Doctors couldn’t find what was wrong with Michael Keck, but football star knew it would kill him
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The Kansas City Star

Her head lay on her husband’s chest and she listened to his heart beat for the last time. He took his final breaths, his body pressing against her cheek. She held his hands, still warm, in a room full of doctors and nurses and the love of her life.

In the seconds after he slipped away, her first thought was of the way Michael Keck looked at their son. Such complete joy, like nothing else in the world mattered. She’d never seen anything like it. Still hasn’t.

Michael was 25 years old. Should’ve had a full life in front of him. A former football star at Harrisonville High and later Missouri and Missouri State, with so much going for him.

He was smart, with an unrelenting energy. Kind and impossible not to like, except when the demons came. Justin, their son, was not yet 3 when Michael died in 2013, too young to remember anything about his dad. That’s one reason Cassandra wants to tell this story.

She walked her husband’s body to the morgue that day. They wanted to put him on a cold, plain, metal table. That seemed horrible to her. They kept him on the bed instead, and her father helped her clean Michael’s body. There was so much blood. His head was swollen, puffy, like a bag of water rested underneath his skin.

They had pushed on his chest for an hour, then two hours, then three, trying to bring him back to life. The trauma broke a blood vessel on his neck. Clamps held his eyes open. It was a gruesome end to what should’ve been such a long and beautiful life.

Michael and Cassandra were made for each other, sharing an inseparable bond even through the storm, and she was not ready for it to end. Football took Michael away at a startlingly young age, and that’s the other reason Cassandra wants to tell this story.

She tries not to cry.

“He was everything I wanted,” she said. “I was everything he wanted. Physically, mentally. It was like our souls were alike.”

At the crematorium, there was a tiny window. Cassandra watched his casket push into the flames. She saw it catch on fire. This was her way of saying goodbye to his body.

To the very end, she was by his side.

Michael Keck was a survivor. That’s what makes his death so hard to take even now, two years later, for those who loved him and knew him and looked up to him.

He grew up in Harrisonville, a town of fewer than 10,000 people 40 miles south of downtown Kansas City on U.S. Highway 71. His parents, both of them, became addicted to drugs when he was young. Neither returned messages for this story, but Charlotte Keck — Michael’s grandmother — remembers both doing meth with the kids in the house. Once, they burned a hole through a table and the floor underneath. Charlotte took full custody of Michael when he was in sixth grade.

Michael grew up big and strong, with a warmth and perspective that transcended his parents’ struggles. When he was just a boy, and found out his mom had been arrested again, he told Charlotte: “I hope she gets the help she needs.” Later, in high school, he was asked if he ever got angry that his parents weren’t around more.

“No,” he said. “Because that’s part of what made me who I am, and I like who I am.”

Michael was different. Growing up, he was a terrible basketball player — “the worst you ever saw,” one of his friends jokes now — but he made himself a starter on his high school team through force and determination and hours at the local park, where he studied the tendencies of all the regulars. He had asthma but refused to use an inhaler, simply running until it no longer hurt.

He was surrounded by love, even when his parents weren’t around. There was Charlotte, and Bill Collins, a judge in Harrisonville whose sons became Michael’s best friends. Michael had his own room at the Collins’ house. Michael loved them back. He made movies with his friends, broke into the school with them to lift weights, and during football season made it a point to watch as much film as possible so he could tell his teammates how to attack their next opponent. At the funeral, Charlotte remembers hearing story after story about Michael sticking up for someone.

Michael was a football prodigy. He started at Harrisonville High as a freshman, and the coach soon learned that Michael gave his best at practice when another freshman was called up to varsity to work with him. Always, it was about his friends.

Around Harrisonville, they told the story of Michael’s first game, when he tackled a kid so hard that pieces of his helmet flew off. Set to a song that goes, “Here comes the BOOM,” video of that play is worn down now, they watched it so often. Later, that play would take on a darker tone.

Keck was one of the brightest high school football recruits in the class of 2007. A defensive end, he sacked Cam Newton, now the star quarterback of the Carolina Panthers, in an all-star game. Alabama, Michigan, and Southern California offered scholarships. He told his grandma he wished he could divide those offers amongst his friends.

He signed with Missouri, and might’ve chosen an even smaller program if not for expectations in his hometown.

“He had the burden of carrying the hopes and dreams of a lot of Harrisonville people,” Collins said.

“He knew if he went to a smaller school, a lot of people would’ve been let down because they expected to see him on TV,” said Steven Collins, Bill’s son and Michael’s best friend. “He wasn’t cut out for (Division I football). For him, it ruined what football was about.”

Tears flowed down Michael’s cheeks as he knocked on the door of his high school football coach. This was spring of his ninth-grade year, and Michael didn’t try to hide his hurt. His girlfriend had broken up with him, and in that moment that’s all that mattered.

Fred Bouchard sat mostly in silence, comforting Michael where he could. Bouchard has coached for 30 years. He’ll never forget that conversation.

“His heart was broken,” Bouchard said. “I’ve done this a while, and there’s only five guys who’d be willing to have that conversation with their coach, and he’s the biggest bad-ass football player we ever had.”

That juxtaposition — the best athlete in the school, a smart, good-looking boy completely vulnerable — was Michael. He knew pain. At lunch, he scanned the cafeteria for someone sitting alone. That’s the person Michael wanted to talk to, to ask questions of, to listen to, to maybe brighten their day. In college, he befriended a student with severe facial burn marks. Others recoiled at the sight. Michael invited him over to play video games.

“He wasn’t a saint,” said Steven Collins, Michael’s best friend. “But he was pretty close.”

Michael didn’t like football. Not at first, anyway. In grade school, long before anyone knew what kind of talent Michael had, he made excuses as to why he couldn’t play in almost every game. His ankle. His hamstring. His arm.

He cried in the middle of most games, and he said it was because something hurt. But Steven — who played with Michael through high school — came to think Michael was upset at not making a play. He hated letting down his friends.

Eventually, football became central to Michael’s life. He was the best player on the field, always, but that’s not what he liked most about it. He enjoyed competing, and that he had something to do with his friends.

In high school, his size and athleticism caught the eye of an area AAU basketball coach. But Michael didn’t want to play without his friends, so they formed their own team. Bill Collins coached it. They bought plain white T-shirts, scribbled their numbers with a Sharpie, and called themselves the Running Rebels. The first tournament they entered, Michael dominated a kid who would later earn a Division I basketball scholarship.

Stories about Michael and sports always tended to go this way. He was drawn in because he wanted to be with his friends, then wound up being the star, which was a little awkward because that was never the point.

“That’s exactly right,” Steven said. “He was really uncomfortable with the limelight. He just loved being out with his friends.”

Michael was good enough at football that some thought he could make a career of it. Coming out of high school, he was a higher-ranked recruit than scores of guys who are now millionaires. Those were always someone else’s dreams, though. Someone else’s expectations.

Charlotte remembers asking her grandkids what they would do if they won the lottery. Michael said he would move to Hawaii, find a cottage, and buy a soda fountain.

On the surface, Mizzou looked like a terrific fit for Michael — one of the nation’s top pass-rushing prospects at one of the nation’s top schools for pass rushers.

Looking back, knowing what we know now, some from Harrisonville wonder if Michael’s brain was damaged before he even left town.

Cassandra first saw Michael in an elevator. She will never forget that moment they made eye contact, and the power they both felt. They stood there, silent, staring at each other. Cassandra could not look away.

Michael was shy, and later had a friend ask for Cassandra’s number. They hung out the next day, the two of them and Steven, with whom Michael lived after transferring from MU to Missouri State. They watched a movie. Something on Netflix; Cassandra doesn’t remember the show. What she does remember is Michael sitting on the other side of the room, and then, after a while — finally — asking if he could come sit next to her.

“We never stopped hanging out after that,” Cassandra said. “It was kind of like an addiction.”

One of Michael’s friends wonders if the first sign of trouble was Michael leaving Mizzou. He redshirted in 2007, and played one game in 2008, the whole time telling people back home that big-time football wasn’t for him. It wasn’t the decision that was surprising, but the way he left Columbia.

He just walked away. Quit. Michael never quit anything. But after a group text message to his coaches, he was gone.

“That’s not Mike,” said Zack Livingston, a friend from Harrisonville. “He regretted that. He wished he would’ve done it differently.”

As he moved on from Mizzou, Michael and Cassandra fell for each other, hard. He liked her passion, and her creativity, and her intelligence. She liked his gentleness, his work ethic and the natural way he accepted people without judgment. It was the last new relationship Michael would ever make.

He and Cassandra isolated themselves. In the beginning, it was purely choice. Love, obsession and choice. They did everything together because it felt good, it felt right, it was all they wanted. Then, slowly, rules started to change. Cassandra rearranged her life for Michael.

“I got rid of everybody,” she said, “to get his full trust.”

Michael began to forget things. His keys. His wallet. His words. Cassandra would try to complete his sentences, and Michael would get mad because it wasn’t what he was trying to say. That happened a lot. Sometimes, the anger was worse than others.

“He’d get, like, somebody else for a couple minutes,” she said. “I wouldn’t hold it against him. ‘What can we do to keep that from happening again? Let’s work as a team.’”

Cassandra’s life became largely about not upsetting Michael. If she was going to be five minutes late, she called. She broke off contact with her friends, even with her parents, because that avoided problems with him. She hung blankets over the windows, because the outside light made his head hurt. She kept their place as clean and as organized as possible, Michael’s keys and hat and coat in exactly the same place, so he would know where to find them. Anything that might start an argument, Cassandra wanted to fix before it became a problem.

They did everything together. If Michael mowed the lawn, Cassandra picked up leaves and sticks. If Cassandra washed the dishes, Michael dried them. Michael even wanted her in the room when he played video games. Once, she was in their bedroom watching TV and Michael got so mad he stormed in and slammed the set to the ground. She got used to the outbursts.

He threw a video-game controller at her, the plastic device zooming into her back and leaving a deep bruise. Sometimes, the violence was more personal. She learned how to defend herself, how to use her arms to protect her head, and that crying only made it worse.

“I would have to sit there,” she said. “Until the pain went away.”

It used to be they were alone because that’s what they wanted. More and more, it was because Michael didn’t want anyone else to see what he had become. He always apologized. He always felt bad. He knew that this wasn’t him, and Cassandra believed him.

Michael tried to work but couldn’t hold a job. He got tired quickly, and too much action made his head hurt. There was a vein on the right side of his forehead, visible his whole life, but when the pain was really bad Cassandra saw it pulsate.

The last two years were the worst. Michael had always been a bit compulsive about his hygiene, but now he’d go days without showering. He would forget to eat. He began to talk about death. He told people he was an old man in a young person’s body, and once asked his grandma why her brain worked better than his.

The violence worsened, too. Cassandra had an emergency plan. She moved the dresser in a way that she could shut the door and stiffen her legs against the furniture to keep him out. She didn’t always get there in time, so she learned to protect herself. Arms up.

“I never took it personal,” she said. “I saw everything. I was with him every day. He showed me every part of his suffering. I saw it all.”

About two months before Michael died, he and his wife talked about the first time they met. They had never done that before. Not after they started dating, not at their wedding, not even the night after they married, when they sat in that cabin with Steven and laughed all night at old stories.

They had been through so much. The love. The fights. The laughs. The tears. Justin. Toward the end, they moved to Colorado together, because maybe they just needed a change of scenery.

After all of it, Cassandra could still feel what she felt in the elevator that day. Such intensity.

She asked Michael if he remembered. He said he did. She asked what he was thinking.

“You were the most beautiful woman I ever saw,” he said.

Michael’s life became an impossible puzzle he tried to solve by himself. Doctors couldn’t help. Test results didn’t show anything. So he pulled all-nighters on the computer. He stayed up until three, four, five o’clock in the morning, drawn to the stories and videos about brain trauma and concussions.

When former NFL star Junior Seau shot himself, Michael watched the news and realized that so much of what he heard sounded like his own life. A good man prone to violent outbursts and memory loss. He saw how those stories always ended.

Michael knew death was coming. Some days, he wanted to die. Maybe then people would understand. Maybe then they would know he wasn’t making this up, or whining, or taking the same sad fall his parents had. He wanted people to know this was real.

Michael had one final wish, which he made Cassandra promise to fulfill. He wanted his brain donated for study. Something had to be wrong. The headaches. The inability to concentrate. He used to be so friendly, so thoughtful, particularly to people who needed a smile. Then, he wanted nothing to do with anyone.

Michael knew the men whose brains had betrayed them were in their 50s, their 60s, their 70s. Most had enjoyed long careers in the NFL. But he was feeling the same things they talked about. It sounded crazy, and Michael knew it.

He was in his 20s. A kid. He was once a force of nature, a package of size and strength and speed that made anything seem possible. But he played only one game at Missouri and one season at Missouri State. He remembered two hits worse than most, and figured he had undiagnosed concussions from high school, but there was no extensive history of documented injuries. How could he think his suffering was the same as those old men?

But the way he felt, how could he think anything else?

Cassandra loved Michael completely, but she was powerless through much of their relationship. Powerless to calm Michael’s rages, powerless to make him feel better in the quieter times.

Some wondered if Michael was mixed up in drugs, like his parents. Cassandra knew better than that, but she didn’t have any answers. She believed Michael, that something was wrong with his head, but without a diagnosis it was hard to be sure. Doctors never could find anything wrong. And after a while, Michael stopped going in for tests.

Then, a few months after he died on Oct. 21, 2013, the researchers called.

They had studied hundreds of brains, and never saw one like Michael Keck’s.

Chronic traumatic encephalopathy, commonly known as CTE, is a progressive degenerative brain disease found in athletes and soldiers and others with a history of repeated brain trauma.

The disease has taken on a greater profile in recent years as advanced forms of CTE have been found in retired pro football players. Many of them died at an early age, their final years marked by memory loss, confusion, violence, depression and, in some cases, suicide. Their symptoms often mirror dementia, though CTE can only be diagnosed after death.

CTE had been found almost solely in older players. Retired players. Seau is perhaps CTE’s highest-profile victim. He was 43, with a 20-year NFL career, when he killed himself with a gunshot to the chest.

Michael was 25. Researchers had never seen such an advanced case of CTE in a brain so young. His story has become one of the most powerful parts of presentations on the disease.

“I have to say, I was blown away,” said Ann McKee, a neuropathologist at Boston University who studied Michael’s brain. “This case still stands out to me personally. It’s a reason we do this work. A young man, in the prime of his life, newly married, had everything to look forward to. Yet, this disease is destroying his brain.”

There is no way of knowing for sure, and there is reason to believe the biggest danger is when smaller hits stack up, but Michael Keck thought the worst hit he ever took was at Missouri State.

His helmet had been malfunctioning, the pads inside losing air. Before he could fix it, he took a massive blow to the side of his head. Research shows this might be the worst way to be hit. Michael lost consciousness, and in all the years he’d played football, that never happened before.

“That was the hit he would talk about,” Cassandra said.

Michael quit football shortly after that collision, which happened around the time they found out Cassandra was pregnant. He was already having problems with his mind by then, and he wanted to be around for his son. That was in 2010. In two years, Michael had gone from a bright future at one of the nation’s top programs to quitting the sport.

“We both had tears in my office,” said Terry Allen, Keck’s coach at Missouri State. “He was a great kid. Loved to play. I loved that kid. That’s a hard deal.”

Michael walked away from the game about three years before he died. Cassandra said she is not interested in lawsuits. She wants answers, and for Michael’s suffering to push forward the understanding of CTE and potential dangers of football.

The rate of Michael’s descent, his relatively short-term exposure to the sport, and his heartbreakingly young age make his a potentially ground-breaking case for scientists and physicians studying the disease.

“It reinforces the notion that some people are very susceptible to this disease,” said McKee, the neuropathologist. “They are exposed to this in amateur sports. They don’t have to be professional athletes bashing their heads in for a living.

“Michael, for whatever reason — and we need to figure it out — was very susceptible to this. This is just not acceptable. Whatever rate this is happening in our college and high school athletes, even if it’s low, it’s an unacceptable level.”

Michael’s official cause of death was a staph infection, which caused fatal heart problems, but CTE made this tragedy inevitable. Michael’s condition was only getting worse, and his suffering deeper. A good analogy is Alzheimer’s, which doesn’t technically kill a person but makes them waste away and die from other complications, such as pneumonia.

Michael’s case brings up so many questions. So many fears. It proves that professional players — adults who make conscious decisions to play, and are well-compensated — aren’t the only ones at risk. Perhaps researchers can learn something specific about Michael’s brain, or his exposure, that caused the disease to spread so rapidly.

Maybe Michael’s suffering — and the pain it caused Cassandra and others — can lead to new knowledge that might help someone else.

“I need to do this for Michael,” Cassandra said. “He wanted so badly for people to know about this. He did so much research on it. It can’t stop there.”

The first thing you see when you walk into Cassandra Keck’s house is a picture of Justin, smiling as wide and bright as a little boy is capable of smiling. If you knew Michael at all, the resemblance is stunning.

It’s not just the face, either. Cassandra remembers Michael and Justin standing in the bathroom, both without shirts, waiting for the water to warm up for a bath. The head shape. Their hair. The way their necks became shoulders. It was identical. Even now, she laughs when she tells the story.

Justin and Michael had their own language. Mmmmm, was hungry. A cough meant Justin was thirsty. He cried in his crib, and Michael knew that meant he wanted to sleep with a toy. Those are Cassandra’s memories, and they are good memories. They are great memories. This, too, is part of what she wants to pass along.

“Justin will tell kids at school, ‘My dad died,’ ” Cassandra said. “He’ll say, ‘He got sick.’”

She thinks all the time about what she wants Justin to know about his father. At the funeral, she gave everyone pens and paper and asked them to write down their memories of Michael. She’s saving everything, and when he’s ready, Cassandra will share it all with Justin.

She wants him to know his dad was loyal, and that he was always there for people, no matter what, even if they’d done something to hurt him before. She wants Justin to know his dad worked hard, freakishly hard, to make what he wanted a reality. She wants Justin to know his dad never complained, even when he had plenty of reason to. More than anything else, she wants Justin to know how much his dad cared, and wanted a better life for his son, one without the uncertainty and ups and downs he went through.

On the wall at Charlotte’s house is a picture of the 2006 Harrisonville High football team. That team was loaded, going undefeated and winning the state championship game by five touchdowns. Their best player was Michael, who borrowed a suit and tie for the team picture and sat at the end of a row. That season was the last time he was happy on the football field, the last time he was able to play with his friends.

Every now and then, Justin points at the picture.

“Dad,” he says. “Dad dead.”

Then he points higher.

“Yeah. He’s up there now.”

Kendal Keys woke up on July 26, 2018, and said enough was enough. He had been trying to see his older brother Kenny for months but the two failed to connect despite both being in Las Vegas. This time, he didn’t give Kenny a choice – he picked him up and drove to their dad Kenneth Sr.’s place for dinner.

With Kenny in tow, Kendal blasted Chance the Rapper’s “Blessings.” Kenny was dozing off, but Kendal couldn’t stop smiling.

“I was just happy because he was with me,” Kendal remembers.

At one point on the drive, Kendal asked Kenny a simple question. Kenny delivered a completely incomprehensible answer. Kendal’s heart sank. He had seen this before.

The two arrived at their dad’s place and Kendal walked into the bathroom and looked himself in the mirror. We can do this, he told himself. It was too late to take Kenny back to his psychiatrist that night, but he would plan to take him there first thing in the morning.

Kenneth Sr., Kenny, and Kendal enjoyed each other’s company over dinner. Kenny and Kendal were back laughing at and with each other like they had their whole lives. Kendal offered to step out and get some water bottles for everyone, hoping to get Kenny back in the car so they could discuss the need for an appointment the next day. Instead, Kenneth Sr. offered to come along and Kenny opted to stay behind.

At Walmart, Kendal and Kenneth Sr. ran into a family friend who told them to say hello to Kenny for her. Father and son both remarked on the breathtaking sunset above the mountainous Las Vegas horizon on the drive home.

When they opened the door back at Kenneth Sr.’s place, Kenny wasn’t where he’d been when they left.

“As soon as I didn’t see him on the couch, I just knew he was dead,” Kendal said. “I didn’t know how but I just knew he was gone.”

“You only got one Kenny.”

Kenny Keys, Jr. was born on February 25, 1993, to Kenneth Keys Sr. and Syvonne McNair in San Diego, California.

Kenneth Sr. grew up in Florida as one of 13 children. He loved watching his Miami Dolphins on Sundays but Kenny’s energy as a toddler often got in the way.

“I would make him run down the hallway,” said Kenneth Sr. “When I’d say, ‘Go!’ he would run down the hallway and around the living room. It was the only way to tire him out and he’d just fall asleep.”

From a young age, Kenny exhibited a coolness with everything he did. People gravitated to him.

“Teachers would tell me how Kenny had a smile that could stop a bus,” Kenneth Sr. said.

Kenneth Sr. was a correctional officer for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation and then a prison counselor. He often made visits to school to speak to students. Kenneth Sr. was a former college basketball player with the height to prove it. Kenny used his dad’s height to manufacture an autograph line full of kids who were convinced his dad played in the NBA.

Kenny’s mother Syvonne also worked in law enforcement. They called Kenny “The Judge” because he could always see right from wrong and settle disputes between his siblings, Kendal and Kaitlyn. Kendal was born less than a year after Kenny and then Kaitlyn came five years later, in 1999.

Kendal had the benefit of following Kenny’s lead and the curse of trying to fill his shoes.

“He was the complete role model,” Kendal said. “He knew that I needed guidance and everywhere I went he always told me where to go.”

“Effortlessly cool.”

The Keys boys were two peas in a pod, always playing sports together. Kenny usually won and he’d let Kendal know all about it, which led to a near-constant cycle of playing, fighting, and making up.

Throughout life, it wasn’t just losing to Kenny that irked Kendal. It was how easily everything came to Kenny.

“He didn’t even want to be prom king and he won prom king,” Kendal said. “He didn’t have to try. I was the one who had to try all the time to be liked or whatever.”

The boys ran track, played basketball, and starting in 2006, played middle school football. It was there that Kenny developed a reputation for laying out heavy hits to opposing receivers and nonchalantly walking away from the damage afterwards.

At Helix High School, Kenny continued to star in track and basketball and didn’t play football until he was a senior. At tryouts that year, the coaches challenged him with a one-on-one drill against one of the team’s biggest players. Kenny knocked him out cold. With Kenny as a starting safety, Helix went 12-1. Kenny’s play in just one high school season earned him a Division I scholarship offer from UNLV.

44 Magnum

In his first football season at UNLV, Kenny picked up where he left off at Helix. He appeared in all 13 games, starting five, recorded 45 tackles and two interceptions wearing No. 44 for the Rebels. The hard hits continued and earned him a new nickname. “The Judge” was now “44 Magnum.”

Kenny made the Dean’s List that year and returned to Helix High to catch one of Kendal’s games. Kendal knew his big brother was in the stands and caught the first touchdown of his career. As he came off the field, Kendal was surprised to see Kenny come all the way down to the sideline to celebrate.

“He wanted us all to better ourselves,” Kendal said. “He wanted everyone to be successful. He didn’t hate on anybody.”

Kendal blazed his own trail as a receiver at Helix and earned the attention of college scouts. Initially, he had no interest in playing with Kenny at UNLV. He was more attracted to the bigger stage and bluer turf of Boise State and signed to play there in 2013. Local papers in San Diego wrote about the impending matchup of the Keys brothers in the Mountain West Conference.

But Kendal’s career in Boise was over before it started. After enrolling in fall 2013, he was expelled from the school. The expulsion marred Kendal’s chances of enrolling elsewhere, but Kenny convinced the UNLV coaches that Kendal was more than his mistakes. They took Kenny’s word and Kendal signed with UNLV, thrilled with the opportunity to play college football with his big brother.

With Kendal now set to move in with Kenny, Syvonne warned Kendal that she had noticed something was off with his brother. At first, Kendal didn’t see what she was talking about. If anything, Kenny seemed like he was back at Helix. Everyone loved him and once again, Kenny was showing Kendal the ropes on campus.

But slowly, Kendal noticed what his mom was describing. Typically, Kendal couldn’t be around Kenny for more than ten minutes without busting out laughing at something he did or said. But this Kenny was quiet and more distant. Kendal frequently caught him staring off into nothing.

The behavior affected his standing in school and on the UNLV team. Kenny was routinely late or completely absent from spring and fall camp. He barely played his sophomore season.

Kenny would also say bizarre and alarming things to Kendal. He once joked that Kendal should drink Drano with him. Fearful Kenny would hurt himself, Kendal never let his brother out of his sight. But once, after Kendal took a nap, he woke up to find Kenny gone. He returned three hours later. When asked where he was, Kenny flatly told Kendal he went to the Vegas strip and considered jumping off a building.

“We gotta get you out of here.”

Kendal knew something was wrong but shouldered the burden of trying to fix his brother. He wouldn’t tell his mom everything because it would have led to dozens of calls a day. He wouldn’t tell Kenneth Sr. for fear of disappointing the father who cherished his children’s successes.

“It was like we were always the trophies,” Kendal said. “We were always on a sports team and his friends would come to see us. So, we felt like we didn’t want to ruin that.”

Kenneth Sr. tried to connect with Kenny, but his calls went unanswered. Kendal always picked up but kept details about Kenny to a minimum. In October 2013, Kenny’s internal battle reached a breaking point. He finally called his father back.

“Dad, I need your help,” Kenny said.

Kenny had just left a psychiatric hospital he was admitted to after trying to take his life.

Kenneth Sr. started corresponding with members of the UNLV coaching staff. He set a meeting with UNLV head coach Bobby Hauck in November 2013 to discuss Kenny’s progress. Kenneth Sr. asked his sons to join him for the meeting, but only Kendal showed up. Hauck informed Sr. that Kenny completely flunked out of the fall term at UNLV. He could maintain his scholarship if he returned to school in January.

Kendal had to tell his father that Kenny missed the meeting because he was in a psychiatric hospital again after making a second attempt on his life.

Kenneth Sr. took his rental car to the hospital to find a heavily sedated Kenny. Kenneth Sr. couldn’t stand to see his beloved son with the bus-stopping smile medicated to the point of looking like a zombie. He combed Kenny’s hair and promised to do what it took to get him out of the hospital.

Kenny was on heavy doses of medications to keep him calm. At the facility, doctors would test different drugs on Kenny until they found what worked. Kenneth Sr. took Kenny to all his meetings and visited him frequently throughout his stay. He was released in January 2014.

Kenny was diagnosed with major depressive disorder and psychosis, as well as marijuana and amphetamine abuse. Psychiatrists concluded Kenny’s sudden onset of symptoms may have been triggered by marijuana use and THC.

He made it back before Hauck’s deadline, but UNLV and the NCAA would have to see Kenny’s psychiatry report before clearing him to play. Kenneth Sr. assumed there was little chance they would deem Kenny eligible to keep playing. But they did.

“If they only looked in our eyes.”

With Kenny out of the hospital, Kendal had his brother back. Kenny was quieter than before but more importantly, stable. As his dosage of medication lessened, Kendal saw someone closer to the old Kenny return. In conversations about the last few months, Kenny didn’t remember the suicide attempts or any of the alarming things he said to Kendal.

With Kenny cleared to play, the Keys brothers could finally share the same field at UNLV. On Kendal’s first day of practice in spring 2014, none of UNLV’s receivers were eager to step up to Kenny in a one-on-one drill. Kendal never balked at an opportunity to prove himself and volunteered. He was quickly humbled by his big brother. In another drill, Kendal caught a pass and was running across the middle of the field before being stripped from behind. Kendal knew how much his coaches hated fumbling and was ready to blow up on whoever stripped him. But he turned around to see a smiling Kenny.

“I’ll never forget that,” Kendal said. “My brother is really out here. We have the same parents, now we’re on the same team.”

Their first season together offered a glimpse at a bright future. Kendal broke on the scene with 24 catches as a true freshman and Kenny recorded 42 tackles, many worthy of the “44 Magnum” moniker.

Kenny suffered two diagnosed concussions in his football career, and his family thinks many undiagnosed ones as well. He often said he finished games without knowing what half the game was in or where he was. Not only did Kenny’s nonchalant nature after big hits potentially hide concussion signs, Kenny also learned from a teammate to keep his helmet on when he was on the sideline so nobody could see his eyes.

Kenny saw a psychologist with some frequency since he returned to UNLV in 2014. But in his junior year, Kenny called his dad again.

“Dad I feel like I’m hurting everybody,” Kenny said.

Kenny again expressed thoughts of self-harm. Kenneth Sr. insisted there were countless people who loved Kenny and needed him to be strong.

Despite his unquestioned ability, Kendal says the coaching staff didn’t love giving Kenny playing time. He was routinely outworked in practice and in the weight room and coaches gave starting jobs to other players. But when UNLV went down in games, Sr. says Kenny was brought in to clean up the mess. On multiple occasions he led the team in tackles despite not starting the game.

Kenny’s fifth and final season at UNLV in 2016 was his brightest. He recorded 66 tackles and five pass deflections.

The 2017 NFL Draft came and went without Kenny’s name getting called. An AFC East team was interested in signing him as an undrafted free agent, but Kenny was still recovering from shoulder surgery and the team passed on signing him for the time being.

While Kenny wouldn’t be playing professional football, he had plenty to celebrate. After high school, Kenneth Sr. challenged Kenny. Plenty of people go to college, but the real achievement was graduating. After Kenny graduated from UNLV, Kenny went straight to his father with his degree.

Kenny studied education and sociology. He had ambitions of being a mentor for the next generation and was a beloved volunteer at Paradise Elementary School in Las Vegas.

Kenny was frustrated at not being able to find a job immediately after graduating. He worked at a warehouse and stayed in shape for a potential shot at the NFL. He got a boxer named Cali who was glued to his side. Kenneth Sr. moved to Vegas in May 2017 and noticed Kenny seemed down at times, but he was always talkative and invigorated whenever he was around Cali.

One afternoon in July 2018, Sr. came by the warehouse to deliver Kenny’s favorite homemade meal of collard greens, cornbread, and ribs. When he dropped off the food, Sr. noticed Kenny looked drained.

Sunset

Kenneth Sr. and Kendal will never forget the sunset they saw on their drive back to Kenneth Sr.’s home on Thursday, July 26, 2018 and the memory it triggers.

They arrived back that evening with bottles of water and the Pepsi Kenny asked for. When Kenny wasn’t immediately in sight upon arrival, Kenneth Sr. assumed he was using his master bathroom on the left side of the house. Kendal had an ominous feeling about where Kenny was and made a beeline to the bedrooms on the right side.

Moments later, Kendal left the room and yelled in agony to his father. Kenny had taken his life. He was 25 years old.

“I could see the pain that he was going through.”

Sr. sought answers after Kenny took his life. When Kenny’s toxicology report came back negative, he found relief in knowing Kenny did not have any drugs or alcohol in his system upon his death.

His search for answers then led him to the UNITE Brain Bank, when a member of UNLV’s athletic department gave Kendal a tip for Kenneth Sr. to call the number for brain donation. Sr. obliged.

Before the tip, the family hadn’t considered how Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) may have played a role in Kenny’s story. CTE is a degenerative brain disease found in athletes, military Veterans and others with a history of repetitive brain trauma.

Dr. Ann McKee, Director of the Brain Bank, performed the pathology report on Kenny’s brain. She detailed her findings to the Keys family on a call. Kenny had Stage 1 (of 4) CTE.

“The way that Dr. McKee explained it, I could see the pain that he was experiencing,” Kenneth Sr. said. “That doesn’t explain why he did what he did, but I can see why he was hurting.”

Early symptoms of CTE typically appear in a patient’s 20’s or 30’s and can include depression, aggression, paranoia, impulse control problems, and suicidal thoughts. The connection between CTE and suicidality is still unclear to researchers but it is part of ongoing research at the UNITE Brain Bank. Research has shown a link, though, between concussion and suicide risk. One study found those who suffer a concussion are twice as likely to take their own lives.

On their last drive together, Kenny told Kendal how excited he was to watch him finish his football career at UNLV. With a year of eligibility left, Kendal chose to keep playing. He joined the Rebels at fall camp a week after Kenny’s death.

“Kenny is suffering that much and in that much pain, but he’s thinking about me playing?” said Kendal. “I needed to get back out there.”

They played different positions, but Kendal exhibited a similar physicality and reckless abandon to Kenny. After Kenny was diagnosed with CTE, Kendal realized how important it was for football players to take care of their brains.

“Speak up about concussions,” Kendal said. “If you are feeling some type of way about your head, don’t let your ego get in the way. Because it could cost you your life.”

Kenneth Sr. echoed those thoughts with a message to parents.

“After a couple of concussions, you want to err on the side of caution,” Kenneth Sr. said. “Go ahead and remove them from that sport. Better to have them here than to not have them here.”

Kenny meant a lot to so many. Many of his former teammates chose to memorialize him through tattoos and custom jewelry.

Torry McTyer played in the defensive backfield and was good friends with Kenny at UNLV. He was in training camp with the Miami Dolphins when he heard Kenny took his life. In response, McTyer and his family raised thousands of dollars for the Keys family. In the 2018 NFL season’s “My Cause, My Cleats” week, McTyer chose suicide prevention as his cause with cleats that said, “In Memory of Kenny Keys.”

“You always feel like you could have done something different,” McTyer said in a story for MiamiDolphins.com. “It’s a helpless feeling. But I want people to know who Kenny Keys is. I want people to realize that things like this are happening everywhere and they can be prevented.”

After she lost two of her children, Kenneth Sr.’s mother once told him there was no pain like losing a child. He now can understand his mother’s grief. He has focused his attention on trying to protect other parents from his tragedy.

“I spent 26 years saving people’s lives and I couldn’t save my own kid,” Kenneth Sr. said. “I’ve got to help somebody. If I could just help one kid, save just one kid’s life, or educate some parents and let them know how serious these concussions are then I’ll be good with that.”

Kendal internalized guilt for Kenny’s suicide for a long time. He dreams about Kenny nearly every night, always imagining the two of them laughing and being goofy together.

He wants to honor Kenny’s legacy by encouraging other athletes to seek mental health resources and be honest about their symptoms. He implores anyone struggling to reach out and when they do see a mental health professional, to bring someone with them who can speak to their issues and eliminate the chances of getting misdiagnosed.

“When you go get help, don’t go in there knowing or demanding or trying to think you can do it yourself,” Kendal said. “Let the professionals do what they’re paid to do.”

Kendal has joined our roster of mentors for the CLF HelpLine. He hopes to be a resource for other football players who are battling the effects of concussion or struggling with their mental health.

When Kenny left the psychiatric hospital in winter 2013, he gave his Helix High letterman’s jacket to his dad.

After Kenny died, Kenneth Sr. found the jacket again. In one of the pockets, Kenneth discovered a folded handwritten note Kenny wrote while in the hospital thanking his dad for everything he had done for him. Kenneth Sr. He holds the note and the memories of Kenny tight.

“He was a good kid, man,” said Kenneth Sr. “He was special.”

Suicide is preventable and help is available. If you are concerned that someone in your life may be suicidal, the five #BeThe1To steps are simple actions anyone can take to help someone in crisis. If you are struggling to cope and would like some emotional support, call the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988 to connect with a trained counselor. It’s free, confidential, and available to everyone in the United States. You do not have to be suicidal to call. If you’re not comfortable talking on the phone, consider using the Lifeline Crisis Chat at www.crisischat.org.

If you or someone you know is struggling with concussion symptoms, reach out to us through the CLF HelpLine. We support patients and families by providing personalized help to those struggling with the outcomes of brain injury. Submit your request today and a dedicated member of the Concussion Legacy Foundation team will be happy to assist you.

For many years, he spent his Friday nights on the sidelines of local high school football fields where he cared for the athletes, and our home was a virtual walk-in clinic where young athletes and their parents, many of whom could not afford formal medical treatment, were given the care they needed. Our Dad was an “old school” doctor, the kind who visits his patients at their homes and spends extra time with them in the office, explaining the root cause of their injuries and making them feel safe in his skilled and gentle hands.

Dr. Michael King, father, husband and surgeon, took his own life at his home in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, at the age of 65. Our Dad was a beloved orthopedic surgeon and a selfless teacher. For many years, he spent his Friday nights on the sidelines of local high school football fields where he cared for the athletes, and our home was a virtual walk-in clinic where young athletes and their parents, many of whom could not afford formal medical treatment, were given the care they needed. Our Dad was an “old school” doctor, the kind who visits his patients at their homes and spends extra time with them in the office, explaining the root cause of their injuries and making them feel safe in his skilled and gentle hands.

Our Dad had been a great athlete in his youth. He excelled in basketball, swimming and football, and was the star quarterback for his high school team, Page High School in Greensboro, NC. He then went on to be the quarterback and captain of the football team at Hampden-Sydney College in Virginia and graduated with a degree in Political Science in 1969. By the time he was in his late-20s and in medical school at UNC-Chapel Hill, his body was already starting to break down. Over the next several decades, due to past sports injuries and worsening osteoarthritis, he became the real life bionic man—with double shoulder and knee replacements, a hip replacement and a fused ankle.

Our Dad loved his family. He is survived by his wife Donna, his children Katie, Mike, Marylynn and Alex, step-daughter Meagan Ferrell, his former wife and dear friend Susan Gordon King, and one brother and three sisters. Our Dad was most at peace tending to his garden where he taught many life lessons and spent countless hours with Donna. He loved talking with his children, of whom he was extremely proud, and sharing in their achievements. He was an accomplished artist and craftsman, talents which he often used to create personalized gifts for family and friends. He was also an avid reader and aficionado of history and politics. Our Dad believed strongly in the importance of faith, family, education and hard work, all of which he instilled in his children.

Our Dad suffered from depression for most of our lives. It was just part of who he was and we loved him anyway. At times it was unbelievably frustrating, as his depression was expressed through anger, impatience and his demand for perfection from all those around him. Other times his depression made him distant and weepy. We each sought to help him in our own ways, with letters, phone calls and visits home to remind him how much he was loved. By early 2011 our Dad’s osteoarthritis became so severe that he could no longer perform surgeries. His fingers were extremely swollen and stiff and he needed help doing the most basic things around the house. He struggled mightily with the thought that things were only going to get worse, and in his increasingly debilitated state, he felt as though he had nothing more to give.

We know that our Dad suffered many concussions during his years as a quarterback and he spoke often of the effect those head injuries may have had on his mental and emotional state. When he died we knew we wanted to donate his brain to the Concussion Legacy Foundation. We are so thankful for the dedication of Dr. McKee, Dr. Stern, Chris Nowinski and all of the staff at the Concussion Legacy Foundation for their work on CTE. Our Dad would be honored to be part of such a renowned program. We miss him dearly but find peace knowing he is no longer suffering and comfort that his pain may help others.

Alex, the youngest of the four King children, had a very successful college career as a punter both while an undergraduate at Duke University and as a graduate student at the University of Texas. At UT, Alex wore our Dad’s old number, Number 15.

Click here to read an article about Michael published in the Winston Salem Journal.

There is a reason his nickname was scud. The opposing offense rarely saw him coming. And if they did, it was too late. Kyle Krull could hit anyone on a football field and hit them hard. He was an aggressive linebacker with a natural eye for the game. His success was equal parts skill and strong will. Mediocre was not in his vocabulary. If he was going to do something, he was going to do it better than anyone else.

Kyle was the teammate everyone wanted to be around. As funny as he was kind. The team captain who made everyone feel welcome. If someone was eating alone in the cafeteria, Kyle would be the first person to pull up a chair.

His talent and charisma earned him the spot he’d always dreamed of – a Division I football scholarship. Kyle would play one season for the Western Illinois University Leathernecks before concussions cut his career short. In the years that followed Kyle began to question if the game that encapsulated his identity for most of his life could also be the source of so much of his pain.

By all accounts, he was a thriving 25-year-old living and working in downtown Chicago. But inside, he was fighting symptoms that scared him. Headaches that would never stop. Anger triggered by anything and anyone. Difficulty concentrating on the simplest tasks. Sleep was hard to come by. Kyle knew something was wrong, but he didn’t know how to fix it.

He went out with friends that Friday night like he always did. He was his usual outgoing, life of the party self. Then he went home. Kyle Krull took his life early the next morning, on June 1, 2019. He was found three days later.

Eat, sleep, breathe football

Kyle Krull was always on the go. There wasn’t a sport he wouldn’t try, or an activity he wasn’t into.

“The kid was moving and grooving,” Meg Campion, Kyle’s older sister said. “He did everything outside that you could imagine. Wakeboarding, snowboarding, skateboarding, rollerblading, basketball, hockey, lacrosse. You name it.”

Then there was football. Kyle had his sights set on the gridiron from a young age. He wanted to follow in his father’s footsteps and play in college. Any linebacker on the Chicago Bears was his hero, and he couldn’t wait to experience the brotherhood of a team like he watched over and over again in movies like Remember the Titans and Friday Night Lights.

It was no surprise once Kyle suited up for his first Pee Wee league game in fifth grade that he was a star. And he worked hard at it. He became a student of the game and studied diligently. He took every opportunity to perfect his craft. But that hard work didn’t come without frustrations. By his early teenage years, a different Kyle started to subtly emerge.

“He was this bright ray of sunshine for everyone around him,” Campion said. “He was the team leader always looking out for others but then he would come home and collapse because it was so hard to keep up. We rarely saw that side of him, but he would have outbursts and become very angry and say hurtful things.”

The game took its toll on Kyle, no matter how hard he worked to push through the pain or hide his brain injuries. In total, Campion thinks Kyle suffered upwards of 30 concussions.

“I remember him coming home from football camp and just sitting in a dark room saying, ‘I’m just so dizzy,’” Campion said. “But I had no idea what was really going on, I thought a concussion was just when you threw up after a head injury.”

In college, Kyle continued to take damaging blows to the head. After one season at WIU, he lost his love for the game and knew he had to be done.

“After that freshman season Kyle realized if he kept playing it would ruin his body and his brain,” Campion said. “He said, ‘That’s it. I’m not going to be a punching bag.’ We thought he was safe, but it turns out there are lasting effects there that we didn’t know about.”

Looking for a fresh start, Kyle transferred to Western Michigan University where he thrived. He adjusted well to life without pads and cleats and found a great group of friends. He excelled in the classroom and graduated from the business school with honors.

Cascade of symptoms

Kyle started his post-college career back in the Chicago area working for a third-party logistics company. He moved just four blocks away from his big sister. They did everything together, spending days and nights filled with the type of laughter that makes your abs sore.

“He had this way about him of making any situation hysterical,” Campion said. “He just knew how to bring such light and joy wherever he went.”

While Kyle continued to shine socially, he struggled cognitively. Things were harder than they used to be.

“It was tough for him to concentrate,” Campion said. “He had to write everything down because he couldn’t remember anything. I watched him struggle to learn new card games or retain any new information at all.”

He also battled relentless headaches, and Campion remembers him feeling tired all the time no matter how much sleep he had the night before or caffeine he was able to pound throughout the day. An athlete at his core, Kyle was especially concerned when he started having a hard time with his balance. He went to doctors for an answer. He was determined to figure out what was wrong with him on his own and refused any help from family. Because of that, Campion can’t be sure what the neurologists told her little brother, but she does know he thought about Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) often.

“One day he told me he wanted his brain to go to CTE research,” Campion said. “He said he didn’t want others to feel the way he did.”

That conversation triggered a turning point for Campion. She started to do her own research on CTE and realized her brother may be hiding serious pain behind his signature smile.

In the months that followed, Kyle became more irritable. Anything could set him off. He struggled with social anxiety and there was a sense of sadness about him. Still, Campion was comforted knowing he was seeking help and working to get better. He went to therapy weekly.

The night before Kyle Krull’s death he went out with friends. He appeared to be his normal, friendly self.

“I always tell people that Kyle was the better version of who I am,” Campion said. “He was who I wanted to be in social situations. How happy-go-lucky he was and how he made everyone feel instantly welcome. When he was talking to someone, he had this ability to make them feel like they were the most exciting thing in the room and he genuinely wanted to hear their story. He loved going into a room full of people he didn’t know – but then he also had this darker side that a lot of people didn’t see.”

The next morning, he died by suicide in his home. Kyle Krull was 25 years old.

According to the National Institute of Mental Health suicide is a complex public health concern, and there is no single cause. Suicide most often occurs when stressors and health issues converge to create an experience of hopelessness and despair.

Finding answers

After Kyle’s death, his family scoured his computer for any sort of clue. They found every single tab he left pulled up pointing to things he could try to help improve his symptoms. He was always looking for ways to get better.

It was an easy decision for Kyle’s family to donate his brain to the UNITE Brain Bank. It’s what he wanted.

“The Kyle we knew and loved didn’t do this, something else inside him did,” Campion said. “He knew something was wrong so we want to do everything we can to figure out what it was. We want to know the name for what did this to our family and what changed our lives forever.”

Researchers at the VA-BU-CLF Brain Bank found Stage 1 CTE in Kyle Krull’s brain. Campion is now dedicated to educating others about CTE and making sure everyone knows it is a preventable disease.

An October 2019 study by Boston University researchers found for every year of tackle football played, a person’s risk of developing CTE increases by 30 percent. For every 2.6 years of play, the risk of developing CTE doubles. Knowing that crucial data, Campion hopes to see youth tackle football banned, and all athletes under age 14 playing flag football instead.

She also wants people to understand the complexity of depression. Not everyone has the same symptoms. Kyle rarely seemed sad. He was never withdrawn or isolated. She says it’s critical for people to understand somebody who is your best friend could be struggling and you might not know.

“I get this feeling of nausea that washes over me that I don’t have a brother anymore,” Campion said. “You never think about your future without your sibling and you kind of take advantage of them being in the background of your life or being in your life in general until they’re not there. There isn’t a moment that goes by that I don’t think of him and there are so many times where it’s uncomfortable to talk about with other people, but I can either use it as an opportunity to shut down or I can use it as an opportunity to educate people about what happened and share Kyle’s story so nobody else experiences the same pain.”

Suicide is preventable and help is available. If you are concerned that someone in your life may be suicidal, the five #BeThe1To steps are simple actions anyone can take to help someone in crisis. If you are struggling to cope and would like some emotional support, call the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255 to connect with a trained counselor. It’s free, confidential, and available to everyone in the United States. You do not have to be suicidal to call. If you’re not comfortable talking on the phone, consider using the Lifeline Crisis Chat.

If you or someone you know is struggling with concussion symptoms, reach out to us through the CLF HelpLine. We support patients and families by providing personalized help to those struggling with the outcomes of brain injury. Submit your request today and a dedicated member of the Concussion Legacy Foundation team will be happy to assist you.