Long before he succumbed to stage 4 CTE, Wayne McDaniel was an extremely talented athlete, lettering each year of high school in baseball, basketball, and football. It was his football prowess that earned him a four-year scholarship to the University of Florida. Upon graduation from UF, he coached football and baseball before joining the UF Office of Development, serving as the alumni association’s executive director for 27 years. He, like so many victims of CTE, was a highly motivated and talented individual. There was nothing he couldn’t do. But that would change.

I am Melissa, Wayne’s wife. We were together over 30 years throughout the slow, destructive path of his CTE. I write this with the hope that other spouses, sons, and daughters who are currently living with the collateral damage of this disease might at least have a sense of what may lie ahead.

When we first met, Wayne was at the top of his game both professionally and personally. His extraordinary good looks (what a face!) and athleticism were captivating, but what I really could not live without were his sharp wit and talent for making absolutely everything fun. Only now, as I look back on our first 10 years together, am I able to recognize the first harbingers of what was to come. Two of those signs still burn in my brain. The first was a noticeable decrease in financial aptitude. It concerned me so much that I chose to keep my name and finances separate when we married, which turned out to be a godsend. I strongly encourage anyone noticing even a hint of change in financial habits to act immediately to protect what you have.

The second sign something was off was Wayne’s sudden desire to withdraw from social interactions with longtime buddies. He didn’t seem to have the energy to spend a full weekend with friends at their lake house or attend a reunion with his old teammates. Around this time, I became both protective and defensive. To save face for Wayne, I publicly blamed myself as the reason for his refusal. I didn’t realize what I was doing to protect my husband caused others to perceive me as a selfish snob and a recluse. This added to us becoming increasingly isolated at a time we needed companionship most.

The second decade of Wayne’s life with CTE brought edginess, distrust, and impatience. I remember stressing about the “why” of it all. This man — who had been so loving and warmhearted — was now quick to anger and to criticize the smallest things. He could keep it together with others outside, but inside our home, a new, sometimes frightening persona might appear. Was this male menopause? Grumpy old men’s disease? Too much stress at work? Too much self-medication with booze? CTE was still unknown to me; I needed answers but was too protective of my husband’s privacy to go public with my concerns.

Fortunately, around this time we accepted an invitation to visit the North Carolina mountains. This completely different environment with new people and experiences improved Wayne’s demeanor so much, it was like a welcome prescription from the doctor. Our impulsive decision to invest in mountain property improved our quality of life, and “quality of life” became my mantra, a goal which would help me focus in the years to come.

As I witnessed Wayne’s escape into a simpler mindset, I realized he was sicker than anyone knew. Shock, anger, and bargaining, the early parts of the five stages of grief, had already been happening for some time. I was fearful and depressed, but still ready to fight. Fortunately, the backdrop of my new mountain home in Asheville, N.C., was a mecca for alternative naturopathic and herbal medicine. In the years that followed, I devoured hundreds of hours of continuing education classes, sitting beside doctors and nurses with a medical mindset I didn’t know existed. It was in those courses I learned about foods, herbs, and natural compounds which might at least relieve some of my husband’s infirmities.

By the third decade of Wayne’s life with CTE, I finally became aware of the disease after watching the movie Concussion and the publicity surrounding Aaron Hernandez’s murder conviction and suicide. Almost certain my husband had it, I approached brain and memory doctors in our primary residence of Gainesville, Fla. However, Wayne’s denial that anything was wrong cast me in the light of a hypervigilant wife, and his refusal to have an MRI or submit to a psych test stopped further analysis.

We found the amino acid theanine (think green tea or matcha) helped calm Wayne to the point he could actually relax. Tyrosine is another amino acid often used by Alzheimer’s patients to achieve similar mood-lifting results. The Ayurvedic herb bacopa was also calming, and when Wayne took it regularly, his focus improved. These natural alternatives helped greatly as we maneuvered the last five years of my husband’s life. Not only did they calm him, but they also made him not hostile.

Toward the end of Wayne’s life, however, his primary doctor made me stop giving him anything natural. I had fought hard not to do that, but by that point, I was ready to give up. Soon after stopping the natural alternatives, my husband became violent, biting, kicking, and hitting anyone who came near him. By then, he was in the hospital, so I explained what was happening to the doctor on call. She researched tyrosine, the supplement I thought he was missing most, and she approved it. Shortly after I gave it to Wayne, he started to calm down. I’m not saying this works for everyone, but it did prove the viability of tyrosine to me and that particular doctor. Unfortunately, Wayne’s stage 4 CTE won the fight, and his organs failed him. He died on May 3, 2022. His death certificate lists five organ-related causes and the additional diagnosis of stage 4 CTE and Alzheimer’s disease from the UNITE Brain Bank.

Now, one year later, I dwell on the reality that there may be thousands, even tens of thousands of middle-aged men who have tau plaque growing in their brains. This is happening to them because they were dynamic, motivated athletes who did not know they were sacrificing their brains for sports. In doing what it took to earn scholarships or for the sheer joy of competing and gaining respect, they may have sacrificed their capacity to love, to learn new things, to manage their finances, even to manage their lives.

These men strive to seem as functional as possible to the outside world. But inside, they are sick. In their own homes, their spouses and children are also hurt by collateral damage from this disease. Something must be done to recognize there is a plague of CTE out there, and many victims and their loved ones may not even be aware of it.

I wish the naturopathic community would be more vocal about herbs and natural, nonpharmaceutical compounds that might help at least some of those suffering from CTE and their loved ones get through the bad days and long years. Raising awareness of the suffering from CTE is also a worthy cause. We all should do whatever we can to help the Concussion Legacy Foundation make that happen.

I’ll never know the level of pain and suffering our dad endured in his life, but receiving a possible explanation for his tragic story has softened the raw edges of our family’s complicated journey.

Growing up, I heard stories about this mythical version of our dad. The one who was a small-town football hero, a rising star at West Point, a brilliant attorney with multiple degrees, and a beloved leader in all the spaces he occupied. My older sister remembers the fun-loving and attentive father who had started to fade away by the time me and my younger siblings arrived. He was at the start of losing everything.

He was likely in the throes of a CTE nightmare he couldn’t identify and no one around him understood.

We blamed alcoholism for his behavior. The contents of basement-stored alcohol would simply vanish. He’d spend hours tucked away around the house in places we all knew never to visit. He’d have bursts of rage, drunken verbal altercations when attending our sporting events, and DUIs for which he eventually served jail time. Just when we thought he might be able to move away from his behaviors, he would find a way to slip further away from us.

Our parents ultimately separated and then divorced. For a while, our dad managed in a different marriage. That too fell apart, as did his professional life and ability to care for himself.

Three separate times the courts ordered guardianship be put in place. The first time, his younger brother agreed to that responsibility and worked to get him admitted to a veteran hospital. Dad got sober, received regular meals, and improved in many ways. He became competent enough to employ his skills as an attorney to sue his brother and have the guardianship revoked.

A little over a year after winning his freedom in court, he went down another spiral. He went missing several times, required nine ambulance rides in the span of nine months, leading social services to once again request the help of a guardian. This time, it was a cooperative effort between three of his younger brothers and me. Once again, he wasted no time putting the wheels of justice in motion. He sued the four of us, and the court agreed with my dad’s assertion that he had a right to his own life. That guardianship was also dissolved.

He was putting up an impressive fight against his family — and sometimes his addiction — but we know now he was battling much more than that.

My dad’s executive function continued to weaken, and he spent nearly a decade in and out of care facilities, homeless shelters, rundown apartments, and sketchy motels. His siblings and my brother continued to help in any way they could. They collected him from the hospitals, checked up on him regularly, bailed him out of police detox, and kept him alive a lot longer than he might have all on his own.

For a while, a state-appointed guardian assigned him to care facilities, where he would manage to get kicked out. My dad ignored facility rules and acquired prohibited alcohol regularly. The battle continued.

A fall he took in 2014 left him with a broken neck and an assignment to a care facility for rehabilitation. He eventually healed, but was never able to live on his own again. He lived the last eight years of his life in the care of wonderful nurses and staff. By the time he died, he had suffered a couple strokes, and his dementia was quite advanced.

It was during his “quiet” years as a nursing home resident that I attended a concussion symposium and learned about the various behaviors present in people suffering with suspected CTE. I began to wonder whether any of our dad’s story could be tied to his time playing football, sparring and boxing with his brothers and West Point classmates, or playing catcher on his baseball team. My suspicions only grew as I learned more about the disease.

Our dad was a small “running quarterback” for his high school and college teams. In several articles about his team, he is pictured carrying the ball and leading with his head. He likely ran into many bigger bodies each time he was the ball carrier, which was often. He played for nine years, including three at West Point. He was an active oldest brother of five boys from a farming community in Nebraska, and there are plenty of family stories about McGuire sparring matches. Well before concussions and head injuries were a concern, our dad was likely rattling his brain with regularity.

The results confirm what we suspected. The pathology identified that by the time he passed away at age 79, our dad had stage 3 (of 4) CTE. Dr. Thor Stein of the BU CTE Center wrote in his conclusion, “Overall, it is likely a combination of CTE, neuropathological changes of AD (Alzheimer’s Disease), and vascular disease that contributed to his cognitive decline and dementia. His long-standing alcohol use likely also contributed to cognitive and behavioral symptoms.”

Our dad was a gifted and brilliant man. His brain provided opportunities for him at the start of his promising life. He used that brain to battle many challenges along the way, not knowing his own neurological ailments were the reason he felt the need to fight in the first place. It seems appropriate his brain is now part of the ongoing research to combat the destructive and debilitating effects of CTE. It’s the sort of impactful Legacy his story deserves.

Our Dad’s Obituary

John Stephen (Steve) McGuire, 79, raised in Fremont, Nebraska, died on October 20th, 2022, at Cherrelyn Healthcare Center in Littleton, Colorado. He had been a resident of the facility for eight years.

Steve was born on June 16th, 1943 in Salt Lake City, Utah where his father was stationed before his deployment to Okinawa during WWII. Steve was the oldest of five boys born in the span of six years and the first of what would eventually become 89 first cousins for the large farming family of McGuires from Wisner, Nebraska.

A successful high school athlete, Steve earned Hall of Fame recognition from St. Patrick’s/Archbishop Bergan High School for his successes competing in football, basketball, baseball, and track.

He attended Creighton University for one year before accepting his appointment to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. He graduated in 1966 and, upon graduation, was commissioned in the Signal Corp (Communications). He was assigned to the 1st Signal Brigade in Vietnam, where he was awarded the Bronze Star Medal for meritorious service in combat and the Army Commendation medal for exceptional performance. He was a Captain when he resigned in 1970.

Post-military service, Steve attended the University of Colorado at Boulder, where he earned a law degree and an MBA. He practiced as a patent attorney in the Denver law firm of Roath and Brega for several years.

By his late forties, Steve struggled personally and with health issues that significantly impacted the rest of his life.

After admittance to Cherrelyn Health Center in 2014, he enjoyed lucid and positive moments before dementia became his last battleground. Despite all the challenges endured by those who cared for him, Steve was a well-loved man who took up a lot of space in the hearts of those he touched. He was blessed with an incredibly caring staff at Cherrelyn who journeyed with him in his final years, as well as a large family who loved him his entire life.

Michael George McGuirk was born on July 19, 1948, to Myrtle and George McGuirk of Arlington, Virginia. He attended St. Thomas Moore Elementary and played on the Arlington County Black Nights football team through his grade school years. He then went to O’Connell Catholic High School where he became a star football player and captain of the team. In his senior year, he transferred to and played football for Flynt Hill Preparatory School where he graduated in 1966. Mike then received a football scholarship to play for East Carolina University in Greenville, North Carolina, and received his business degree in 1970. Mike was on the 1970 ECU team that played Marshall University, in which ECU won the game. But Mike’s exhilaration of victory was short-lived. The flight returning the Marshall players and coaches to Huntington, West Virginia crashed with all 75 souls onboard. This event at such a young age cemented Mike’s instincts to make a positive contribution to the community while you can.

Throughout his college career, Mike spent his summers in Ocean City, Maryland. He started as a lifeguard on 7th Street Beach and finished his beach patrol career five years later as a crew chief. Skiing was another passion of Mike’s. After graduating from college, he spent his winters with some of his Ocean City friends working at New England ski resorts.

In 1974, Mike married his sweetheart Victoria, a Phillips Crab House girl. They moved to Port Orange, Florida to open and manage a Pappy’s restaurant with another Ocean City friend. Not satisfied with his career, Mike took postgraduate courses in computer science and applied for a job with Computer Science Corporation at the Kennedy Space Center in 1981. Over the course of a 31-year career, he rose to be a manager for Firing Rooms 1 and 2 of the Space Shuttle Program. He liked to joke that on launch day, he was the one to “light the fuse” and run. He also worked for Grumman and United Space Alliance before retiring in 2012. For several years after he retired, Mike coached football at Spruce Creek High School and then Father Lopez Catholic High School.

In 1977 and 1980 respectively, Mike and Victoria’s daughter Kristine and son Matthew were born. During this period, the couple became very involved in the community. They were co-founders of the Port Orange Pop Warner football league. Mike was a coach and Football Commissioner for years and watched the Pop Warner Program grow and flourish. Mike and Victoria’s biggest joy in their later years was Kristine’s marriage to Jon Reed in 2010 and then the birth of their granddaughter, Mia Mattison in 2012 and grandson, Clyde Michael in 2014!

Throughout his life, Mike was always a positive force in his community. Whether in football or Beach Patrol, he stayed in contact and participated in reunions and events. He always took the initiative to keep his Ocean City friends and East Carolina friends close. He found a legendary lifeguard from the ’50s, living in Titusville – Lucky Jordan, and brought him back to Ocean City for reunions. Mike also belonged to the Port Orange Ship Modelers Club for years.

Mike and Victoria also dealt with personal tragedy. Their son Matt struggled with addiction after being sexually abused as a young boy by his teacher. He testified in 1989 to put his predator in prison for 150 years. Sadly, Matt passed away from an accidental drug overdose in 2011. Mike and Victoria overcame their grief by starting the Straight Up SolGier Foundation to help others in situations like Matt’s. Straight Up SolGier Foundation has helped hundreds of local kids and adults get FREE counseling. Recently, Mike and Victoria handed the reins over to a new board of directors who will continue the amazing work the McGuirk family started.

Along with the posthumous contribution to the community through the SolGier foundation, Mike is still contributing to the football community as well. His brain was studied at the UNITE Brain Bank where researchers diagnosed him with stage 4 (of 4) CTE. Although Mike loved football, it probably contributed to his mental decline about a decade ago. He is survived by his wife, Victoria, daughter Kristine Reed, her husband Jon Reed, and their children Mia and Clyde Reed.