Our little West Fargo farmstead became the most unsafe place on earth for our family last summer, but we didn’t expect the nightmare to end with Greg’s death.

Greg was a linebacker for the North Dakota State Bison and for the Minnesota State University-Moorhead Dragons. He first played tackle football in junior high before starring for his high school team in his hometown of New Prague, Minnesota. After his football career, Greg remained just as competitive, training horses and competing in Cowboy Mounted Shooting in Minnesota and North Dakota all his adult years.

Difficulties and conflicts came slowly and insidiously over the last few years. On May 5, 2018, Greg was knocked unconscious when he came off his horse running at top speed and hit the ground head-first. The months that followed brought turmoil and heartbreak as we, Greg’s family, became entangled in a confusing, bizarre nightmare, ending with Greg’s suicide on September 11, 2018.

Pathology results showed signs of early-stage Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE): the stages associated with personality changes, impulse control and depression. Greg’s brain was being assaulted by two levels of damage: at least one recent major head trauma as well as a degenerative disease caused by repetitive head impacts, which for Greg started in his early years.

It was only after Greg’s death that we learned that early-stage CTE causes degeneration in regions of the brain that in similar diseases have been shown to cause psychiatric symptoms like depression and anxiety.

We would be having a very different conversation today if it weren’t for what I learned from the Concussion Legacy Foundation.

Before Greg died, I had no idea a person’s concussion symptoms could be emotional instead of physical. Aside from headaches and fatigue, Greg’s repeated complaint was that he was “just so frustrated.”  I thought CTE was only an NFL problem, never once thinking the brain disease could happen to anyone with a history of repetitive head trauma.

Because of this lack of knowledge, I didn’t request to have Greg’s brain sent to the UNITE Brain Bank in Boston. I had the medical examiner send what small samples of tissue he routinely retained to researchers to search for any signs of damage. Tau protein was found that was consistent with early-stage CTE, but the researchers needed the whole brain to get an official diagnosis.

Knowledge can save lives, but it can also heal the broken hearts of family members who get answers in a diagnosis after losing a loved one.

CTE can only be diagnosed after death. Every year, we will hold a fundraising campaign in Greg’s name to support the efforts of Concussion Legacy Foundation because they help fund the research at the VA-BU-CLF Brain Bank. Researchers there are working tirelessly to find a way to diagnose CTE in the living and ultimately cure it.

Click here to donate to support CTE research in honor of Greg Stanke’s Legacy.

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.

Chad had an outstanding athletic career. He began playing football at ten years old at Dexter School, a boys private day school in Brookline, Massachusetts. He was selected to the State Boys soccer team and played varsity hockey and football at Noble and Greenough School. He then went on to become a three-year starting varsity defensive back at Columbia University. After college, Chad took up tennis and participated in the U.S. Father and Son Championship at the Longwood Cricket Club with his father. Later in life, he became an avid golfer.

Chad was one of the brightest people I have ever known. Chad was a precocious reader with an exceptional curiosity about everything from the evolution of all living creatures, the geographic wonders of the earth, the significance of studying ancient cultures and architecture, and even the evolution of ethics and moral behavior.

When he was ten years old, we visited the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston to see the Pompeii exhibit. He described the experience as the moment when he knew he wanted to study the history of Roman and Greek civilizations. He would continue this passion and go on to major in the Classics at Columbia University.

He would often tell the story about how he chose this study. He called me one evening and said he needed to declare his major and I asked him what really interested him. He said, “Latin and Greek.” I said go for it and he said, “Well, it will not get me anything except maybe being a pharmacist with Latin words for prescriptions.” We laughed when, in the fall playing varsity football at Columbia, the coach said they did not know how to help him through the semester since no one had ever played football and majored in the Classics.

His passion for ancient civilization led him to travel extensively in and around Italy and Greece, visiting remote sites, particularly lesser-known ruins in Sicily and out of the way Greek islands. His scope of knowledge was extraordinary. He could converse for hours on subjects from the Roman poet Catullus to Grecian urns. His enthusiasm for Greek and Roman architecture and sculpture was contagious. I will treasure his intellect and his enthusiasm for sharing his repository of knowledge.

I will forever remember how wonderful he was to his two younger brothers, Adam and Gavin. They recall at ages 10 and nine travelling with Chad to New York to visit me in the hospital. They remember visiting his fraternity at Columbia, thinking how cool it was that there were so many video games in his room. They remember him taking me out of the hospital and taking us all to dinner.

I will cherish his letters from summer camp in the Adirondacks. I will cherish our pack trip to the Tetons, sleeping in the wilderness and fishing on the Snake River. I will never forget his face when I drove him to his first away game at Thayer Academy as a freshman at Noble and Greenough School. The boys on the Thayer team were all powerfully built, and he looked at me and said, “Those guys are really big. How am I going to handle this?” Then, just like that, he looked me in the eye, winked and got out of the car.

When, where and how did he devolve into an addict and alcoholic and lose his job, his home, and his relationship with his siblings due to his raging and violent behavior?

Did his CTE begin when he was 15 or 18 or did it begin when he was younger? What was the tipping point? When did his sometimes-arrogant intellect morph into narcissistic sociopathic behavior?

When did his aggressive behavior frighten us to the point where my other sons did not want me to see him alone? He blamed his addiction on my father who was an alcoholic. He blamed it on the opioids he was prescribed after a football injury at Columbia.

Did he know something was wrong? Was there anything we could have done? Were there warning signs? After enabling him for years, my family suggested I not see him. He continued down the path of his addiction, which became primarily alcohol.

He befriended an elderly woman named Ruby in his neighborhood who used to drag him off the curb after one of his routine binges. She became his substitute mother and tried to get him help to no avail. What were the demons in his brain?

Sadly, by the time he wanted to try to stop drinking and work his way back to recovery, his liver was failing. He bought a fancy juicer and would call me and ask how to make healthy smoothies. He tried to cook and eat healthy, again calling me to talk him through recipes.

We spent last summer trying to get him on a liver transplant list, but his body was not able to recover.  He was in and out of the hospital until he was too weak to be on his own. When the liver fails, everything breaks down and he had to suffer through painful belly drainage every few days as his liver was not able to remove toxic waste.

To the end, he never discussed dying but three days before he passed, as I sat next to his bed, he reached over and brought my head into his chest and hugged me. He said, “I love you.”

He died on a summer afternoon at Massachusetts General Hospital two hours after I kissed him goodbye. I am not sure what made me decide to donate my son’s brain to Boston University’s CTE Center, where researchers diagnosed him with stage 1 CTE. It seemed this would be a way for his life to go on having meaning. But maybe it was also that I wanted to know what happened to bring him to this tragic end. Somehow, I wanted his life and incredible mind to have been for something greater than his death.

Walter Strobach was born in Jamaica, N.Y. on March 8, 1939, the son of Walter and Catherine (Keenan) Strobach. He grew up in the St. Albans neighborhood of Queens, where he acquired the New York accent he kept his entire life, despite leaving his hometown at 18 to attend the United States Naval Academy.

Before leaving Queens for the Navy, Walt was a three-sport athlete at Brooklyn Technical High School. He excelled particularly in football as a running back known for his grit, determination, and refusal to back down on the field, traits which served him well his entire life. During his senior year, Walt led his team to an undefeated season, winning the Public School Athletic League City Championship in 1955. During this remarkable season, he was the league’s highest scorer, with 127 points from touchdowns and extra points.

Walt’s gridiron exploits earned him a coveted spot on a Navy football team that was a perennial top-10 squad. His senior year, they finished ranked No. 4 in the country, including an appearance in the Orange Bowl. During his college years, he was also a starter on the Navy baseball team. He maintained ties with both teams via alumni events throughout his life.

Walt’s time at the Naval Academy forever left a mark and made him who he was thereafter. He constantly reminisced about his days at the Academy; his love for his alma mater was undeniable. A big part of this love was the fact he had the most important introduction of his life there. It was at a Naval Academy mixer he met his wife of over 60 years, Cookie Shea, herself the daughter of a Naval Academy grad (John D. Shea ’32). She was 17 and he was 19 when they first met. Cookie was in very high demand as a dance partner that night, and as was the custom of the day, he politely cut in with her by offering a memorable line which she never forgot: “Would you like to step off the merry-go-round to dance with me instead?” Together, they had six children and a lifetime of memories.

Those shared memories began Sept. 1, 1962, when the young ensign, fresh from his successful interview with Adm. Hyman Rickover, took a break from his Navy nuclear-powered submarine training to marry Cookie. They settled in Groton, Conn., where they immediately started a family.

Walt’s love for his children was one of his best traits. His playfulness, patience, and genuine affection for his young children and later his grandchildren provided lasting fond memories. Whether it was playing in the waves at the beach, throwing a football in the yard, or wrestling in the family room, Walt clearly found much joy acting like a kid himself as he played with his children.

Walt’s Navy career took him, Cookie, and their brood to many places after Groton: Charleston, S.C., Honolulu, Hawaii, and Pascagoula, Miss. before settling into Virginia Beach, Va. Along the way, Walt served aboard various nuclear submarines, including the USS Aspro, USS Ethan Allen, USS Simon Bolivar, and USS Henry Stimson.

Walt retired from the military in 1981 but never quite walked away from it. Watching his son and three of his grandsons follow him into the Navy gave him much pride and satisfaction and provided endless subject matter as he peppered them with questions.

He worked in real estate and finance after his Navy years, as well as stints teaching business courses and instruction in the emerging computer technology sector. Eventually, Walt and Cookie departed Virginia Beach and made their way to Mechanicsville, Va. to be closer to family. Departing Virginia Beach was bittersweet for them, having lived there for over 30 years. They left behind a lifetime of friendships and ties to the area but did their very best to maintain them.

Walt spent his final days enjoying retirement at home with Cookie, characterized by frequent visits from their adult children and grandchildren, a daily cigar on the back porch, and an occasional hearty meal of nachos and light beer at the local sports bar.

Most importantly to Walt, he spent the majority of his last years focused on his deep Catholic faith. In addition to attending Mass daily, he was extensively involved with the Richmond Diocese Prison Ministry, served on the Parish Council as a Religious Education Instructor, and participated in the Knights of Columbus. He was blessed to receive final sacraments and apostolic pardon while at home in hospice. During this graceful transition, all 17 of his grandkids either called him on his final days or were present to tell him they loved him and were praying for him. He heard everything they said.

Walt passed away peacefully on June 7, 2023, at the age of 84. He was surrounded by his wife of over 60 years and his five adult children. After his passing, his brain was donated to the UNITE Brain Bank, where researchers later diagnosed him with stage 3 (of 4) CTE.

Walt is survived by his wife of over 60 years, Sharon “Cookie” Strobach; their children, Walter F. “Rick” Strobach, Jr., Sharon “Sweetie” Hoioos, Susan Fisher, Stasia Strobach, and Cmdr. Michael Strobach, USNR; as well as 17 grandchildren. He was predeceased by his son Michael “Michael the First” Strobach.