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.
SPRING HILL, Kan. — The first time Ron Stiles thought something might be wrong with his son Nathan, the boy was sprinting toward the end zone on a 65-yard touchdown run.
Dad couldn’t have been more proud. In his son’s final game of his senior year, the 17-year-old captain and homecoming king, a selfless soul who seemingly everyone looked up to, had broken loose for the longest touchdown run of his life. But some 20 yards before Nathan reached the end zone, Ron Stiles saw something unusual.
Nathan Stiles inspired everyone around him to excel. Even if you wanted to be a grumpy math teacher that day, you couldn’t. He wouldn’t let you, said Spring Hill math teacher Brent Smitheran. PEC Sports
“It looked like something had hit him, like he was about to trip over his own feet,” Ron said. “It was strange. Something just didn’t look right.”
A few plays later, on defense, Nathan missed a tackle that led to a touchdown. “It just didn’t seem like him,” Ron said. But no one else seemed to notice. Not Nathan’s Spring Hill Broncos teammates. Not his coaches. Not even his mom, who told her husband to stop picking on their son.
But a few minutes before halftime, the kid known as “Superman” awkwardly walked off the field, screaming that his head hurt. An assistant coach grabbed Nathan and asked a string of questions: What’s your name? Where are you? What are your parents’ names? What school do you play for? With tears filling his eyes, Nathan answered every question correctly. As the coach turned to find a trainer, Nathan attempted to stand. But he fell to the ground, unconscious.
Immediately, a trainer ran over. Paramedics were called. A doctor from the opposing sidelines was summoned. Ron and Connie Stiles sprinted to their son’s side.
“He didn’t look good. His eyes were closed. He wasn’t responding. I knew it was serious,” Connie said. “But I kept thinking he would just wake up.”
The coaches urged Connie to talk to her son in hopes that he would respond. She hoped the memory of his favorite chocolate-covered snack mix might help.
“I kept saying, ‘Come on, Bubby. Come on. I’ll make you puppy chow if you wake up. You love puppy chow.”
For a brief second, Nathan raised his left arm. Then it fell.
He never moved his body again.
The decision to play
Nathan played football this year, but basketball was his first love. Stiles family
It was a few minutes before 5:30 on that summer morning in August when Nathan burst into his parents’ room to wake up his mom. Two-a-day football practices were starting, and Nathan couldn’t play until one of his parents signed a form acknowledging that they were aware of the symptoms and potential dangers of a concussion.
It was the first year that Spring Hill required a signed form to play. Given the added attention to concussion safety nationally, as well as recommendations from the Kansas State High School Activities Association, the Spring Hill School District decided that no form equaled no play.
It was just like Nathan to wait until the last minute. As smart and detail-oriented as he was in the classroom — a 4.0 GPA, a member of the National Honor Society, a Kansas Honors Scholar — he was just as absent-minded outside of it. He drove his mother crazy by losing his cell phone and his iPod. Passengers in his silver Dodge Intrepid were often nervous because he didn’t always pay attention to the road.
And so Nathan stood there that morning, handing his mom the Spring Hill Concussion Information Form. It began, “A concussion is a brain injury and all brain injuries are serious.”
“He was like, ‘Mama, Mama, sign this. I need you to sign this so I can go play,'” Connie recalled. “So I glance at the paper and it says something about concussions, blah, blah, blah. I knew there were new guidelines. I had heard about the form. So I signed it, gave it back to him and went to bed. I didn’t think twice about it.”
With concussion awareness at an all-time high, it was a scene that was surely replicated in homes all across the country last summer. Issues surrounding return to play, second-impact syndrome and even a potential connection between head trauma and ALS has put everyone from NFL commissioner Roger Goodell to Pee Wee parents on high alert. The story won’t go away. This week, the talk is of University of Texas sophomore running back Tre’ Newton quitting the sport after suffering a concussion Nov. 6. On the other end of the spectrum there’s Pittsburgh receiver Hines Ward, who criticized Steelers trainers after they refused to let him return to last Sunday’s game against New England following a suspected concussion.
On the morning Nathan handed his mom that piece of paper, he wasn’t thinking about any of this. He had no idea what was ahead. He had no clue that two months later, he’d be diagnosed with a concussion. Or that 10 days after that, in his second game back, he would find himself unconscious on the sideline, fighting for his life.
The Stiles family has lived in Spring Hill, a fast-growing community 35 miles southwest of Kansas City, forever. Both Ron and Connie’s great grandparents attended Spring Hill High. But on that night, Nathan would go from a kid people only knew in town to a nationally-recognized example of the potential for disaster after a brain injury.
Suddenly, the sentence on the concussion awareness form that read “all concussions are potentially serious and may result in complications including prolonged brain damage and death” referred to him.
And Nathan wasn’t even sure he wanted to play football this year. Basketball was his sport. Despite his chiseled arms, broad shoulders and reputation as a tough guy, he was a softy. He was the first one at church each Sunday morning so he could hug the elderly ladies as they arrived. He would sit at the kitchen table each morning and, in between bites of Cheerios and hot water, wrap his arms around his mom and tell her he loved her.
Nathan Stiles was the type of person who could fit in with any crowd. At Spring Hill’s “Nerd Day” this year, he and his younger sister Natalie wore matching outfits. Courtesy Stiles family
He didn’t do drugs. He didn’t drink. He didn’t believe in premarital sex. From the age of 9, he embraced God, religion and the importance of spirituality. While other little kids would watch cartoons on Sunday mornings, Nathan would watch preachers. “And then he’d tell me which ones were good and which weren’t,” Connie said. “Who does that?”
He was a jock. He was a nerd. He was churchy. “And yet he still fit in with us bad kids,” joked Adam Nunn, a close friend. “He was just like one of the guys. Only way, way better. The kid would do anything for anybody.”
Nathan hated attention. He refused to ever buy a letterman’s jacket. When a youth basketball coach once asked Nathan’s team why they couldn’t “be more like Stiles,” he fumed.
“He just loved his buddies,” his dad said. “And he never wanted them to ever be hurt or upset or embarrassed about anything.”
When those buddies decided to play football this fall, Nathan joined them. But three practices into the season, Nathan broke his hand and needed a plate and six screws to piece it back together. When he couldn’t practice, he ran sprints on the sidelines. His friends said he even lifted weights when doctors told him not to.
“He was a competitor. He always wanted to win,” said Eric Kahn, one of Nathan’s closest friends. “He was the type of guy who would always suck it up. If he was injured, he’d fight through it and see if it would just go away. And then if it didn’t, maybe he would ask somebody for help.”
So it was surprising for Connie on the morning of Oct. 2 when her son mentioned that his head hurt. The night before, she and Ron had joined Nathan on the field as he was named homecoming king. After the game, a 17-0 loss to Ottawa, Nathan went out with his friends. Everything seemed normal. Except that comment the next day.
At practice three days later, in his first contact drills since the game, Nathan complained to his coaches about his head hurting.
“Every time he made contact, he said he got a headache,” coach Anthony Orrick said. “So I immediately told him right there he was done for the day.”
The next morning, a trainer from the school called Connie and suggested she take Nathan to see a doctor. Connie took him to the Olathe Medical Center, where Nathan underwent a series of tests, including a CT scan. The doctors found nothing, Connie recalled.
“They said he was fine, probably had a concussion,” Connie said. “They told him ‘Take two [naproxen] in the morning and two at night and go see the doctor next week.'”
When he visited the family doctor the next week, Nathan confessed he was still having occasional headaches. So the doctor suggested he sit out another week. Seven days later, after Nathan passed a series of tests and said he was headache-free, the doctor cleared him to return to the field. But Nathan wouldn’t do so without the approval of his mother. “You need to be OK with this,” he said to her. “Are you OK with this?”
She wasn’t. Connie hadn’t wanted him to play in the first place. During his sophomore year, he broke his collarbone in a precarious spot under his neck that was a mere inches from severing an artery and potentially killing him. Then there was the broken hand. And now a concussion. Connie thought of a story Ron had told the children’s ministry one morning at church, in which God sends three boats to rescue a drowning man and the man refuses to get in all three boats, thinking God himself will save him. The man eventually drowns.
“I told him, ‘Nathan, this is your third boat,'” she recalled. “‘God sent you three boats. You’re going to drown. Don’t play. Just don’t play.'”
But Nathan insisted he was fine, and Connie didn’t see any abnormal behavior. Nathan was staying up late, finishing his homework and had just earned a 93 on a big calculus test. He wanted to finish the season with his friends. And with only two games remaining, one against Osawatomie, the other one-win team in the area, Connie assumed her son would be safe. So she reluctantly told him he could play.
On Friday, Oct. 22, Nathan returned to the field for Spring Hill’s game against undefeated Paola. Ron and Connie watched nervously in the stands as their son absorbed several hard hits, including one in the beginning of the game that they said noticeably stunned him.
“But after that game, all he said was how great he felt,” Ron said. “He was so happy. He said, ‘That was a lot of fun. They got me there for a minute, but I’m OK. I had a blast tonight.'”
‘I told him I would miss him’
The television in the surgical waiting room at the University of Kansas Medical Center was tuned to Home and Garden Television. Connie Stiles would have it no other way. Nathan had been airlifted from Osawatomie’s Lynn Dickey Field, and she and Ron had made the one-hour drive to the hospital, where doctors informed them their son’s brain was severely swollen and hemorrhaging. He would need four-hour emergency surgery to stop the bleeding, slow the swelling and, hopefully, save his life.
So while Nathan was in surgery, the easy-on-the-nerves home and garden network it would be. As the Stiles waited, friends, family and teachers began overflowing three hospital waiting rooms. At first, nurses urged the crowd to keep out of the hallway. But they eventually gave up. In each of the waiting rooms, crowds of people kneeled on the hospital floor, praying to God to save Nathan.
Nathan with his parents, Ron and Connie, at homecoming. The Miami County Republic
One hour into surgery, doctors realized their task was impossible. Nathan’s brain was so swollen that it had stopped telling his heart and lungs what to do. He had been living on 50 percent oxygen for as long as two hours. Even if he were to live, his life would never be the same.
The doctors told the Stiles family there was nothing more they could do. “It’s in God’s hands now,” one surgeon said.
“The news started out bad and got worse,” Ron said. “I knew it was serious. But I never imagined I’d be driving home with a dead son.
“But no matter what we said or what we did, it didn’t matter. God was calling him home.”
Not everyone accepted Nathan’s fate as easily. Ron said he had never seen the family’s pastor, Laurie Johnston, so upset.
“She thought we were going to pray that boy back to life,” he said.
Said Johnston: “I was mad. I was angry. Here I was, the shepherd of their family, and I couldn’t protect their sheep. To me, this wasn’t going to happen. I wouldn’t let it happen. Not Nathan. Not someone who had so much left to give this world. But at some point I realized, it was out of my control.”
As the clock crept past 2 in the morning on Oct. 29, Nathan was still alive. But his future was bleak. Ron and Connie decided it was time to start saying goodbye. They made the decision to allow each of Nathan’s friends go in to his room in groups of four to do just that.
It took almost an hour and a half. With each group, Nathan slipped farther and farther away. Just before 4 a.m., the last group walked in. They were Nathan’s closest friends.
“When I saw him I just saw him earlier that day,” said Kahn, who kicked for Spring Hill and also played on the soccer team. “The last thing he ever said to me was ‘Win state.’ But seeing him in that bed my best friend looking like that I told him I would miss him. And basketball wouldn’t be the same.”
Handling the grief and the guilt
Handling the grief and the guilt
In his first game back after his concussion, Nathan absorbed several big hits but told his parents afterward that he felt great. Tim Carroll
The morning Nathan died, the phone rang in the office of Gary French, the superintendent for the Osawatomie School District. It was Ron Stiles.
“I was a bit nervous when it was him,” French said. “I had no idea what to expect.”
But Stiles wasn’t calling to complain, criticize or do anything else negative. He called to say “thank you” for the way Osawatomie handled his son’s crisis. He asked how the kids and the coaches were doing and if there was anything he could do.
“Here this man had just lost his son and he was worried about everybody else,” French said. “It was an amazing display of faith and humanity. It was inspirational.”
A day later, when word got back to Stiles that some of the Osawatomie kids were teasing one of the football players, calling him a “murderer” because of one play in which they thought he had collided with Nathan (he hadn’t), Stiles called French again.
“He told me he had heard what was going on and wasn’t going to stand for it,” French said. “What could he do? Could he call the boy? Did he need to drive down? He wanted to talk to the kid.”
Within 15 minutes Stiles was on the phone with the player, telling him Nathan’s death wasn’t his fault. It wasn’t anybody’s fault.
In the three weeks since their son died, the Stiles family has spread that message to anyone and everyone who will listen. In a statement broadcast on each of the Kansas City television affiliates, Ron said, “We absolutely do not hold any bitterness to anyone for what happened.” He added that there will be no lawsuits. What happened to his son will be determined “by doctors and not lawyers.”
Everywhere they’ve gone since that night, Ron, 55, and Connie, 48, have tried to spread this message: to Nathan’s coaches, his teammates, his friends, a member of the officiating crew that night and even his girlfriend, whom the Stiles said battled feelings of guilt after not sharing that Nathan had felt dizzy one day after working out.
After the homecoming game at which he and Courtney were named king and queen, Nathan complained about headaches. Stiles family
“My daughter told me that she was pretty much headed the wrong way with all of this,” said Susan Swope, the mother of Courtney Swope, Nathan’s girlfriend. “But when you see the way the Stiles have handled it you can’t help but do everything within your power to stay strong.”
Connie also met for an hour with the family physician who had cleared Nathan to play. The doctor declined to speak with ESPN for this story.
“He felt horrible,” Connie said. “He was in tears. He felt so bad. He told me he kept going through everything over and over and over and he didn’t see anything he would have done differently. He told me he had lost his faith in medicine.
“I said, ‘Please don’t feel that way. It’s not your fault. You’re a good doctor. We need more doctors like you.'”
Ron and Connie also met with some 25 members of the Osawatomie football team who showed up at a ceremony to remember Nathan. The parents explained to the tear-filled teenagers that the entire night was crazy, none of it made sense. Not the eye-popping 99-72 final score of the game, more points than the two teams had tallied in their previous 19 games combined. And certainly not what happened to Nathan. It wasn’t their fault, the Stiles insisted. Football did not kill Nathan. But the kids couldn’t stop crying. So Ron pointed to a giant picture of his son in the front of the room.
“I told them, ‘You see that smile my son has on his face?'” Ron said. “I want to see that exact same smile on every one of your faces right now.”
People in the community have marveled at the way the Stiles have handled this tragedy. But for them, it’s the only way. By telling everyone else that they don’t believe this tragedy is anyone’s fault, they’re telling themselves the same thing.
Because of course there are questions. Ron and Connie constantly replay the nightmare in their heads, wondering what went wrong. A couple of days after Nathan’s death, Ron was looking through his son’s car and found a piece of paper lying on the floor in front of the passenger’s seat. It was a concussion management handout the family doctor had handed Nathan after clearing him to play.
“I saw that and I just thought, ‘Oh, Nathan; oh, no,'” Ron said.
Was Nathan having headaches the entire time and didn’t tell anyone? Did he suffer a brain hemorrhage after the initial concussion? If he did, why didn’t that show up on his CT scan? What about the hard hits he took in the Paola game? Did that play a role in any of this? That night in the hospital, doctors explained to the Stiles that the location where Nathan was hemorrhaging was an “old bleed,” meaning it was a spot where the brain had bled previously.
“One of the doctors said he didn’t think we could just blame it on the CT scan, that they didn’t catch it or whatever,” Connie said. “And so I made the comment, ‘Do you mean I could have just found him dead in bed one morning?’ And he said ‘Yes.'”
The answers won’t come until the medical examiner releases the autopsy report and the official cause of death in the coming weeks. In addition, sports concussion expert Dr. Robert Cantu and his researchers from Boston University and the Sports Legacy Institute will be reviewing Nathan’s case and will share their findings with the family. Cantu has authored more than 325 scientific publications and 22 books on neurology and sports medicine, including a September article in the Journal of Neurotrauma about second-impact syndrome and small subdural hematomas, or brain bleeds. Though he had yet to review Nathan’s CT scan or paperwork, Cantu said last week that the case “had all the earmarks” of a brain bleed caused by second-impact syndrome.
But for now, we just don’t know. It’s possible that what happened that night had nothing to do with Nathan’s previous concussion. Or he might have suffered from a brain-related problem completely unrelated to football.
Just last week, Connie came across a magazine story that suggested anyone suffering from a brain injury shouldn’t take any non-steroidal anti-inflammatory medications because they might complicate clotting. Connie had found a nearly empty bottle of an over-the-counter anti-inflammatory shortly after Nathan’s death. Should he not have been taking it? Should she have put her foot down that day in the doctor’s office and told him no, he couldn’t play? Would it have even mattered? And what about Nathan’s role in all of this? Was he hiding something?
“Even if he was, what kid thinks, ‘Oh, I’m going to die from a headache?'” Connie said. “He’s a 17-year-old kid. They don’t think they’re going to die from anything.”
For now, Ron is trying desperately to shift his family’s energy and focus from “what if?” to “what now?” This past Saturday, he stood in front of the congregation at Hillsdale Presbyterian Church, held Connie’s magazine with the article about brain injuries in his hand and tossed it in a garbage can.
“That isn’t what we want to be about,” he said.
A life frozen in time
In the bed where Nathan used to sleep, the sheets still rest in the same position in which he left them that morning when he climbed out of bed and headed for school.
The shirts in his closet are organized by color. On his desk, a neon green cup has a drop of water on the bottom. And on a shelf at the foot of his bed, the purple and white crown of the homecoming king sits, its gold sequins changing the direction they shine depending on the light of day.
The room tells the story of a life frozen in time and a family that has been left trying to make sense of it all. According to the National Center for Catastrophic Sports Injury Research, 1.8 million Americans play football each year. And Nathan is the only one this season who is believed to have died from a football-related injury. Essentially, he is a statistical anomaly.
But tell that to Ron, Connie and his younger sister Natalie, who now live in a home without the plodding feet and shower singing of their son and brother. Tell that to the elderly ladies at Hillsdale Presbyterian, who miss Nathan’s arms wrapping around them every Sunday morning. And tell that to the not-so-popular kids at Spring Hill High, whom Nathan would say hello to and stand up for as if they were the most popular kids in school.
“I’m not convinced that he wasn’t some sort of angel,” Coach Orrick said. “I know people will have a hard time believing that, but when you look at the type of person he was you can’t help but ask ‘How can I better myself?’
“I’m not sure Nate wasn’t put here on earth to do just that — to change a lot of us for the better.”
To try to make sense of it all, to give them a reason to get out of bed each morning, the Stiles have dedicated themselves to making sure their son doesn’t die without a purpose. They fulfilled Nathan’s wish, allowing the donation of his bone and tissue to those in need. But beyond that, and beyond working with doctors and researchers to determine exactly what went wrong, they’re committed to achieving one of Nathan’s lifelong goals: helping his friends find God.
Nathan, who would have turned 18 on Nov. 2, had often talked with his mom about the concerns he had for his friends who were choosing the wrong path and how he wished he could somehow get them to ask life’s biggest questions. And so the Saturday morning after Nathan’s death, Connie was lying in bed when the idea hit her: The Nathan Project.
Players from another team, Paola (Kan.) High School, wore No. 44 stickers on their helmets as a way to honor the memory of Nathan. The Miami County Republic
Instead of flowers or donations to fight cancer or feed the needy, Ron and Connie have used the money they received after Nathan’s death — more than $14,000 — to purchase study Bibles. And they’ve given those Bibles to anyone who will dedicate themselves to one year of Bible study. Faith, denomination, previous beliefs; none of it matters. They just wanted to people to explore and learn about God — for Nathan.
“I had to make sense of this insanity,” Connie said. “I had to give myself a reason this happened and do something. Otherwise I was just going to wither away and die.”
One week after Nathan’s death, at the ceremony attended by the Osawatomie football team and some 3,000 others, a stack of 1,000 Bibles lined the back of the Spring Hill gym. And after Nathan’s coaches, teachers and family spoke, after his mom sang and his band mates played a Christian rock song he helped write, Johnston, the pastor, invited anyone in attendance to grab a Bible.
Within a few minutes, two lines four to five people wide stretched the entire length of the Spring Hill gym. Nearly 650 Bibles were given out that night. Since then, the project has spread to other towns and gradually, other states. Ron Stiles has started a Facebook account, and he encourages people to reach out to him if they need somebody to talk to.
Nathan talked frequently to his family about finding a way to introduce God to more of his friends. On the night of the ceremony to celebrate his life, he got his wish. Courtesy of The Miami County Republic
And at every Nathan Project event, Ron — who has size 10 feet — wears his son’s black Nike high-tops.
Size 12.
“I’m never going to fill those shoes,” he said. “But I’m going to do everything I can to walk in them.”
Wayne Drehs is a senior writer for ESPN.com. He can be reached at [email protected]. To find out more about The Nathan Project, visit Hillsdale Presbyterian’s web site, or search “The Nathan Project” on Facebook.
Rowan was 17 years old and in Grade 12 (Senior) when she passed away following a concussion received during a rugby match for her high school team. A Coroners Inquest into her death held in May of 2013 concluded that she died from Second Impact Syndrome and had likely suffered two previous concussions in two games during the five days preceding the match where she suffered the fatal injury.
Rowan was captain of her high school team and also played for the Barrhaven Scottish RFC. She played ringette, soccer, flag football, lacrosse and was also a keen snowboarder. She had been accepted into Ottawa University to study to become a Registered Nurse.
Her death and the results of the Inquest spurred her family to campaign for “Rowan’s Law” in Ontario. The law, the first of it’s kind in Canada, came in to force on September 9, 2016.
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.
WEST SENECA, N.Y., June 13 — Mary Strzelczyk spoke to the computer screen as clearly as it was speaking to her. “Oh, Justin,” she said through sobs, “I’m so sorry.”
The images on the screen were of magnified brain tissue from her son, the former Pittsburgh Steelers offensive lineman Justin Strzelczyk, who was killed in a fiery automobile crash three years ago at age 36. Four red splotches specked an otherwise tranquil sea — early signs of brain damage that experts said was most likely caused by the persistent head trauma of life in football’s trenches.
Strzelczyk (pronounced STRELL-zick) is the fourth former National Football League player to have been found post-mortem to have had a condition similar to that generally found only in boxers with dementia or people in their 80s. The diagnosis was made by Dr. Bennet Omalu, a neuropathologist at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. In the past five years, he has found similar damage in the brains of the former N.F.L. players Mike Webster, Terry Long and Andre Waters. The finding will add to the growing evidence that longtime football players, particularly linemen, might endure hidden brain trauma that is only now becoming recognized.
“This is irreversible brain damage,” Omalu said. “It’s most likely caused by concussions sustained on the football field.”
Dr. Ronald Hamilton of the University of Pittsburgh and Dr. Kenneth Fallon of West Virginia University confirmed Omalu’s findings of chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a condition evidenced by neurofibrillary tangles in the brain’s cortex, which can cause memory loss, depression and eventually Alzheimer’s disease-like dementia. “This is extremely abnormal in a 36-year-old,” Hamilton said. “If I didn’t know anything about this case and I looked at the slides, I would have asked, ‘Was this patient a boxer?’ ”
The discovery of a fourth player with chronic traumatic encephalopathy will most likely be discussed when N.F.L. officials and medical personnel meet in Chicago on Tuesday for an unprecedented conference regarding concussion management. The league and its players association have consistently played down findings on individual players like Strzelczyk as anecdotal, and widespread survey research of retired players with depression and early Alzheimer’s disease as of insufficient scientific rigor.
Justin Strzelczyk, 6 feet 6 inches and 300 pounds, played on the Steelers’ offensive line from 1990-98. Credit…Rick Stewart /Allsport
The N.F.L. spokesman Greg Aiello said that the league had no comment on the Strzelczyk findings. Gene Upshaw, executive director of the N.F.L. Players Association, did not respond to telephone messages seeking comment.
Strzelczyk, 6 feet 6 inches and 300 pounds, was a monstrous presence on the Steelers’ offensive line from 1990-98. He was known for his friendly, banjo-playing spirit and gluttony for combat. He spiraled downward after retirement, however, enduring a divorce and dabbling with steroid-like substances, and soon before his death complained of depression and hearing voices from what he called “the evil ones.” He was experiencing an apparent breakdown the morning of Sept. 30, 2004, when, during a 40-mile high-speed police chase in central New York, his pickup truck collided with a tractor-trailer and exploded, killing him instantly.
Largely forgotten, Strzelczyk’s case was recalled earlier this year by Dr. Julian Bailes, the chairman of the department of neurosurgery at West Virginia University and the Steelers’ team neurosurgeon during Strzelczyk’s career. (Bailes is also the medical director of the University of North Carolina’s Center for the Study of Retired Athletes and has co-authored several prominent papers identifying links between concussions and later-life emotional and cognitive problems.) Bailes suggested to Omalu that Strzelczyk’s brain tissue might be preserved at the local coroner’s office, a hunch that proved correct.
Mary Strzelczyk granted permission to Omalu and his unlikely colleague, the former professional wrestler Christopher Nowinski, to examine her son’s brain for signs of chronic traumatic encephalopathy. Nowinski, a former Harvard football player who retired from wrestling because of repeated concussions in both sports, has become a prominent figure in the field after spearheading the discovery earlier this year of C.T.E. inside the brain of Andre Waters, the former Philadelphia Eagles defensive back who committed suicide last November at age 44.
Tests for C.T.E., which cannot be performed on a living person other than through an intrusive tissue biopsy, confirmed the condition in Strzelczyk two weeks ago. Omalu and Nowinski visited Mary Strzelczyk’s home near Buffalo on Wednesday to discuss the family’s psychological history as well as any experiences Justin might have had with head trauma in and out of sports. Mary Strzelczyk did not recall her son’s having any concussions in high school, college or the N.F.L., and published Steelers injury reports indicated none as well.
Omalu remained confident that the damage was caused by concussions Strzelczyk might not have reported because — like many players of that era — he did not know what a concussion was or did not want to appear weak. Omalu also said that it could have developed from what he called “subconcussive impacts,” more routine blows to the head that linemen repeatedly endure.
“Could there be another cause? Not to my knowledge,” said Bailes, adding that Strzelczyk’s car crash could not have caused the C.T.E. tangles. Bailes also said that bipolar disorder, signs of which Strzelczyk appeared to be increasingly exhibiting in the months before his death, would not be caused, but perhaps could be exacerbated, by the encephalopathy.
Justin Strzelczyk was killed during a high-speed police chase on Sept. 30, 2004, when his pickup collided with a tractor-trailer and exploded.Credit…Patrick Palladino/Observer-Dispatch, via Associated Press
Omalu and Bailes said Strzelczyk’s diagnosis is particularly notable because the condition manifested itself when he was in his mid-30s. The other players were 44 to 50 — several decades younger than what would be considered normal for their conditions — when they died: Long and Waters by suicide and Webster of a heart attack amid significant psychological problems.
Two months ago, Omalu examined the brain tissue of one other deceased player, the former Denver Broncos running back Damien Nash, who died in February at 24 after collapsing following a charity basketball game. (A Broncos spokesman said that the cause of death has yet to be identified.) Omalu said he was not surprised that Nash showed no evidence of C.T.E. because the condition could almost certainly not develop in someone that young. “This is a progressive disease,” he said.
Omalu and Nowinski said they were investigating several other cases of N.F.L. players who have recently died. They said some requests to examine players’ brain tissue have been either denied by families or made impossible because samples were destroyed.
Bailes, Nowinski and Omalu said that they were forming an organization, the Sports Legacy Institute, to help formalize the process of approaching families and conducting research. Nowinski said the nonprofit program, which will be housed at a university to be determined and will examine the overall safety of sports, would have an immediate emphasis on exploring brain trauma through cases like Strzelczyk’s. Published research has suggested that genetics can play a role in the effects of concussion on different people.
“We want to get a idea of risks of concussions and how widespread chronic traumatic encephalopathy is in former football players,” Nowinski said. “We are confident there are more cases out there in more sports.”
Mary Strzelczyk said she agreed to Omalu’s and Nowinski’s requests because she wanted to better understand the conditions under which her son died. Looking at the C.T.E. tangles on a computer screen on Wednesday, she said they would be “a piece of the puzzle” she is eager to complete for herself and perhaps others.
“I’m interested for me and for other mothers,” she said. “If some good can come of this, that’s it. Maybe some young football player out there will see this and be saved the trouble.”
A correction was made on June 16, 2007
:
A sports article yesterday about Justin Strzelczyk, a former National Football League player who was found post-mortem to have had early signs of brain damage that experts said was most likely caused by football concussions, misidentified the medical institution where Bennet Omalu, the doctor who made the diagnosis, is a clinical instructor of neuropathology. It is the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, not the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.
When we learn of a mistake, we acknowledge it with a correction. If you spot an error, please let us know at [email protected] more
