Former U.S. stars join head injury study

Brandi Chastain, whose shirtless celebration in the 1999 Women’s World Cup final is embedded in American sports lore, says she sometimes “can’t remember some details of a place we went ... or somebody’s last name.”

Michelle Akers, Chastain’s longtime teammate on the U.S. women’s team, has been fighting migraines for decades.

Speaking with CBS This Morning on Thursday, the two soccer icons announced their participation in a Boston University study that will follow 20 former high-level female soccer players, all of them 40 or older, in a bid to determine the effect that repeated headers have on cognitive ability later in life, specifically whether they cause chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE.

Both players talked to CBS about the number of headers they took during their player careers.

“I was the one, the target. So I won every punt by the goalkeepers,” said Akers, who at five foot 10 was among the tallest players.

“As far as headers went ... usually 50 a game.”

Said Chastain: “Oh, I did a lot of heading the ball. Very proudly so, very determined and very aggressive.”

In 2016, Chastain announced she would be one of the first female athletes to donate her brain to Boston University’s Concussion Legacy Foundation upon her death (CTE can only be formally diagnosed via autopsy), explaining that she suffered two concussions while playing in college at California and Santa Clara, staying in the game both times, and occasionally would “see stars” after using her head.

Akers, meanwhile, began to wonder about her condition after watching a 2017 documentary about former English soccer star Alan Shearer and his attempts to determine whether he was showing early signs of CTE.

The possible connection between headers and neurological disorders goes back even further. In November 2002, a coroner ruled that former England star Jeff Astle died at 59 of dementia brought on by repeated headers. Astle helped England to the World Cup title in 1966, when soccer balls were much heavier. He often said it was like heading “a bag of bricks.”

Michael Alosco, assistant professor of neurology at Boston University, said the study is looking for more female contributors and also is working with at-risk athletes who are still playing.