The Oakland Raiders have a strong and proud history that lost one of their all-time greats last year when Ken Stabler died after a battle with colon cancer at 69 years old. The former Super Bowl champion quarterback suffered from chronic traumatic encephalopathy and was found to have a high State 3 CTE level on a scale of one to four.
Former Raiders teammates of Stabler announced Friday that they would be donating their brains to CTE research in the honor of the former teammate. George Atkinson, George Buehler and Art Thoms announced that they would be pledging their brains to the Boston-based Concussion Legacy Foundation.
"When you see your teammate deteriorate a lot through the end of his life, to see him go out like that, it brings us together," said former Raiders defensive tackle Thoms. "You want to do something. You can donate money, but even more is to donate the brain to help others in the future. I won't need it anymore once I'm gone."
The news comes after The New York Times released a report that the NFL had omitted more than 100 concussions in a study conducted from 1996 to 2001. The NFL has since released a response to the investigation, saying, "the Times ignored the facts."
Chris Nowinski, co-founder of the Concussion Legacy Foundation, has been diligently working to prevent and train brain diseases that develop from contact sports, and he spoke on the critical issue that is facing multiple sports. "We're trying to create a culture of brain donation among athletes and their families," Nowinski said. "Every time a prominent athlete chooses to pledge their brain and take that public, we take another step forward in accelerating research on CTE and post-concussion syndrome, and we have a better shot at treatment."
Atkinson, Thoms and Buehler expressed concerns about the mounting evidence that connects football to the degenerative brain disease. "I can't remember from yesterday to today half the time," former Raiders safety Atkinson said. "I'd get in the middle of a piece and forget where I was going."
"You wonder whether it is a senior moment," said Raiders former offensive lineman Buehler, but after learning about so many cases of former players suffering from CTE, Buehler said that he has to think that football is partly the cause. Neurologists are trying to determine if CTE is definitively connected to the repeated blows that players take during their careers, but with more research, scientists are hopeful that they can clearly find and understand the connection, as well as help future athletes avoid the brain disease.
