Marshawn Kneeland's diagnosis points to mental health crisis in NFL
· Yahoo Sports
As many suspected, former Dallas Cowboys star Marshawn Kneeland did die by suicide, and he was in the early stages of CTE.
His family released his CTE results to the public.
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The Concussion & CTE Foundation and Boston University CTE Center researchers diagnosed Kneeland with stage 1 chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE).
Stage 1 is the lowest level, on a scale of 1 to 4.
“Unfortunately, I was not surprised to find CTE in the brain of Mr. Kneeland, because we have found this progressive brain disease in nearly half of the athletes we’ve studied who have died before the age of 30,” Dr. Ann McKee, director of the Boston University CTE Center, said. “Thanks to the generosity of our brain donor families, we now better understand the earliest stages of CTE, and it is bringing us closer than ever to diagnosing it during life. My team and I are fully dedicated to finding effective treatments and a cure for CTE.”
And here we are again with another young athlete dying from CTE. It's a story that we hear almost every few months; we've almost become desensitized to it. There have been calls for the NFL to address this, and it can start with counseling.
This young man had lost his mother before he was drafted, and it appeared he hadn't gotten over that yet, even though he was drafted and making his dreams come true.
Dealing with grief is bad enough, but having to do it on your own while trying to navigate an NFL career had to be tougher, especially when you lose a parent. The NFL needs to make mental health a priority and work to prevent CTE.
Players need to know that they have somewhere to turn if life gets too hard and know that there is help available.
This article originally appeared on Touchdown Wire: Marshawn Kneeland's diagnosis points to mental health crisis in NFL