Jury sides with NCAA

A Los Angeles jury on Tuesday rejected a claim by the widow of a former USC football player who said the NCAA failed to protect him from repeated head trauma that led to his death. Matthew Gee, a linebacker on the 1990 Rose Bowl-winning squad, endured an estimated 6,000 hits that caused permanent brain damage and led to cocaine and alcohol abuse that eventually killed him at age 49, lawyers for his widow alleged. The NCAA said it had nothing to do with Gee’s death, which it said was a sudden cardiac arrest brought on by untreated hypertension and acute cocaine toxicity. A lawyer for the governing body of U.S. college sports said Gee suffered from many other health problems not related to football, such as liver cirrhosis, that would have eventually killed him. The verdict could have broad ramifications for college athletes who blame the NCAA for head injuries.