Scott Damon
Scott Damon was a kind soul who would do anything for anyone. He was extremely proud of his military service, always having a story to tell. He had three nieces, Olivia, Abigail and Aubree, who loved their Uncle Scotty. His three sons Anthony, Jake and Jaxyn were his whole world and he loved them unconditionally.
Scott grew up in Peabody, Massachusetts, living with our mother Judy and father Bill. He had an older sister, Jennifer, who he loved riding bikes and playing games with along with their cousins Jason, Jared and Jeremy. His younger brother William was born in February of 1993 and Scott embraced the role of big brother. When I was born in July of 1996, we became inseparable. We would play lacrosse, football and baseball in the backyard, always competing to see who could hit the ball over the house.
In 2006, Scott made the decision to join the United States Army as a Blackhawk mechanic. This decision took him away from home for six years and to Germany, Afghanistan, and Iraq. His first deployment was in Iraq, where he served with a medical evacuation unit. His deployment lasted 15 months and during that time he was flying into combat zones to rescue injured service men and women. When he came home on a visit we noticed some changes in his personality. Scott’s patience became very short and certain noises would make him uncomfortable. This was the beginning of his battle with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Once he returned from Iraq, he moved to Fort Campbell Kentucky and deployed to Afghanistan. He flew into the mountains transporting troops and other people throughout the area. He was happiest in the air in the back of the helicopter. During both deployments he was the gunner on the door. Scott was in three helicopter crashes or hard landings.
I remember the day Scott’s plane landed on the base returning from Afghanistan. I was so incredibly proud of my big brother. He took us around the area and we got to see a little piece of his life in Kentucky. Scott seemed so happy and optimistic about life after the military. He was excited to move home and spend time with family and friends.
Scott drove home directly from Kentucky, which was about a 15-hour ride. When he arrived home, he was sleep deprived and exhausted. He was having flashbacks to his deployments and was admitted to the VA hospital for help. He believed he was clearing the road and prepping the helicopter for flights. After sleeping he was fine, but the reality was his PTSD was a lot more severe than we thought.
Scott’s first son Anthony was born in 2011, then Jake in 2014 and Jaxyn in 2016. His boys were his life and he loved taking them to the Salem Willows, to parks, and to visit his family. Anthony loved learning about the helicopters his daddy worked on and they were two peas in a pod. Jake loved to play monster trucks with Scott and they would always race each other around the yard. Jaxyn was a baby when Scott passed, but Scott was always holding him and playing with him. His boys were his whole world and his proudest accomplishment in life. Whenever they needed him he was there and loved them unconditionally.
Scott tried to live a normal life, but his brain just was not working correctly. With the helicopter crashes and PTSD we figured something was going on, but we needed to figure out how to help him. Doctors prescribed him different things, but nothing helped with his pain. He did not like how those prescriptions made him feel, as he would often sleep and isolate himself after taking them. We would never be able to understand what my brother went through during his deployments. He never let his inner pain show on the outside. His smile was contagious and would always make people laugh.
Our whole world came crashing down when Scott passed away on September 21, 2017. At his services, people told stories of how Scott impacted their lives; a helping hand at work, a friend they could confide in, or someone who made them smile. Hearing those stories made me so proud to be his sister.
Jennifer and I made the decision to donate Scott’s brain to the UNITE Brain Bank in Boston. Scott was very open about his journey through life and would be the first person there if someone needed help. We knew that donating his brain could potentially help other people going through the same battle Scott did. We wanted answers and through the Concussion Legacy Foundation and the research at the Brain Bank we were able to get them. My family was so incredibly lucky to have Scott in our lives and I am so blessed to have had 21 years with my big brother. He will forever be our American hero.
Willie Daniel
Willie Daniel’s pro football career eventually cost him his memory, but it also brought a good life for his family. The former NFL player, a Mississippi native, died at his home after a lengthy illness surrounded by his loving family and devoted friends.
Willie was born on November 10, 1937, in New Albany, MS. He grew up in Macon, MS, where he lettered in basketball, track, baseball, and football at Macon High School all four years. He received a scholarship to Mississippi State University where he lettered in track and football for four years before graduating in 1959.
His professional career took an unexpected turn, said wife Ruth. “Willie wasn’t drafted out of college and was hired as an assistant football and head track coach in Cleveland, MS. He received wide publicity when an irate parent became physical with him because the coach didn’t play his son in a game. When approached by the Steelers to turn pro, he quickly changed his mind about being a coach, joking that “Pro-ball wouldn’t be any rougher than this.”
Willie became a nationally known sports figure in the 1960s as a result of a stellar football career which began at Macon Mississippi High School and continued though Mississippi State University. His professional career took off quickly and he spent nine years with the National Football League where he gained a reputation as a speedy defensive back. The Pittsburgh newspapers listed him as one of the prize rookies of the year in 1961. In 1986 he was inducted into the Mississippi State Sports Hall of Fame. He spent six years with the Pittsburg Steelers and three years with the Los Angeles Rams until a knee injury forced him to retire in 1969.
He returned to Starkville, Mississippi, and became a partner in a very successful general insurance agency. Willie also recognized that the fitness industry was about to explode and he saw an opportunity to become one of the pioneers in the operation of health clubs which have remained a national obsession. He opened the Willie Daniel Athletic Club in 1970 and offered weights, aerobics, massage therapy, sauna, steam baths, karate, and a nursery for children. In 1975 he built the first of two racquetball courts which led to the formation of the Mississippi Racquetball Association.
Somehow Willie found the time to give back to his community. He coached and sponsored Starkville junior baseball teams as well as the Starkville Open Football League. He served as chairman of the annual Oktibbeha County Cancer Crusade which became the first county in Mississippi to triple its annual contribution quota. He was a member of the Mississippi State “M” Club, Bulldog Club, “Old Dawgs” Club, and the National Football League Players Association. He was a member of the First United Methodist Church in Starkville, the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, and the Savage Bible Class where he served as President. He was one of the original members of the Starkville Kiwanis Club, and the Starkville Country Club where he made the club’s first “hole-in-one” in 1975.
Willie and his wife, Ruth, raised three children, Sandra (husband Jeff), Kent (wife Evalin), and Richard. They have four grandchildren and one great grandchild. Life was busy, but good—as one of the neighbors used to say, “When I grow up, I want to be Willie Daniel!”
By the time the clock registered the new millennium, Willie was facing the most monumental challenge of his lifetime when his mental health began to deteriorate. Actually, his mental health had begun to deteriorate in the 1980s but he was able to work until 2001. This downward spiral into the world of dementia was attributed to the numerous concussions he suffered during his football career.
Willie became very frustrated, angry, and sad. He lost his short-term memory, couldn’t even remember his birthdate or the birthdates and ages of his children and grandchildren. One very traumatic event for him was the day his family had to take his truck keys and remove his truck. He would actually cry and beg to get his truck back. He never could understand why he couldn’t drive and this became a daily verbal confrontation.
By 2009, he was becoming more and more combative. He never actually hit anyone, but he was threatening to his wife and his caregivers. His family made the agonizing decision to move him to an Alzheimer’s facility. He lived there for a year, but then had to be moved to a full care nursing facility. For the last six years of Willie’s life, he was incontinent, could not sit up, had very little movement in his arms or legs, and hadn’t spoken in six years. He was moved from his bed to his wheelchair with a lift, and was tube fed.
The road that Willie and his family traveled over these past several years has been difficult to say the least. But as Ruth says, “My heartbreak is nothing compared to what Willie has faced. He loved his God, his family, his life, his friends, his church with all his heart. He lost that all far too soon.”
Willie qualified for and became a part of a state-of-the-art research project at Boston University being conducted on football head injuries. He donated a portion of his brain and spinal cord for the research project in hopes of developing procedures and equipment to make the sport safer for athletes of the future.
George Darrah
I was married to George Darrah for 63 years. We were both 18 right out of high school. He was not only my husband, and father to four children, but my very best friend.
George played all sports from little on, and he loved every minute of it. He graduated from high school in 1955 and was offered a full football scholarship by many large colleges and universities. He ended up staying in our hometown at a private all boys college called Franklin & Marshall. It was affiliated with a Protestant seminary. He played not only football but basketball, baseball, and golf for the college. In football he made All-East and then Little All American. He was honored with the Maxwell Award in 1958 in Philadelphia.
Near the end of his senior year he had a serious hit that left him unconscious. As was the practice in those days, they revived him and he got up and finished the game, as he played offense, defense and was the team’s punter. The next day as he complained about not feeling well, he had a grand mal seizure. Fortunately, the medicine controlled the seizures.
At the end of the season, George was drafted by the Washington Redskins. He went to their camp, officially made third string fullback and participated in the pre-conference games. He then shared with the administration that he daily took medicines for seizures and asked to be released.
George’s lifetime ambition was to work with children, especially the underprivileged population. After football, he immediately applied to Boys Clubs of America. He was hired, and we moved three times to work in Boys Clubs and ultimately George was named Executive Director of Dayton Boys (and later Girls) Clubs until he retired.
He was always led by his Christian beliefs, focusing on who he was and why. He led a Bible study outreach program from Ginghamsburg United Methodist Church to 30 folks in our home on Sunday evenings as a home group. His tombstone reads “Child of God”. He often asked someone how they would like to be remembered and when they asked him that question he always said as a Child of God. To lead folks to Christ was his main ambition in life.
Twelve years before George’s death, we started to notice things didn’t always come together for him, especially with speaking. It seemed he never lost the ability to know who he knew, or what he understood but speaking became more and more difficult. A doctor diagnosed him with Alzheimer’s disease. However about five years before his death a neurologist got involved at a hospital visit and requested an MRI. She told me he didn’t have Alzheimer’s but suggested that George might have CTE, frontal temporal injury.
George eventually refused to be cooperative in many ways and would refuse to do certain things. The main problem was refusing to take his seizure medicines so consequently he had to be admitted to an assisted living facility where the gastroenterologist inserting a G tube to administer his medicines. He eventually fell right in at the facility loving the young aids who loved him back. But he slowly lost ability to do many daily tasks. He finally succumbed to a viral infection he couldn’t conquer. He knew his family up until the end with big smiles.
It wasn’t a surprise when Dr. Thor Stein of the UNITE Brain Bank in Boston, informed us George was a Stage 4 (out of 4 stages) CTE patient. Years earlier, a neurologist noted atrophy in the front cortex on George’s MRI, and speculated that the atrophy was likely from playing football.
After the diagnosis, our children asked whether they need to be concerned about their own risks, and Dr. Stein reassured them that George’s CTE was most likely caused by his exposure from playing football and should, therefore, not increase their own risk of also suffering from dementia. His brain tissue will be used to help develop medicines to assist CTE patients while they are still living.
WHAT A LEGACY.
