While the crimes AH purportedly committed are inexcusable and horrifying, there is far more being reported that is just as terrifying. I heard the news claim that the doc reported AH's cte stage to be something he expected in a 67 year old. I believe someone mentioned AH stopped playing at age 23. He had stage 3 cte in a 27 year old brain. Junior Seau has been mentioned, who had stage 4 cte after 13 years in the nfl. He took his life at age 43.
Think about that for a minute. Disregard any thoughts re "the 32," or AH's miserable choices and actions as an adult.
My mother expressed some worry about myself and my younger brother who played football growing up. Both limited to the HS level. If an old lady with grown son's is wondering about the impact of youth sports on her grown children, the sport is in trouble.
I have a 3 year old son, I don't want him to play youth football. If he wants to in HS, I'd say yes right now. Although that depends when he hits puberty and truely starts developing.
AH stopped playing at age 23 and had stage 3 CTE at age 27.
Maybe he had a head injury from whatever caused his trip to the hospital while in jail. He supposedly beat on a guy at one point too, who knows what physically happened to his head while in prison.
A 27 year old was deemed to have acute CTE. That is the real story here. Disregard the name, disregard the lawsuit.
Did the fact that the player entered the nfl so young contribute to the advanced stages? I remember many of "us fans" expounding on how young he was and extrapolating performances based on "more experience." To me the big story is what was found. Someone has been spouting off about smoking and drugs, but the only case showing tau deposits re drug use is heroin, at this point. Given heroin is an opiate, I wouldn't be shocked if prescription pain killers caused the same issue. If heroin truely causes this, and there is a link to opiates, I doubt we'd ever hear it (pharmaceutical industry anyone? Why aren't docs ever charged for writing absurd scripts for pain killers?). How you can determine heroin caused tau deposits is above my pay grade. So how about we leave that out, and acknowledge that a person sustained enough damage to their melon by age 23 (more possible physical trauma thereafter is acknowledged) to have stage 3 cte.
It feels like many docs are cautioning any type of repetitive "trauma" (heading a soccer ball, for example) in young children more and more, citing developing brains.
As intricate and complex as a mind and personality can be, it is ultimately a lump of soft tissue, in a sac of fluid, inside a shell. The mind is so nuanced we as a society can't agree on what gender somebody is, physiology be damned, with supposed "healthy" brains. Damage the organ responsible for all of that?
A 27 year old's brain was deemed to have advanced CTE, that is the story.