Junior Seau found dead in his home

[Landlord]

This is so tragic...

 

 

 

Seriously. Football will not be a viable sport within 10 years if something doesn't change soon - too much evidence in favor of serious long-term problems mounting up.

[Danny Bateman]

I have to agree with Ira on this one. So sorry to hear about your wife... you'll be in my prayers. Here's hoping things get better mate.

 

Anyway, the point is, with these ex-players, whether in be Seau, or Duerson, or Andre Waters before those two, or Chris Benoit of the WWE, or anyone with brain damage, there comes a point in time where a certain part of your brain sustains enough damage that you stop functioning like a normal human being. It is not a CHOICE at that point. These people have extensive brain damage that is affecting their lives daily.

 

It's quite amazing to think about how much the brain affects the rest of your body when it ISN'T injured. It truly is your body's control center, releasing hormones and triggering effects that in turn affect all other parts of your body. Now think about how badly things can go wrong if you sustain damage there. Results are a grab bag ranging anywhere from physical pain in the body, to seizures, to even the voices Ira mentioned. That would be some form of dementia setting in. People can lose touch with reality, and their entire world can be flipped upside down to the point that it barely resembles the life they had known.

 

Sorry, I don't mean to get up on my soapbox here , but I am currently majoring in Neuroscience in my 2nd year at school, and I'm just now understanding exactly how and the extent to which the brain controls all other body processes. My mother and brothers have been medicating for depression and ADHD, respectively (though my mother has both), so I'm also gaining a larger respect for how much pharmacology can affect a person.

 

The brain is a very delicate organ. Certain areas can sustain quite major damage and leave a person relatively unaffected, while others can kill with the slightest jarring. The dementia associated with the degenerative diseases that affected Seau and Duerson and probably Waters can wreck a person's wife. It isn't fair to say that the person is rational and thus made a rational decision to take their own life. With major brain damage, people can become a shell of themselves, and it's just like Ira said... rationality goes out the door as they lose their grip on reality.

 

Here's a link to the Wikipedia page for Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy-- CTE-- the degenerative disease that is probably to blame for the deaths of the 4 high impact athletes I listed above. I am really hoping football comes up with some really high-tech helmets in the near future that can protect the brains of players better, or the game of football may come under increasingly severe scrutiny. I have no idea what can be done for wrestlers though.

 

We lost one hell of an NFL icon yesterday. RIP Seau... You gave the city of San Diego a lot to be proud of over the years man.

[Blackshirts007]

there have been some tense interviews on outside the lines