Dave Duerson played 11 years in the NFL with three different teams. Last week, he took his own life, fatally wounding himself in the chest with a shotgun blast. It was compelling that Duerson, who was battling bankruptcy, depression and an ex-wife who had just recently taken him back to court, gave one last gift to the world before committing suicide.
He gave away his brain.
Chris Nowinski, co-director of the Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy at Boston University School of Medicine, received a call from a friend of the Duerson family Thursday night. He made arrangements to have the brain prepped in time for research and sent to Boston University.
There currently are 65 brains in the bank and more than 300 athletes in the Center’s brain registry.
Yeah, so that’s depressing; no jokes here. After the jump is a little more on Chris Nowinski’s brain collection, as he was profiled by HBO’s “Real Sports with Bryan Gumbel” in 2010. If you have the time, it’s worth your time.
Part 1.
Part 2.
Part 3.
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Suicide is such a fundamentally selfish act, is it mitigated by organ donation?
Look at the suicide rates of ex-NFL players and compare that to the brain damage studies that have been done in the past five years. What you call a selfish act is one that ex-players with the multiple-concussion brain damage pattern are inexorably driven to.
At this point, it’s bloody obvious. Playing in the NFL will cause traumatic & debilitating brain damage (unless you’re a QB, P, or PK).
100% of all organ recipients are thankful.
Holy crap. I’m a rabid Bears fan, and have spent the past few weeks in self-imposed exile from Bears news sources because I’m still peeved about losing to the Peckers. And this is where I find out that Duerson died. Wow.
DD was a good guy and a very good player–and during ’85, he stepped in for Todd Bell and really ruined Bell’s case for a new contract (Todd Bell died very young, too, though of a heart issue, if I recall correctly).
Duerson was one of those players that did smart things on and off the field. He invested his money, and after retirement was worth a lot more than he was when he was pulling in pro paychecks–he owned a profitable company, etc. Everything looked rosey. So he was the guy you’d point to when explaining to the young whippersnappers and you’d say, “This. This is how you conduct yourself on and off the field. Do this, and not only will you have a great NFL career, but you’ll be successful in the rest of your life, too.”
Then, DD sold his stake in the profitable company and started his own from scratch–which failed. He lost his seat on some board of directors for ND after assaulting his wife. He got divorced. He lost his house.
He had some very bad turns in his life over the past 10 years. Whether it was just bad luck snowballing on him, or something in his brain going haywire… well, I’m glad he and his family have donated his brain, because there’s a lot to learn from a guy who was doing everything right and then ended up in such black despair.
I wonder if, in his last act, he was still trying to do something right–by aiming the shotgun at his chest, rather than his head. I haven’t heard anything about any note or anything, but maybe the simple act of where he pointed the gun sheds some light on what he himself thought was going on.
And esse, yes, suicide is a very selfish act. But the problem is that people who attempt it are, by definition, not right in the head, and so they don’t perceive things the same way. I’m active in suicide prevention (go to http://www.outofthedarkness.org for info) and it’s heartbreaking what survivors go through. But on the flip side, the people who commit suicide are victims, as well. We shouldn’t forget that.