Buddy Teevens’ family directs $25,000 award from the NCAA to the Concussion Legacy Foundation

Gift will honor former Dartmouth coach’s legacy of CTE prevention

(Boston) – The family of former Dartmouth head football coach Buddy Teevens is announcing today that they have directed a $25,000 award Teevens received from the NCAA to the Concussion Legacy Foundation (CLF). Teevens, Dartmouth football’s all-time winningest coach, was posthumously honored with the NCAA’s 2024 Pat Summitt Award for his devotion to the development of student-athletes, specifically for being a trailblazer for athlete safety. Teevens passed away in September 2024 at age 66.

The funds will be used by CLF to help sports organizations and teams develop CTE Prevention Protocols alongside their existing concussion protocols. CLF created the first CTE Prevention Protocol in 2023 after a post-mortem study of more than 600 football players’ brains showed that CTE risk is correlated not to diagnosed concussions but instead driven by the number and strength of head impacts experienced in sports. CTE Prevention Protocols use that data to develop guidelines for coaches to reduce the number and strength of hits in practices and develop education programs for their athletes.

“Buddy was passionate about the health of his players and doing whatever he could to keep them, and especially their brains, safe,” said Kirsten Teevens, Buddy’s wife. “I know it would mean a lot to him that this gift would continue his mission of making football safer for every player.”

Teevens was a pioneer, revolutionizing his practices by eliminating tackling in 2010 to protect his players from injuries like concussions, and to reduce their risk of CTE. He continued to innovate and seek out ways to keep his athletes safe, co-inventing the Mobile Virtual Player, a robotic tackling dummy that substituted for tackling teammates. At a Congressional Hearing on concussions in youth sports in 2016, Teevens famously said, “I love football. But I love my players more.”

CLF is honored to continue Teevens’ legacy of putting the health of players first by helping sports programs make practices safer.

“Coach Teevens deeply cared about the long-term welfare of his players,” said Dr. Chris Nowinski, CLF’s founding CEO. “He was the only football coach who asked me to make him aware of any of his former players who were diagnosed post-mortem with CTE. Coach Teevens would call those families to offer his condolences and learn more about their experience. He understood that how coaches design practice could influence whether or not their players eventually develop CTE.”

You can read and download CLF and Boston University’s CTE Prevention Protocol here.