Former Chicago Bears safety Dave Duerson died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound Thursday at his home in Florida. He was only 50.
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A standout at Notre Dame, Duerson also played for the New York Giants. He was selected to the Pro Bowl four times and played on the Bears 1985 Super Bowl championship team. After leaving the league, he earned degrees in economics and business, and most recently served on the board that reviews disability claims from retired players.
This last role would be sadly prescient for Duerson. He knew from his work there about the devastating long-term effects that hard hits can have on players, including serious and debilitating brain damage from a condition called Traumatic Encephalopathy.
And text messages to his family sent shortly before his death indicate that he believed he might be suffering the same fate. Duerson shot himself in the heart (not the head), and the text messages suggest that he did so because he wanted to donate his brain to the Center for Traumatic Encephalopathy, a research institution at Boston University. They’ve been studying the condition, which is believed to cause serious emotional and cognitive problems, and which has been found in the brains of several former football players who have died (including the former Eagles player Andre Waters, who committed suicide in 2006). Most people whose brains have been discovered to have the disease didn’t know they had it when they were alive, but Duerson’s messages seem to indicate that he believed he may have been suffering from it, and wanted his brain to be donated to the Center to advance research on the condition.
The news seems to have shaken up former football players, understandably. If 2010 started the age of concussion awareness in the NFL, Dave Duerson’s suicide may be one of the things that continues it.
