his life, and it was what cost him his life. Webster some days would forget to eat. He peed in an oven as well as super glued his teeth in when they started to fall out. He also would taser himself to fall unconscious or asleep. These are just a number of things Webster did to himself that family members also saw.

In 2002, Mike Webster, died at age 50 after a heart attack. Later the body was examined by a pathologist of the name of Bennet Omalu found one of the most important discoveries in Webster’s brain which was CTE. Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy or CTE is when a brain suffers a direct injury, proteins form around the affected area. Those proteins are seen through a microscope as red specs. Healthy brain cells will eventually devour those proteins, but in cases like Webster’s, the proteins eventually overwhelm the amount of healthy brain cells available to clear the brain. malu described Webster’s brain as one of “boxers, very old people with Alzheimer’s disease or someone who had suffered a severe head wound.”

This lead to the discovery of more individuals found with CTE, most of which found by Omalu. This lead to a number of retired players going to battle with the NFL in court where it the NFL eventually loss which lead to a number of changes in the NFL in the last decade or so.

Sources

https://www.behindthesteelcurtain.com/2013/10/8/4814434/concussion-suit-mike-webster-thing

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/the-autopsy-that-changed-football/

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/12/the-nfl-players-brain-that-changed-the-history-of-the-concussion/417597/