Seau suffered from brain disease
Junior Seau, one of the NFL’s best and fiercest players for two decades, suffered from a degenerative brain disease often associated with repeated blows to the head when he committed suicide last May, the National Institutes of Health said in a study released Thursday.
The NIH, based in Bethesda, Md., said Seau’s brain revealed abnor malities consistent with chronic traumatic encephalopathy or CTE. It said the study included unidentified brains, one of which was Seau’s, and the findings on Seau were similar to autopsies of people “with exposure to repetitive head injuries.”
Seau’s family requested the analysis of his brain.
The 43-year-old star linebacker played for 20 NFL seasons with San Diego, Miami and New England before retiring in 2009. He died of a self-inflicted shotgun wound.
He joins a list of several dozen football players who were found to have CTE. Boston University’s centre for study of the disease reported last month that 34 former pro players and nine who played only college football suffered from CTE.
“I was not surprised after learning a little about CTE that he had it,” Seau’s 23-year-old son, Tyler, said. “I was more just kind of angry I didn’t do something more and have the awareness to help him more and now it is too late.
“I don’t think any of us were aware of the side-effects that could be going on with head trauma until he passed away. We didn’t know his behaviour was from head trauma.”
That behaviour, according to Tyler Seau and Junior’s ex-wife Gina, included wild mood swings, irrationality, forgetfulness, insomnia and depression. The NFL faces lawsuits by thousands of former players who say the league withheld information on the harmful effects of concussions. According to an AP review of 175 lawsuits, 3,818 players have sued. At least 26 Hall of Fame members are among the players who have done so.
Seau is not the first former NFL player who killed himself, then was found to have CTE. Dave Duerson and Ray Easterling are the others.
“He emotionally detached himself and would kind of ‘go away’ for a little bit,” Tyler Seau said. “And then the depression and things like that. It started to progressively get worse.”
He hid it well in public, they said. But not when he was with family or close friends.
Dr. Russell Lonser, who oversaw the study, said Seau’s brain was “independently evaluated by multiple experts, in a blind fashion.”