Patrick Link's Headstrong makes the timeline of this spring's Football/CTE related events in "The Woman Who Would Save Football" from Grantland. The piece focuses on Dr. Ann McKee, a neuropathologist at the Brain Bank at the Bedford Veterans Administration Medical Center.
"Every football Sunday, she parks herself in front of the TV in her authentic Packers foam Cheesehead ($17.95 at packersproshop.com) and Rodgers's no. 12 jersey and prays that none of the men on the field end up on a dissection table. To date, she has found ravages of CTE, the neurodegenerative brain disease that has become her life's work, in over 70 athletes, nearly 80 percent of those she has examined. Among them: 18 of the 19 NFL players she has autopsied; three NHL enforcers; and a boy just 17 years old. McKee, who received $1 million in funding from the VA as well as a home for her lab, has also documented evidence of CTE in combat veterans exposed to roadside bombs."
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And in other Football/CTE related news, New York Magazine also just did a great piece exploring the dichotomy between being a football fan & a "human cockfighting" enabler.
"Being a fan of football is being a fan of violence and self-destruction. Maybe we’ll all be able to get over it and accept the game for what it is, and understand that the players have made their own Faustian bargain."
Click here to read the full article.