Sixteen athletes, including 6 former NFL players, have agreed to donate their brains to the new Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy, a joint program between the Boston University School of Medicine and Sports Legacy Institute after death so they may study the effects of concussions.
Among the athletes who are donating are former New England Patriots linebacker Ted Johnson, former Tennessee Titans tight end Frank Wycheck and former Baltimore Colts safety Bruce Laird, who played his college ball at AIC in Springfield MA. Other athletes include are former U.S. national soccer team player Cindy Parlow, former U.S. Olympic swimmer Jenny Thompson and hockey player Noah Welch, who played last year for the Florida Panthers.
“I’m not being vindictive. I’m not trying to reach up from the grave and get the NFL,” Johnson, a former New England Patriots linebacker, told the New York Times for a story first published Tuesday night on its Web site. “But any doctor who doesn’t connect concussions with long-term effects should be ashamed of themselves.”
The 35-year-old’s neurologist has pointed to Johnson’s multiple concussions between 2002-05 as a cause of his permanent and degenerative problems with memory and depression, the Times reported.
Later this week the center will announce that former NFL player John Grimsley, who played linebacker for the Houston Oilers, was found to have brain damage commonly associated with boxers.
Grimsley died in February at age 45 after he shot himself in the chest in what police ruled an accident. Subsequent analysis of his brain tissue confirmed the presence of neurofibrillary tangles that had already begun to affect Grimsley’s behavior and memory, said Dr. Ann C. McKee, an associate professor of neurology and pathology at the Boston University School of Medicine and a co-director of the new brain-study center.
