As players become more familiar with traumatic brain injuries resulting from football, they’re also becoming more aware of their own symptoms.
That now includes former NFL star Warren Sapp, who said that he will donate his brain to scientific research when he dies, saying that he is experiencing memory loss that he believes comes from football.
From Sapp’s piece in The Players’ Tribune:
I’ve also started to feel the effects of the hits that I took in my career. My memory ain’t what it used to be. And yeah, it’s scary to think that my brain could be deteriorating, and that maybe things like forgetting a grocery list, or how to get to a friend’s house I’ve been to a thousand times are just the tip of the iceberg. So when it comes to concussions, CTE and how we can make our game safer for future generations, I wanted to put my two cents in — to help leave the game better off than it was when I started playing.
Sapp also made a video about his experiences:
CTE, the neurodegenerative disease famously found in former NFL stars Mike Webster and Junior Seau, among many other players at all levels, can only be diagnosed posthumously. That’s why it’s so important that more players like Sapp make contributions to science, so we can learn more about the effects of football on the body.
