On the afternoon of what would’ve been the Hall of Fame linebacker’s 47th birthday, Junior Seau’s daughter Sydney called for us all to pay tribute to her father by becoming more knowledgeable about the disease that killed him: chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE). Specifically, Sydney asked her Twitter followers Tuesday to see the 2015 film “Concussion,” which details the discovery of the degenerative brain disease from which her father suffered.
While Junior was an immensely popular player throughout his two decades in the NFL, his family has recently gone to battle with the league over the circumstances of his death. In 2013, the family filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the NFL, arguing that the league “failed to disseminate” the harmful long-term neurological effects of the hits so commonly seen on the football field.
As is much better-known now than at the time of Seau’s 2012 suicide -- thanks, in some part, to the film “Concussion” -- the development of CTE has been linked to repetitive head trauma. Moreover, research published by PBS’ "Frontline" in September 2015 claimed that the brain disease was found in 96 percent of the former professional football players they examined, with 87 of the 91 now deceased players tragically testing positive.
That alarmingly high percentage makes clear the importance and urgency of Sydney’s plea that we all educate ourselves about the disease at hand. Everyone, especially those whose loved ones spend time on the gridiron, should know more about the illness that has already hampered the lives of too many athletes.
As Sydney asked, please go do yourself a favor and learn the background and basics of this too-pervasive disease.
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