Mark graduated from Darien High School in 1980 where he and his team were undefeated and won the FCIAC Connecticut State Football Championship. Mark then attended Choate Rosemary Hall as a post-graduate where he and his team also went undefeated winning the New England Prep School Football Championship. Mark was heavily recruited by numerous Ivy League colleges and attended Princeton University, graduating in 1985 where he majored in history, was a member of the University Cottage Club and was an outstanding defensive end for the Princeton Tigers earning three varsity letters during the ’82-’84 Tiger campaigns. Number 98 ruined many a fall Saturday afternoon for the visiting team at Palmer Stadium and was named Defensive Player of the Game against Bucknell. A true “son of Princeton,” Mark was happiest when going back to Old Nassau with friends and classmates, especially at football games and reunions.
Mark had a very successful career as an institutional equity salesman starting his career in New York at Smith Barney. During that time received his MBA from the Stern School of Business at New York University, attending classes at night and on weekends. Recently Mark was a partner at Capture Capital LLC where he worked raising institutional capital for a variety of hedge funds and private equity funds. He was hard working and made many friends along his career path. He was a member of the Racquet & Tennis Club on Park Avenue in New York City, the Noroton Yacht Club and Wee Burn Country Club in Darien.
Large in stature, but even larger in persona and generosity, Mark traveled the world to celebrate his many friends; a wedding in Rome, a U-2 concert in Dublin, several visits to Singapore to be with his godson who was fighting a rare disease resulting from treatment which cured his cancer, ski trips to Austria, golf in the British Isles, Italy and France, or a safari in Kenya. The underlying thing that made Mark so special is that these things were all done with and for his friends and family. He loved being there for people, especially his mother, his siblings and his ten nieces and nephews who adored him.
The last thing Mark did before he died was to write a letter to his mother, telling her how much he loved her and to have his brain donated for CTE research. We are honored to have Mark’s memory live on with the Concussion Legacy Foundation. While he shared his thoughts and concerns for CTE with his teammates, he kept these concerns to himself when it came to family and other friends, choosing to not be a burden. The six months of the pandemic leading up to his death took a toll on Mark. He left New York City for Connecticut to make sure that both he and his widowed mother were safe from COVID19. Family was always Mark’s top priority, and he would be very happy today in the knowledge that he succeeded in this regard as his mother is fully vaccinated. Mark was aptly called a “perfectionist in an imperfect world” but not one of his family members or his friends had any indication that Mark was suffering so much to take his life.
The outpouring of sympathy and love for Mark was and continues to be the measure of the man he was and will always be, bigger than life. Anyone who knew him is better for having known Mark and he will live in our memories forever.
Suicide is preventable and help is available. If you are concerned that someone in your life may be suicidal, the five #BeThe1To steps are simple actions anyone can take to help someone in crisis. 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.
If you or someone you know is struggling with concussion symptoms, reach out to us through the CLF HelpLine. We support patients and families by providing personalized help to those struggling with the outcomes of brain injury. Submit your request today and a dedicated member of the Concussion Legacy Foundation team will be happy to assist you.
Warning: This story contains mentions of suicide and may be triggering for some readers.
April Harrison and Eric Wainwright Sr. remember their son, Eric Wainwright Jr., or “E” for short, always looking into the future.
E was a son of football. Wainwright Sr. played college football and had a brief stint in the NFL before coaching college football. E was the ball boy for his dad’s Delaware State University football team when he was four years old.
He was too young to play for real, but young Eric couldn’t wait for his first games. When he was six, his parents noticed a horrific odor coming from his room. He poured water all over his carpet to simulate what it would be like to play in a rain game.
Eventually, little E got his wish and started playing tackle football when he was seven years old. His speed, strength, and coordination quickly earned him the de facto role perennially bestowed on the most gifted athlete on youth football teams: the star two-way running back and linebacker.
Eric developed his personality as an old soul. He’d make profound remarks about what he saw on television that would cause his parents to look at each other in amazement.
He moved from Delaware to Piscataway, New Jersey in middle school and spent his first years in high school there. But once again, E had his eyes on the next thing. He convinced his parents to send him to Cheshire Academy in Connecticut for a year and then to Valley Forge Military Academy in Wayne, Pennsylvania. Eric wanted to go to Valley Forge because he thought he might be interested in military leadership one day.
E thrived at Valley Forge. At a school full of future leaders and on a roster of well-rounded athletes, Eric was named captain of the football team.
Football was not the only sport Eric found a team to uplift in his time at Valley Forge. He picked up lacrosse on a whim and excelled, participated in the school’s science teams, and was active in student government. His father described Eric’s way of being as being impressively nerdy.
“He had all the gifts,” said Eric Sr. “He was talented, gifted athletically, an extremely good orator, handsome, and charismatic.”
“He would bring people together,” April added. “He made folks happy.”
After Valley Forge, Eric attended and played football for Dean College in Franklin, Massachusetts for two years before a year at East Stroudsburg University in Pennsylvania. He then transferred to Wesley College in his home state of Delaware.
Eric quit football by the time he got to Wesley to focus on academics and internships. But even though he was done playing, the effects of nearly two decades of the contact sport stayed with Eric.
Eric’s father estimates Eric suffered five concussions in his football career, and countless more nonconcussive blows from playing the two positions most frequently involved in big hits.
“He always let us know when he had concussions,” said Eric Sr. “But it’s those nonconcussive hits that we weren’t really aware of. Those are the troublemakers.”
Eric made the most of his time in Delaware, interning for Senator Tom Carper. Over two years, Eric traveled up and down the east cost with Senator Carper, learning about government and the legal system. Eric also worked on the Clinton campaign in 2016, meeting future President Joe Biden in the process.
A product of public education himself, Eric knew firsthand how the system failed so many students, especially students of color, nationwide. His experience in first public then private education, coupled with his time around politics, inspired him to publish his own eBook in March 2016, titled The Miseducation of Poor Americans: A Legacy of Neglect and Deception.
By the time Eric graduated from Wesley in spring 2017, it had been years since his parents had seen him for an extended period; he hadn’t lived with either parent since his sophomore year of high school. When April and Eric Sr. visited him for graduation, they noticed Eric’s trademark ambition was starting to eat away at him.
Eric’s resume and acumen had him dreaming of scoring a perfect, high-paying job directly out of college. But when that offer didn’t come, Eric got anxious.
“He had done so much and done so well in college, he knew after graduation that he was going to go out there and get the job,” said April. “But it takes a while.”
He took a job as a management trainee for Hertz and was living with Eric Sr. back in Piscataway.
“I’m wearing a suit and I’m cleaning cars,” Eric Sr. remembers his son saying to him over the phone. “I’m not supposed to be here.”
Eric Sr. tried to console his son and preach patience, but Eric Jr. struggled to reconcile his current position with the hopes he had for himself. On top of his anxiety, Eric Sr. saw his son seek out dark places to manage his sensitivity to light and avoid headaches. Sr. always knew his son to command the attention of every room he entered. But when he lived with Eric he could see his son was concealing an inner pain.
“When I was able to watch him and be with him, that’s when I was like, ‘Wow, something’s wrong,’” said Eric Sr.
Eric Sr. has his own struggles with various effects of playing football. Through scans and evaluations at Mt. Sinai hospital, Sr. learned he has damage to the white matter in his brain, which can cause memory loss and depression, among other symptoms. At 27 years old, Eric Jr. spoke to his mother about hopefully entering the same evaluations his father had done.
His wishes for evaluation were not able to come to fruition. On August 24, 2018, Eric Jr. died by suicide at age 27.
A coroner came to the home and immediately asked Eric Sr. if Eric played contact sports. She suggested his brain be sent to the UNITE Brain Bank for research. Eric Sr.’s own familiarity with concussion, CTE, and the Brain Bank’s research made it an easy decision.
While suicide is a complex public health concern with no single cause, studies have shown an increased risk of suicide among those who have suffered a single traumatic brain injury. As April and Eric Sr. mourned the loss of their son and awaited the results from the Brain Bank, they reflected on the cascade of effects football can have on those who play it.
“As spectators of the game, we’re cheering on these guys,” said April. “But we’re not really thinking about what they are going through. This is an American sport that everyone loves, but players, coaches, parents, and spectators all have to be more aware of what it can do.”
For Eric Sr., his son’s tragedy raised internal questions.
“With this and what happened to some of my teammates who I played with over the years who took their lives as well, and with what I’m going through personally,” he wondered. “I’m like, was football really worth it?”
After months of research, Brain Bank researchers told April and Eric Sr. they did not find any lesions of CTE in Eric’s brain. They did identify evidence that Eric was suffering from neurocognitive issues due to a widening cavum between the left and right ventricles of Eric’s brain and the erosion of his myelin sheath, damage that usually precedes CTE formation in the brain.
Eric’s parents were not surprised to learn he had potentially worsening brain damage in his brain when he died.
“It gives the gift of closure,” said Eric Sr. “This helped bring some more understanding of why things had to happen like it did.”
Eric’s parents will forever miss the way their son could effortlessly improve their moods and bring light to everything he touched. They hope the ambition Eric held to improve the world can now be channeled in a different way.
Eric Sr. has been in and around football for most of his life. Sports provided him with an overwhelmingly positive experience he hopes every child experiences. But he doesn’t think kids need to play tackle football until they’re at least 14 years old.
Eric wrote a book on education reform. His parents hope his story can supply another chapter on the topic.
“There are a lot of families that think football is a way out,” said Eric Sr. “We have to dispel that myth. Let’s get them involved in STEM, along with a healthy athletic program. That’s what’s going to generate their income and improve their futures.”
Suicide is preventable and help is available. If you are concerned that someone in your life may be suicidal, the five #BeThe1To steps are simple actions anyone can take to help someone in crisis. 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. If you’re not comfortable talking on the phone, consider using the Lifeline Crisis Chat.
If you or someone you know is struggling with lingering concussion symptoms, ask for help through the CLF HelpLine. We provide personalized help to those struggling with the outcomes of brain injury. Submit your request today and a dedicated member of the Concussion Legacy Foundation team will be happy to assist you.
Last month would have been my dad’s 80th birthday. I miss him more than I can put into words. While I don’t miss the dementia, the decline, or the painful way his life ended, I deeply miss the man he was. He was my biggest fan and a huge source of my strength.
For years, my parents searched tirelessly for answers about his health. My dad, once the embodiment of strength and joy, began to slip away, leaving us confused and heartbroken. It started in 2015 with small signs: forgetfulness, confusion, and moments of anger. Doctors offered guesses such as Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, maybe Lewy body dementia. None of it felt certain.
I remember sitting with them in a neurologist’s office in April 2018, grasping for answers. Desperation gave me the courage to ask a question I had been holding back: “Could this be because he played football for so many years?” The doctor said she didn’t know. But she suggested something unexpected: “Steve, you’re special. When you pass, you should donate your brain to science so we can learn more.”
My dad smiled at the thought but by then, his mind was already slipping. I don’t think he fully understood. He was disappearing, bit by bit.
Football was his first love. Growing up in Seattle, he excelled in wrestling and football, eventually playing under John Elway’s father at Gray’s Harbor Junior College before transferring to the University of Utah. His career ended after a severe back injury, but his love for the game never wavered. He lived for hard tackles and big hits, especially as a fullback. Watching games together, I could see the pride in his eyes when players collided. It reminded him of his own glory days.
(Steve Wallace #31 Gray’s Harbor Junior College 1964)
But that love came at a cost. The hits he celebrated were likely the same ones that stole him from us.
Off the field, my dad built a life full of joy, hard work, and love. He was a police officer turned software sales executive, someone who could light up a room and make anyone feel included. He was always there for me. He came to every game and was present for every big milestone. He wasn’t perfect; his temper and perfectionism often loomed large. But he cared deeply about his family and those around him. I carry his empathy and determination with me every day.
By 2018, everything had changed. At my birthday gathering, he sat quietly, unable to follow conversations. I could see it in his eyes. He wanted to say something but couldn’t find the words. It was devastating. On a later visit in August of 2019, he didn’t recognize me. He lashed out and took a swing at me. He was confused and scared, as I pleaded with him to remember who I was. That moment broke something in me. The man who had always been my anchor was slipping away for good.
In December 2020, after many falls and fire department visits to the home, my mom made the heart-wrenching decision to move him into a memory care facility. By then, COVID had stolen what little time we had left together. When he passed in March 2021, I wasn’t there to say goodbye.
Amid the heartbreak, my mom and I worked to honor his final wish: donating his brain to science. The Concussion Legacy Foundation (CLF) stepped in when other organizations couldn’t, connecting us to the UNITE Brain Bank and Boston University’s groundbreaking CTE research team. Their guidance made the impossible feel manageable.
On March 8, 2021, I reached out to CLF’s founder Chris Nowinski via a LinkedIn message. To my amazement, he replied. By noon on March 9, all the arrangements were made. My dad passed away later that afternoon. Knowing that his death would help others brought us a measure of peace. I am forever grateful to Chris for the quick reply!
Eight months and two family interviews later, we received the results of his study. My dad’s brain showed advanced Alzheimer’s, Lewy body dementia, and chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE). This is the now well-known degenerative brain disease caused by repetitive head trauma. The diagnosis explained so much: his temper, depression, and cognitive decline. CTE wasn’t even a term we knew growing up, but it had shaped so much of his life, and ours.
CLF gave us answers and a purpose. They continue to lead the charge in understanding and preventing CTE. Their research has shown that just one year of tackle football before age 12 increases the risk of CTE by 30%. This is not just an NFL or college problem.
My children, thankfully, have chosen different paths. My son has no interest in football and thrives in baseball and running cross country. My daughter plays soccer and though I worry about its physicality, recent rule changes such as banning headers for kids under 12 gives me hope. These changes are a direct result of CLF’s work.
As I watch my kids play sports, I often feel my dad’s absence. He would have been the loudest voice on the sidelines, beaming with pride. I take comfort in knowing that his legacy lives on. Not just in my family but in the critical research that will protect future athletes and their families from the devastation of CTE.
If our story resonates with you, I encourage you to think twice about enrolling your kids in contact sports. Talk to them about the risks and dangers we know about but continue to ignore or not give the attention it deserves.
CLF is doing lifesaving work, and I hope my dad’s story inspires others to support their mission. Together, we can honor the past while building a safer future in contact sports.
Before Bo Jackson, Deion Sanders, Tim Tebow, or Kyler Murray blurred the lines between professional football and baseball, there was Fulton Walker. Walker grew up in Martinsburg, West Virginia and started playing tackle football at eight years old. He raced past defenders in youth football and shined on the baseball diamond. His exploits became the stuff of legend. Walker’s son Kevin was born when Fulton was in high school, so Kevin was well versed on his dad’s athletic prowess by the time he grew up.
“I was sitting in one of my P.E. classes and the teacher tells me how my dad was the best athlete to ever come out of West Virginia,” Kevin said. “He was saying, ‘I watched him play a baseball game one day and rob a home run and then that night run a punt back.’”
Walker was a four-sport letterman for Martinsburg High School and a key player at home as well. He would rush back home from games and track meets to mow his family’s yard and to split wood for a fire.
After he graduated from Martinsburg, the Pittsburgh Pirates selected Walker in the 25th round of the 1977 MLB Draft. He opted instead to attend West Virginia University, where he watched many football games as a kid and where he could play both football and baseball.
Walker became one of the first Black athletes to play for the WVU baseball team. In football, he played running back and returned punts for the Mountaineers as a freshman. He made headlines his first season by returning a punt 88 yards for a touchdown against Boston College.
He switched to defense his junior season and held a larger role on the team. Coach Don Nehlen arrived at WVU for Walker’s senior season and immediately counted Walker as one of his favorite players.
“You have certain guys on your football team that really enjoy the game – it doesn’t matter if it’s Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday or Saturday, they like to play and Fulton was one of those guys,” Nehlen would later say. “You’d go out there on Tuesday and he was grinning and then on Wednesday he was grinning. He was very popular on our football team.”
Walker’s popularity was not contained to the Mountaineers locker room. Kevin Walker saw his dad get stopped by friends and strangers his whole life. Fulton could not go to a cookout or a grocery store without someone wanting to stop and chat with the local legend.
“He was always pulled one way or another for conversation and one minute turned into 30 minutes and we’d be hours late for things. And he would always stop. He always had time,” Kevin said. “He’d never act like he was Superman. You know, he was just a regular old guy from a little country town.”
Walker’s senior season at WVU was a huge success. He finished with 86 tackles and two interceptions for the team in a season that would be credited with turning the football program around. The Miami Dolphins selected Walker in the 6th round of the 1981 NFL Draft.
His cool, upbeat, down-to-earth personality made him just as much of a locker room favorite in Miami as he was in Morgantown. Walker’s next-door neighbor in Miami was Dolphins star quarterback Dan Marino. Walker and Marino bonded over the rivalry between their alma maters, Walker’s West Virginia and Marino’s Pittsburgh, which is serendipitously known as “The Backyard Brawl.”
Walker played five seasons with the Dolphins as a cornerback and a special teams ace. His career highlight came when he became the first player to return a kickoff for a touchdown in a Super Bowl when he sprinted 98 yards for a touchdown to give the Dolphins a 17-10 lead in Super Bowl XVII in 1983.
No one could catch Fulton Walker that day, or most days for that matter. But Kevin did. Once.
“We were walking to my aunt’s house and he was like, ‘Man you wanna race?’ and I said let’s do it,” Kevin said. “And we ran pole to pole and I beat him.”
Walker tried to put an asterisk on the defeat by claiming he did not have the right footwear for the occasion. But 13-year-old Kevin let everyone in his junior league baseball dugout know he beat the Super Bowl record-holder.
After two more injury-riddled seasons with the Los Angeles Raiders, Fulton Walker retired from football in 1986. Playing primarily special teams, Walker only saw the field for a handful of plays each game. But the impacts he was involved in on kick and punt returns count among the fastest and most violent in the sport. After football, Walker had his ankles fused, his vertebrae fused, and took more than a dozen pills a day to alleviate pain in his neck and to help him sleep.
“His injuries, you’d think it was from motorcycle wrecks or something. But he just played football. So yeah, you’re tough. But your body can only take so much,” Kevin said.
With football behind him, Walker went back to WVU to earn his master’s degree in Industrial Safety. Kevin says Walker was extremely sharp and could handle a very large workload. For years he managed a trucking company in West Virginia and then became a teacher and coached football and baseball back at Martinsburg High. He satisfied his itch to stay physically active by playing golf and softball as often as he could.
Walker then started to struggle with his memory. He would forget where he put his keys, leave his car running, go to the store and forget why he went by the time he got there, and repeat himself in conversations. These short-term memory issues affected his ability to work. He would forget how to use certain computer systems he mastered the week before. Eventually, the state of West Virginia determined he needed to go on full disability.
The memory battles caused Walker to get frustrated with himself. He took his frustrations out on others and slipped into depression.
“My problem is I can’t multi-task. I can’t get my brain full of stuff because it puts me in a place of confusion,” Walker said in an interview with Katherine Cobb in September 2016. “Stuff in the present I can have problems with, but stuff in the past, I still have good recollection. I have to write things down now, so I remember. It is what we guys have been going through but we didn’t understand what was going on. It’s been frustrating and overwhelming sometimes.”
When Kevin saw his dad almost daily, his decline was less noticeable. But when he moved away to North Carolina and saw his dad less frequently he noticed how steep his fall was. Kevin knew his dad needed help and set up appointments for neurological testing in Orlando and Atlanta. Those tests showed Walker suffered from dementia, which qualified him for benefits from the NFL’s “88 Plan,” named after Hall of Fame tight end and CLF Legacy Donor John Mackey.
On the night of October 11, 2016, Kevin called his dad to let him know he would need to switch cars with him for Kevin’s upcoming work trip. Kevin arrived the next morning and grabbed the keys his dad had left out on the counter. He chose to let his dad sleep rather than to say goodbye. As Kevin was driving home from the meeting later that day, he received a call that Fulton was being rushed to the hospital.
Kevin drove to meet his dad at the hospital, but it was too late. Fulton Walker was pronounced dead on October 12, 2016 at 58 years old. He died from a heart attack.
Walker’s funeral in Martinsburg was full of testaments to his humility, generosity, and ability to make those around him feel like they, not him, were the Super Bowl record holder in a conversation.
Kevin and the family decided to donate his brain to the VA-BU-CLF Brain Bank after his death to see if his cognitive and emotional problems could be attributed to Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE). Dr. Ann McKee, Director of the Brain Bank, diagnosed Walker with mild CTE in his dorsolateral frontal and temporal cortices.
Fulton Walker loved football too much for the family to hold ill will against the sport for its role in his CTE. Instead, Kevin believes his dad would have opted to play flag football as a kid and would advocate for the next generation to do so as well. Kevin points to Barry Sanders’ training in flag football to increase his elusiveness to show how playing flag football improves ballcarriers’ open-field skills.
Kevin knows that playing pro football when his father did and now are two different financial realities. He thinks today’s NFL players have the liberty of shortening their careers and protecting themselves in a way his father’s generation did not.
To other children who have parents that spent a life in contact sports and who might be at risk for CTE, Kevin urges you to stay aware, and take action to get help sooner than later if you see signs like mood swings or forgetfulness.
Kevin will always remember his dad for his work-ethic, humility, laid-back personality, and as a pioneer for two sport athletes.
Are you or someone you know struggling with lingering concussion symptoms or possible Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE)? We support patients and families through the CLF HelpLine, providing personalized help to those struggling with the outcomes of brain injury. Submit your request today and a dedicated member of the Concussion Legacy Foundation team will be happy to assist you.
David was born on March 3, 1980, at 9:06 p.m. He weighed 10 lbs. 1oz and was 22 ½” long. My first born and only son. My dream came true: I was a mom! As I held and cuddled my sweet baby, for the first time alone, I whispered how much I loved him and all the plans I had for him; stroller walks to the park, birthday parties, trips to the zoo, and the vow to always protect him from any harm. He was my little angel, my blessing from God. I was a stay-at-home mom. I was going to be there to see all his firsts!
David was a good-natured person. He was kind and gentle with others with a good sense of humor. He was a devout man of God, protective of his family, adored his niece, a true friend, loved animals, and had a bonding way with autistic children. David took strong interest in several sports at a young age beginning with baseball, then paintball, mountain biking, weightlifting, and football.
David began midget football at age 11. When he was a young teen, his grandfather instilled in him the importance of finding something he liked to do, be it a sport or occupation, and giving it his all. David loved football and he learned that weightlifting would make him better at it, so lifting weights became a passion. David’s excellence in the weight room at Cherokee High School in Marlton, New Jersey earned him offensive playing time on the football team all four years.
His hard work in high school paid off. He was offered 11 Division I football scholarships, including one Big Ten offer. David committed to the University of Iowa the summer before his senior year of high school.
When a new coaching staff began in Iowa, David decided to transfer to Wake Forest University in North Carolina. He began his career as a Demon Deacon in 2000. He continued to excel in the weight room and became an impact player, receiving and delivering big hits every game. He stood out for his last two seasons playing offensive tackle.
During the 2002 season, David received a severe concussion during a game but somehow continued playing to the game’s end. He was cleared medically to play the next game, the remainder of the season, and the Seattle Bowl game. I think this final season was the beginning of the end.
After graduating from Wake Forest with a degree in sociology, David went on to play professionally for the Canadian Football League’s Montreal Alouettes. When the CFL decided to let go of almost all their American offensive players, David moved to central Florida where he pursued a career in weight training and nutrition. David did everything he could to stay on his feet, but he struggled to manage the pain he accumulated from years of football.
Eventually, David re-settled in New Jersey. He married and began a new profession as a bricklayer and stone mason. His pain continued, though, and he was caught in a slow but nightmarish spiral of pain and addiction to pain pills.
In 2008, when David was 28, he was diagnosed with Post-Concussion Syndrome. His neurologist described the years of damage as “a lightning storm” in his brain. Talking through David’s concussion history, they estimated 11 concussions or more over his career. He was at high risk for developing serious cognitive issues later in life, and he was facing incredible pain.
Within three years, David’s marriage crumbled. He moved back home with me in 2012 as his pain grew worse. David developed rheumatoid, osteo, and psoriatic arthritis at a young age because of the abuse his body took, and treatments offered little relief. David underwent three unsuccessful surgeries to fix his knees. Then an unsuccessful elbow surgery, leaving him with no cartilage and the elbow of an 80-year-old man. He was told he needed shoulder surgery but couldn’t get around to it because of the constant pain in his head and body.
Through all of this, David’s memory declined to a frightening stage. His difficulties went from “What did I eat for my last meal?” to “I don’t remember Dad giving me this living room set for when I am able to move out on my own again.” His moods grew worse, and he felt extreme irritation over trivial matters. And there were seizures. More and more small seizures, four Grand Mal Seizures, and increasing aggression and violent behaviors.
The kind, gentle, patient David that I knew, my true son, was almost gone. The sweet, appreciative, compassionate David, barely a part of who he’d become. His words in the beginning, when he was thinking about where he felt his life was going, still cause me to cry.
“If I ever have a son, I will never let him play football.”
“Mom, you know one of these seizures, I might not pull through. I don’t want to live like this anymore. I thought of killing myself twice now, but only stop because I don’t want you to come home and find me that way. I don’t want to hurt you Mom.”
David’s list of symptoms grew. Difficulty thinking, planning, and carrying out tasks. Short term memory loss, confusion, mood swings, and impulsive/erratic behavior. Loss of motor skills, tremors, and loss of balance. Aggression, irritability, suicidal thoughts, depression, and apathy.
“You’ve done everything to help me. You take me to all my doctor appointments. You are always encouraging me. You are the best Mom God could have ever given me. We’re a team. I love you, Mom. Thank you, Mom. You love me for me. You help me see things in a different light. I can’t stand the pain in my head. You could never understand the pain in my head. It won’t stop. I pray for God to take me.”
In July 2016, David’s internal rage had become almost completely external. I had to do the most difficult thing in my life. I could no longer care for my slowly dissolving son. I could no longer allow him to continue living in my home. He had to go out on his own, as pathetic as that now feels to say.
He struggled but survived on his own for two more years. I had a pipeline to God’s ears more than ever. Please Lord, make David’s pain stop; please Lord, help him, please, please, please.
David’s downward spiral started because his pain from concussions and other injuries was too much to bear. The college medical staff administered opioids, which we know can lead to addiction. Then, controlled opioids by doctors outside of collegiate walls; addiction. Rehab. Clean. More pain. More opioids. Addiction. Clean. Surgeries. Confusion. Rage. Pain. Out of control pain. Accidental opioid overdose …
On Monday, July 23, 2018 at 9:15 p.m., four days before my 61st birthday, I received every parent’s nightmare phone call. My son, my boy, my beautiful boy, my baby, was gone. God answered my prayers and David’s prayers; David’s pain was no more. No more pain in his head, no more pain in his broken body due to football. He is with his beloved grandparents and great-uncle. He is living in glory with our Lord. This is not how I wanted this prayer to be answered, in this way, but it is what God had planned for my David.
I am still, a year later, trying to accept my loss. I can only hope to help others who are dealing with PCS and suspected CTE in their loved one, to let them know they are not alone. I am here to help in anyway I can through listening and sympathizing with my whole heart. To honor David in the way he would have wanted; to help others on his behalf. The last outward sign of my love for him. David wanted to donate his brain to science, but we were unable to follow through on this wish. I feel David would be happy to know I am trying to spread the word and help others like him. When David passed, in lieu of flowers, a request for donations in his name to the Concussion Legacy Foundation was set up. He would be proud that so many good people who loved him have donated.
David found his soul mate the year before he passed. He was to start his dream job the day after he passed, in a hospital where plans for a flourishing new career were to begin. A few days after David passed, he came to me in the most vivid dream. I try to remember it in my times of uncontrollable grief; he is standing in front of me, smiling, arms wide open saying, “I’m ok Mom.” I know he is, but I am not. I am grateful for all the Concussion Legacy Foundation has, is, and will be doing for our afflicted loved ones, and for us, their parents, family and friends.
Are you or someone you know struggling with lingering concussion symptoms or what you believe may be CTE? We support patients and families through the CLF HelpLine, which provides personalized help to those struggling with the outcomes of brain injury. If you are seeking guidance on how to choose the right doctor, find educational resources, or have any other specific questions, we want to hear from you. Submit your request to the CLF HelpLine and a dedicated member of the Concussion Legacy Foundation team will be happy to assist you.
Eagles safety Andre Waters making a tackle in 1988. Waters had a reputation as one of football’s hardest-hitting defensive players.Credit…Al Messerschmidt/WireImage
Since the former National Football League player Andre Waters killed himself in November, an explanation for his suicide has remained a mystery. But after examining remains of Mr. Waters’s brain, a neuropathologist in Pittsburgh is claiming that Mr. Waters had sustained brain damage from playing football and he says that led to his depression and ultimate death.
The neuropathologist, Dr. Bennet Omalu of the University of Pittsburgh, a leading expert in forensic pathology, determined that Mr. Waters’s brain tissue had degenerated into that of an 85-year-old man with similar characteristics as those of early-stage Alzheimer’s victims. Dr. Omalu said he believed that the damage was either caused or drastically expedited by successive concussions Mr. Waters, 44, had sustained playing football.
In a telephone interview, Dr. Omalu said that brain trauma “is the significant contributory factor” to Mr. Waters’s brain damage, “no matter how you look at it, distort it, bend it. It’s the significant forensic factor given the global scenario.”
He added that although he planned further investigation, the depression that family members recalled Mr. Waters exhibiting in his final years was almost certainly exacerbated, if not caused, by the state of his brain — and that if he had lived, within 10 or 15 years “Andre Waters would have been fully incapacitated.”
Dr. Omalu’s claims of Mr. Waters’s brain deterioration — which have not been corroborated or reviewed — add to the mounting scientific debate over whether victims of multiple concussions, and specifically longtime N.F.L. players who may or may not know their full history of brain trauma, are at heightened risk of depression, dementia and suicide as early as midlife.
The N.F.L. declined to comment on Mr. Waters’s case specifically. A member of the league’s mild traumatic brain injury committee, Dr. Andrew Tucker, said that the N.F.L. was beginning a study of retired players later this year to examine the more general issue of football concussions and subsequent depression.
“The picture is not really complete until we have the opportunity to look at the same group of people over time,” said Dr. Tucker, also team physician of the Baltimore Ravens.
The Waters discovery began solely on the hunch of Chris Nowinski, a former Harvard football player and professional wrestler whose repeated concussions ended his career, left him with severe migraines and depression, and compelled him to expose the effects of contact-sport brain trauma. After hearing of the suicide, Mr. Nowinski phoned Mr. Waters’s sister Sandra Pinkney with a ghoulish request: to borrow the remains of her brother’s brain.
The condition that Mr. Nowinski suspected might be found in Mr. Waters’s brain cannot be revealed by a scan of a living person; brain tissue must be examined under a microscope. “You don’t usually get brains to examine of 44-year-old ex-football players who likely had depression and who have committed suicide,” Mr. Nowinski said. “It’s extremely rare.”
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As Ms. Pinkney listened to Mr. Nowinski explain his rationale, she realized that the request was less creepy than credible. Her family wondered why Mr. Waters, a hard-hitting N.F.L. safety from 1984 to 1995 known as a generally gregarious and giving man, spiraled down to the point of killing himself.
Ms. Pinkney signed the release forms in mid-December, allowing Mr. Nowinski to have four pieces of Mr. Waters’s brain shipped overnight in formaldehyde from the Hillsborough County, Fla., medical examiner’s office to Dr. Omalu in Pittsburgh for examination.
He chose Dr. Omalu both for his expertise in the field of neuropathology and for his rare experience in the football industry. Because he was coincidentally situated in Pittsburgh, he had examined the brains of two former Pittsburgh Steelers players who were discovered to have had postconcussive brain dysfunction: Mike Webster, who became homeless and cognitively impaired before dying of heart failure in 2002; and Terry Long, who committed suicide in 2005.
Mr. Nowinski, a former World Wrestling Entertainment star working in Boston as a pharmaceutical consultant, and the Waters family have spent the last six weeks becoming unlikely friends and allies. Each wants to sound an alarm to athletes and their families that repeated concussions can, some 20 years after the fact, have devastating consequences if left unrecognized and untreated — a stance already taken in some scientific journals.
Chris Nowinski, a former Harvard football player and professional wrestler, contacted Dr. Bennet Omalu after he read about Mr. Waters’s suicide.Credit…Jodi Hilton for The New York Times
“The young kids need to understand; the parents need to be taught,” said Kwana Pittman, 31, Mr. Waters’s niece and an administrator at the water company near her home in Pahokee, Fla. “I just want there to be more teaching and for them to take the proper steps as far as treating them.
“Don’t send them back out on these fields. They boost it up in their heads that, you know, ‘You tough, you tough.’ ”
Mr. Nowinski was one of those tough kids. As an all-Ivy League defensive tackle at Harvard in the late 1990s, he sustained two concussions, though like many athletes he did not report them to his coaches because he neither understood their severity nor wanted to appear weak. As a professional wrestler he sustained four more, forcing him to retire in 2004. After he developed severe migraines and depression, he wanted to learn more about concussions and their effects.
That research resulted in a book published last year, “Head Games: Football’s Concussion Crisis,” in which he detailed both public misunderstanding of concussions as well as what he called “the N.F.L.’s tobacco-industry-like refusal to acknowledge the depths of the problem.”
Football’s machismo has long euphemized concussions as bell-ringers or dings, but what also alarmed Mr. Nowinski, 28, was that studies conducted by the N.F.L. on the effects of concussions in players “went against just about every study on sports concussions published in the last 20 years.”
Studies of more than 2,500 former N.F.L. players by the Center for the Study of Retired Athletes, based at the University of North Carolina, found that cognitive impairment, Alzheimer’s-like symptoms and depression rose proportionately with the number of concussions they had sustained. That information, combined with the revelations that Mr. Webster and Mr. Long suffered from mental impairment before their deaths, compelled Mr. Nowinski to promote awareness of brain trauma’s latent effects.
Then, while at work on Nov. 20, he read on Sports Illustrated’s Web site, si.com, that Mr. Waters had shot himself in the head in his home in Tampa, Fla., early that morning. He read appraisals that Mr. Waters, who retired in 1995 and had spent many years as an assistant coach at several small colleges — including Fort Valley (Ga.) State last fall — had been an outwardly happy person despite his disappointment at not landing a coaching job in the N.F.L.
Remembering Mr. Waters’s reputation as one of football’s hardest-hitting defensive players while with the Philadelphia Eagles, and knowing what he did about the psychological effects of concussions, Mr. Nowinski searched the Internet for any such history Mr. Waters might have had.
It was striking, Mr. Nowinski said. Asked in 1994 by The Philadelphia Inquirer to count his career concussions, Mr. Waters replied, “I think I lost count at 15.” He later added: “I just wouldn’t say anything. I’d sniff some smelling salts, then go back in there.”
Mr. Nowinski also found a note in the Inquirer in 1991 about how Mr. Waters had been hospitalized after sustaining a concussion in a game against Tampa Bay and experiencing a seizure-like episode on the team plane that was later diagnosed as body cramps; Mr. Waters played the next week.
Because of Dr. Omalu’s experience on the Webster and Long cases, Mr. Nowinski wanted him to examine the remaining pieces of Mr. Waters’s brain — each about the size of a small plum — for signs of chronic traumatic encephalopathy, the tangled threads of abnormal proteins that have been found to cause cognitive and intellectual dysfunction, including major depression. Mr. Nowinski tracked down the local medical examiner responsible for Mr. Waters’s body, Dr. Leszek Chrostowski, who via e-mail initially doubted that concussions and suicide could be related.
Mr. Nowinski forwarded the Center for the Study of Retired Athletes’ studies and other materials, and after several weeks of back-and-forth was told that the few remains of Mr. Waters’s brain — which because Waters had committed suicide had been preserved for procedural forensic purposes before the burial — would be released only with his family’s permission.
Mr. Nowinski said his call to Mr. Waters’s mother, Willie Ola Perry, was “the most difficult cold-call I’ve ever been a part of.”
When Mr. Waters’s sister Tracy Lane returned Mr. Nowinski’s message, he told her, “I think there’s an outside chance that there might be more to the story.”
“I explained who I was, what I’ve been doing, and told her about Terry Long — and said there’s a long shot that this is a similar case,” Mr. Nowinski said.
Dr. Bennet Omalu of the University of Pittsburgh is a leading expert in forensic pathology. His claims of Waters’s brain deterioration have yet to be corroborated or reviewed.Credit…Lisa Kyle for The New York Times
Ms. Lane and another sister, Sandra Pinkney, researched Mr. Nowinski’s background, his expertise and experience with concussions, and decided to trust his desire to help other players.
“I said, ‘You know what, the only reason I’m doing this is because you were a victim,’ ” said Ms. Pittman, Mr. Waters’s niece. “I feel like when people have been through things that similar or same as another person, they can relate and their heart is in it more. Because they can feel what this other person is going through.”
Three weeks later, on Jan. 4, Dr. Omalu’s tests revealed that Mr. Waters’s brain resembled that of an octogenarian Alzheimer’s patient. Nowinski said he felt a dual rush — of sadness and success.
“Certainly a very large part of me was saddened,” he said. “I can only imagine with that much physical damage in your brain, what that must have felt like for him.” Then again, Mr. Nowinski does have an inkling.
“I have maybe a small window of understanding that other people don’t, just because I have certain bad days that when I know my brain doesn’t work as well as it does on other days — and I can tell,” he said. “But I know and I understand, and that helps me deal with it because I know it’ll probably be fine tomorrow. I don’t know what I would do if I didn’t know.”
When informed of the Waters findings, Dr. Julian Bailes, medical director for the Center for the Study of Retired Athletes and the chairman of the department of neurosurgery at West Virginia University, said, “Unfortunately, I’m not shocked.”
In a survey of more than 2,500 former players, the Center for the Study of Retired Athletes found that those who had sustained three or more concussions were three times more likely to experience “significant memory problems” and five times more likely to develop earlier onset of Alzheimer’s disease. A new study, to be published later this year, finds a similar relationship between sustaining three or more concussions and clinical depression.
Dr. Bailes and other experts have claimed the N.F.L. has minimized the risks of brain trauma at all levels of football by allowing players who sustain a concussion in games — like Jets wide receiver Laveranues Coles last month — to return to play the same day if they appear to have recovered. The N.F.L.’s mild traumatic brain injury committee has published several papers in the journal Neurosurgery defending that practice and unveiling its research that players from 1996 through 2001 who sustained three or more concussions “did not demonstrate evidence of neurocognitive decline.”
A primary criticism of these papers has been that the N.F.L. studied only active players, not retirees who had reached middle age. Dr. Mark Lovell, another member of the league’s committee, responded that a study using long-term testing and monitoring of the same players from relative youth to adulthood was necessary to properly assess the issue.
“We want to apply scientific rigor to this issue to make sure that we’re really getting at the underlying cause of what’s happening,” Dr. Lovell said. “You cannot tell that from a survey.”
Dr. Kevin Guskiewicz is the director of the Center for the Study of Retired Athletes and a member of U.N.C.’s department of exercise and sport science. He defended his organization’s research: “I think that some of the folks within the N.F.L. have chosen to ignore some of these earlier findings, and I question how many more, be it a large study like ours, or single-case studies like Terry Long, Mike Webster, whomever it may be, it will take for them to wake up.”
The N.F.L. players’ association, which helps finance the Center for the Study of Retired Athletes, did not return a phone call seeking comment on the Waters findings. But Merril Hoge, a former Pittsburgh Steelers running back and current ESPN analyst whose career was ended by severe concussions, said that all players — from retirees to active players to those in youth leagues — need better education about the risks of brain trauma.
“We understand, as players, the ramifications and dangers of paralysis for one reason — we see a person in a wheelchair and can identify with that visually,” said Mr. Hoge, 41, who played on the Steelers with Mr. Webster and Mr. Long. “When somebody has had brain trauma to a level that they do not function normally, we don’t see that. We don’t witness a person walking around lost or drooling or confused, because they can’t be out in society.”
Clearly, not all players with long concussion histories have met gruesome ends — the star quarterbacks Steve Young and Troy Aikman, for example, were forced to retire early after successive brain trauma and have not publicly acknowledged any problems. But the experiences of Mr. Hoge, Al Toon (the former Jets receiver who considered suicide after repeated concussions) and the unnamed retired players interviewed by the Center for the Study of Retired Athletes suggest that others have not sidestepped a collision with football’s less glorified legacy.
“We always had the question of why — why did my uncle do this?” said Ms. Pittman, Mr. Waters’s niece. “Chris told me to trust him with all these tests on the brain, that we could find out more and help other people. And he kept his word.”
