Concussed The American Dream 2024

Chicago

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Transcript

00:00:09One of the things that she still remembers very vividly is that she did not want to leave him

00:00:15at the cemetery. Like she was freaking out that we were going to put dirt on him and leave him

00:00:22in the ground. Like she just couldn't handle that. She was so upset about it. I remember that we're

00:00:29watching a movie in my grandma and grandpa's bed and we kept on bunking heads together.

00:00:36Did it hurt? No. What do you miss most about your own book, Hunter?

00:00:41No.

00:00:53The football world has been rocked this week by the sad death of a former star.

00:00:58The Super Bowl winning safety, Dave Durston, took his own life, convinced that the despair

00:01:03he faced was caused in part by the damage he suffered on the football field.

00:01:07Junior Seau was found dead in his Southern California home of an apparent suicide.

00:01:12The former San Diego Chargers linebacker was found dead of a gunshot wound this morning.

00:01:16Today, a team of doctors confirmed that he suffered from degenerative brain disease, which could

00:01:22be linked to the years he spent taking blows and giving them on the football field.

00:01:27We're looking at a dangerous full-contact sport where too many players play too long and therefore

00:01:33suffer physical consequences, including especially, importantly, CTE.

00:01:38Where for you and I, long-term health is the most important thing. After that, the ability

00:01:44to play a pro career. And the lowest priority is to play that play. The athlete turns it on its

00:01:53head. It's that way.

00:01:57I unequivocally think there's a link between playing football and CTE.

00:02:02I guess if my son was Tom Brady or, you know, Brett Favre or some of those guys, it might

00:02:10have made a bigger impact. And, and, you know, I've thought about that before. Or Peyton Manning. I thought, Lord,

00:02:18I don't want them to suffer this. But if one of them would have it, it would get a lot

00:02:26more attention from the, you know, from our country.

00:02:31And this time we give it to Tyler Sash, juking tacklers, off to the race. Nobody's going to catch Sash.

00:02:39Touchdown, Indians.

00:02:42Money. That's a money shot right there.

00:02:44Here he goes. Tyler Sash. Bye-bye.

00:02:49Tyler Lynn, brilliant. Oh, nice attention.

00:02:51Big running room here for Sash. Now he cuts back. Oh, my goodness.

00:02:55Picked off by Tyler Sash.

00:02:59Garcia threw it up for grabs and Sash has another.

00:03:06And it was Sash who's been all over the place tonight in their secondary.

00:03:09Oskaloosa's very own Tyler Sash is heading to the Super Bowl this Sunday.

00:03:21So, it's Corona, so I'll let you do it. I even have some Clorox wipes if you want me.

00:03:26I got some, too.

00:03:27Okay.

00:03:27So, this clip's on the back of my cleats.

00:03:29Yeah.

00:03:29Just in the back, yeah.

00:03:31On your, you know, with your loop of your jean.

00:03:36Oskaloosa's a pretty nice small town in Iowa.

00:03:38It's not, you know, it's not real small, but it's, you know, it's big enough that it, you know,

00:03:43it has a few things to offer, but I kind of like that coming from New Jersey.

00:03:47I kind of like the quiet life, and it's a good life, and it's simple,

00:03:52and you can really spend a lot of time being the best parent that you can be

00:03:57and having your kids involved in lots of different activities at school.

00:04:01So, Oskaloosa's been good to us, and it's made a lot of developments in the last few years.

00:04:29Tyler was just, he's just such a funny kid, you know.

00:04:32He'd come over, and he's always, you know, thought he was, I don't know what he thought.

00:04:36Anyway, he'd come in, and I'd see him, and he'd look at me real funny,

00:04:40and I'm like, no, Tyler, and he'd start running at me,

00:04:43and he'd run, and he'd tackle me just like I was a tackling dummy,

00:04:47and he'd pick me up and run with me, and I'm like, stop it!

00:04:49He'd put me down.

00:04:50I mean, he just did that all the time, just funny stuff like that.

00:04:54I have a picture of my father, and he looked a lot like my father,

00:05:00and I never really saw that so much until later,

00:05:03and all my sisters are like, and my mom thought he looked just like my dad.

00:05:07That's a picture of him and his brother.

00:05:09We had that made when he had, when my oldest son had his senior pictures done,

00:05:15we had that made because they were just really good buddies,

00:05:17and he was a ball boy for his brother's high school team.

00:05:21Josh is our older brother.

00:05:22Tyler, I was the middle child, and then Tyler was the surprise.

00:05:28He wasn't planned, so his joke would be, well, he turned out to be an all right surprise.

00:05:35Tyler just had kind of this magnetic personality,

00:05:37so really for me, I treated him as my younger brother.

00:05:44I kind of mothered him, I guess.

00:05:47He had these huge blue eyes, always had this huge smile on his face,

00:05:51and he was just the most precious thing.

00:05:54He was a very, very cute little kid.

00:05:56As a little kid, he couldn't just walk through here.

00:06:00He would come running up the stairs from his bedroom,

00:06:03and he would jump, and he would slap the doorway.

00:06:07Like he was trying to dunk a basketball or something.

00:06:09That was his thinking.

00:06:10The trim at that time was painted, and so it chipped everything off,

00:06:14and my mom would constantly tell him that he wasn't supposed to do that.

00:06:20And so we got to the place where, you know,

00:06:22there was handprints all up all over the wall, and he didn't listen.

00:06:25He was practicing his, you know, how he was going to slap the backboard or do a dunk.

00:06:31After Tyler's brother graduated from high school,

00:06:34Tyler moved right into his bedroom, and that is in the basement

00:06:37because it was the biggest room in the house.

00:06:39So we'll go down here.

00:06:40Okay.

00:06:48This is the room that his brother and him both, you know, had each when they were in high school.

00:06:55What posters were up when he was in here?

00:06:58Oh, Michael Jordan, you know, the one with his basketball in his hands.

00:07:02Mostly they were basketball posters.

00:07:05Here comes Sash.

00:07:08Oh, they get the block he found.

00:07:23Oh, I don't know if you want my real thing or not.

00:07:25I'm not too happy.

00:07:26It's time to wake up!

00:07:29Okay?

00:07:30You guys with me?

00:07:36Oh!

00:07:37Oh!

00:07:38Oh!

00:07:39Oh!

00:07:40Oh!

00:07:46Graber!

00:07:48Let's go!

00:07:48Right here!

00:07:49Right here!

00:07:50Right here!

00:07:51Yes!

00:07:57Right here!

00:07:58Tyler Sash is kind of a, he's kind of a local, local hero, really.

00:08:02I mean, he's a guy that, he grew up here, and he was just an outstanding all-around athlete.

00:08:08He was a phenomenal basketball player.

00:08:09He's a really good football player. He's really good at track.

00:08:12I remember him playing baseball, basketball, of course, was a huge one for him.

00:08:18And then football from third or fourth grade.

00:08:22This is actually the middle school right here. My husband taught there for 39 years.

00:08:27But he played his football games there?

00:08:28Yeah, he played all of his football games there. We lived on that street.

00:08:31So we used to sit in the deck of that last house. We used to sit up there and watch

00:08:35his football games.

00:08:35Yeah, we never went in. We could have got in for free because my husband coached here.

00:08:41You know, he's one of those guys that you'd have to kick out of a gym or kick out of

00:08:44a weight room or whatever it might be.

00:08:46Because he was going to put all the extra time and effort into it.

00:08:51I can remember against one of our arch rivals, Pella, we threw a toss out to him.

00:08:56And I swear, we didn't block hardly anybody.

00:08:59He ran 50 yards for a touchdown.

00:09:02There were seven Pella kids that were laying on the floor, on the ground, that had tried to tackle him.

00:09:07And nobody did.

00:09:10Look at that.

00:09:12Turn on the bike.

00:09:13Boy, that's good defense right there by Tyler Sash.

00:09:18Look at that.

00:09:18Money.

00:09:19That's a money shot right there.

00:09:22Tyler Sash, seven carries, 114 yards and a touchdown.

00:09:26Averaged 16 yards a carry tonight for Sash.

00:09:29Hey, I tell you what, fellas, the kid's got some talent, don't you think?

00:09:32He's one of those guys that would just take a contest over.

00:09:36Whether it was basketball, whether it was football, whether it was track, he just took it to another level.

00:09:41What I really liked about Tyler was he was so coachable for us.

00:09:45He was always wanting to learn more and more and more.

00:09:48He thought he was going to play college basketball his whole life.

00:09:51In Oskaloosa, they had this one kid that basically scored 36 of their 40 points.

00:09:57I'll never forget coming back and telling our staff that Monday morning, I said, you know, I think I saw

00:10:01the next Steve Alford because he was a legendary player in Indiana, you know, growing up.

00:10:05So I figured he's going to be a Division I basketball player.

00:10:09Did he set any records?

00:10:10Oh, yeah.

00:10:11He had, I couldn't even tell you, my husband could tell you, Tyler held like 20 or 30 records.

00:10:19He holds our 100-meter dash record, 10-6-5 at the high school.

00:10:22You look at even just the basketball ones, he's known for football.

00:10:2551 points in a game, 12 threes in a game, that's never going to be touched.

00:10:29I mean, those are things that people dream of.

00:10:32When did you decide football full-time?

00:10:34How long ago?

00:10:35How many years ago was that?

00:10:37Well, my sophomore year, not a lot of people know this, my sophomore year, I told my dad I'm not

00:10:42playing football this year.

00:10:43And he goes, no, you're going to play.

00:10:45He basically made me play one more year.

00:10:47And he's like, you're going to play and see how you like it.

00:10:49And Coach Schumacher at the time moved me up to varsity.

00:10:52And I don't like talking about being all-state or all this, whatever, but I ended up making all-state.

00:10:59And I was like, all right, this isn't so bad.

00:11:00Moved into high school, he really became a multi-sport athlete.

00:11:03And he certainly got our attention as a football player.

00:11:07He's a guy that we really liked.

00:11:08And I remember distinctly talking to him and offering him a scholarship.

00:11:12I believe he was on his way home his junior year from the state championship track championship.

00:11:18So he was driving home from Des Moines.

00:11:20And I had him on the phone.

00:11:21That's when we offered him the scholarship.

00:11:23And fortunately for us, he decided to come to the University of Iowa.

00:11:26And throws right to the Hawkeye.

00:11:29Tyler Sash, ladder on the ball, off.

00:11:32Inside the five, lunging, touchdown.

00:11:38It's all made possible by Tyler Sash.

00:11:44He was at the University of Iowa and he went down to the cheerleaders one night and he asked

00:11:49them what they did with all those shirts over there.

00:11:51And they said, well, they, you know, they would shoot him up into the crowd and stuff.

00:11:55And he said, could I have some?

00:11:57Here's the new football stadium.

00:12:00He said, could I have some of those?

00:12:02And they said, sure.

00:12:03So what did he do?

00:12:03He took a bunch of them and he went over to the handicapped section and gave them to all

00:12:07the handicapped kids sitting in the front row in their wheelchairs.

00:12:11Going in motion right here.

00:12:12Willis is the home back.

00:12:14Play fake.

00:12:15And bat it down from behind.

00:12:17It's loose.

00:12:17Iowa on the move.

00:12:19Tyler Sash.

00:12:22Going to take it back.

00:12:24Trick or treat.

00:12:26Iowa City.

00:12:31Well, you know, the most famous play certainly is the, you know, the ricochet play against Indiana.

00:12:37And that was a game where we were, you know, we were going down.

00:12:40They came in here and got off to a real fast start.

00:12:43And we never got our hands up.

00:12:45I mean, we never put up a fight at all.

00:12:47So had they, Indiana scored at that point, I think that game's over.

00:12:51And, you know, it was just one of those things where, you know, he comes out and makes a huge

00:12:54play.

00:12:54But he made a lot of those.

00:12:56That was kind of typical of his career.

00:12:58A lot of people say, even a lot of the analysts, that you just have a nose for the ball.

00:13:01Where does that come from?

00:13:03You know, I don't know if it's from playing basketball, playing point guard, because I always had the

00:13:06ball in my hand, so maybe I'm attracted to the ball.

00:13:08I don't know.

00:13:09I just, I just work hard in practice, try to put myself in those situations, and it

00:13:13translates, translates to the game.

00:13:15He was picked in the sixth round with the New York Giants.

00:13:21And it was kind of a really stressful day.

00:13:24Me and him actually were roommates for our first two years with the New York Giants.

00:13:27We, we did everything together.

00:13:30I lived with Tyler, so, you know, he's playing his music all day, every day.

00:13:34We're going to the mall together, we're going out together, and, I mean, for all intents

00:13:38and purposes, I mean, he was probably my best friend of my times with the Giants.

00:13:42And Spencer Pasinger comes away with a football.

00:13:47The biggest concussion that I was around for, it was the NFC Championship game against the

00:13:5349ers.

00:13:54And it was just a physical game.

00:13:56Like, if anybody asks, it's, that game was the hardest game I've ever played.

00:14:00One of the 49ers' defensive ends peels back.

00:14:05Tyler doesn't see him.

00:14:06He sees Tyler.

00:14:07And hit him so hard, he actually flipped and slammed him to the ground.

00:14:13The player down for the Giants.

00:14:15That's Sash.

00:14:19He spun around like a rag doll, and our TV went off.

00:14:24Perfect timing.

00:14:25I'm looking around like, oh, where did Tyler go?

00:14:28So I called my older son.

00:14:30He said that they were tweeting out that my son was unconscious.

00:14:41Oskaloosa's very own Tyler Sash is heading to the Super Bowl this Sunday.

00:14:45The Giants rookie suffered a concussion two weeks ago in the NFC Championship game against

00:14:50the 49ers.

00:14:51The 23-year-old has been examined and cleared by team officials to suit up for the big game

00:14:56this weekend.

00:14:57I mean, I've watched every Super Bowl since I can remember, and for some people, this

00:15:00is a once-in-a-lifetime thing.

00:15:02And being a rookie, I'm blessed.

00:15:04First year in, I'm in the Super Bowl.

00:15:25I'm more nervous right now than I am for the Super Bowl, or than I was for the Super Bowl.

00:15:35Can I have your autograph, Tyler?

00:15:37And then on the other side, I said, can you get Tom Brady's autograph for me during the

00:15:41game?

00:15:50I mean, how does it feel to be a Super Bowl champ?

00:15:52I know you've heard it all week.

00:15:54You know, it's crazy just to think about being on a team that is the best team in the world

00:16:01you know, at whatever.

00:16:05We met back in second grade.

00:16:08He was home-schooled, and he came to Whittier Elementary for that year.

00:16:13And then he came back in seventh grade.

00:16:15So, we graduated together, and known him ever since then.

00:16:19I think we were just a lot alike.

00:16:21I always say he's like the male version of me.

00:16:24We'd finish each other's sentences.

00:16:26We had the same ideas.

00:16:28We were just two of a kind.

00:16:30Are we ready?

00:16:31Is it shooting?

00:16:32I'm wearing an Irish shirt tomorrow, and I will do cartwheels all day.

00:16:36Thank you very much.

00:16:41It's a video!

00:16:42Oh, got you!

00:16:44Got you!

00:16:46Justin got kicked out of the lip, really.

00:16:48Oh, here, New York Giants, New England Patriots.

00:16:51He got the game ball, was presented to him.

00:16:54He said he actually, I think he got his, I think that he sacked, what's his name?

00:17:00You know, what's his name?

00:17:02From the Patriots, what's his name?

00:17:05Tom Brady.

00:17:06And I think he did in the preseason, too, his first year he was able to do that.

00:17:10But he got the game ball because he played, you know, played well on special teams.

00:17:14They called Tyler white chocolate.

00:17:17Or they'd say, where's Weirdo?

00:17:19You know, instead of where's Waldo?

00:17:21You know, because he was the only white guy.

00:17:22I don't know, because he was the only white guy.

00:17:24And he really liked his coaches there.

00:17:28And on trial roll on the defensive backfield was one of his really close friends.

00:17:32You know, I was just joking about the whole key to the city in Oskaloosa thing.

00:17:37It was just a joke.

00:17:38But I was just trying to make a point on how big it really was with that game.

00:17:44You know, getting a key to New York City, that's pretty incredible.

00:17:48The people here in Iowa caught wind of that, and they decided they were going to make him a key.

00:17:54We have a foundry here in town, and they came up with a key.

00:17:59So he had to accept the key to the city.

00:18:02He had to give a speech, and he was a nervous wreck about having to give a speech.

00:18:07It's with great pleasure that I present you with this, the key to the city of Oskaloosa.

00:18:12Congratulations, it's well deserved.

00:18:23Hopefully this opens Yardsman Bakery on Sunday mornings.

00:18:28I'm going to try to keep giving back to this community as much as I can,

00:18:32and I'll put Oskaloosa on the map as much as we can.

00:18:35Definitely going to be put on the top shelf, put the New York City key on the shelf below.

00:18:41You know, this is where I'm from, I'll always be from here, be from the state of Iowa,

00:18:45and I'm happy to represent the state of Iowa.

00:19:02During his second year with the New York Giants, he was having to give,

00:19:08after being a Super Bowl champion, Tyler's probably more like me,

00:19:13where he doesn't love to stand up on a podium and talk in front of people.

00:19:17And he was invited to some other sports shows, so he was so nervous about it,

00:19:24he went to a doctor here in town and was prescribed Adderall because he said,

00:19:29I can't focus, you know, like I have a hard time focusing because I'm so nervous.

00:19:33He only had a prescription for four Adderall, and here he gave a speech over here at William Penn University

00:19:41when they awarded him the key to the city.

00:19:45After he did that interview, for some unknown reason, somebody drove to Oskaloosa and tested his urine for the NFL.

00:19:55And he knew from that point, talking to him about it later on, and him telling us it was probably

00:20:03going to come out in the news that he tested positive for a drug.

00:20:10He didn't follow the proper protocol.

00:20:12So, he was suspended for the first four games because he tested positive for Adderall.

00:20:18Even Tom Coughlin, his coach for the New York Giants, stood in his defense and said,

00:20:24this is a kid who follows every single rule we ask him to follow, who jumps through every hoop, and

00:20:30such a good kid.

00:20:31And for him to be slapped on the hand because he was taking a prescription drug that he has a

00:20:38prescription for is just silly.

00:20:42Definitely. He didn't have to accept to see me.

00:20:45And since he did accept to see me, you never know if maybe he'll reduce it or take it away

00:20:52or, you know, I might still have the four games.

00:20:55You know, I just want more of an explanation.

00:20:59There's been some cases that I know of that people have gotten off with the same exact thing as me.

00:21:06So, I just want to know why mine is different.

00:21:09My son was so confident that he was right and he didn't break any rules.

00:21:14He made an appointment to go see Commissioner Goodell.

00:21:18And he was sure of himself that he would see it.

00:21:23He said, well, Tyler, you know, he said, sorry, but rules are rules.

00:21:27Tyler tried to explain that there was these other guys that did so much worse and they didn't even get

00:21:32anything like he did.

00:21:34He felt like they made an example out of him.

00:21:37And he was so not happy about that.

00:21:40And so he felt like that cost him his chance at a starting position for, you know, as safety that

00:21:47year.

00:21:47The Giants' safety was penalized back in March for taking Adderall without filling out the proper paperwork with the league.

00:21:54Sash said the drug was prescribed by a doctor to manage his anxiety during public speaking events during the off

00:22:00season.

00:22:00He was fined somewhere in the range of $100,000 and he had to sit out for four games.

00:22:08And so then he, from that point in the season, he struggled with ankle injuries and shoulder.

00:22:14I feel like, you know, everybody's competing every year.

00:22:17Every day, I'm just trying to come out and improve and get better every day.

00:22:21And, you know, I know what kind of football player I am and that I can help any team out

00:22:26that needs help.

00:22:27Of course, it's a business.

00:22:28And so you're always skeptical and somewhat nervous about making the team when they cut down to that roster.

00:22:37And his coaches had assured him that he had nothing to worry about at all.

00:22:45Well, he got released going into our third year.

00:22:48He had a couple of concussions and it just got to the point where they didn't know if he was

00:22:52going to be able to, you know, play at a high level.

00:22:55And then I knew after that third one, his third year there in that preseason game, he got hit really

00:23:03hard.

00:23:04Well, I don't think he ever recovered from that.

00:23:06Quite a surprise that he was cut.

00:23:08He was shocked.

00:23:09And, of course, you know, that fire, though, was in him that he was going to get picked up by

00:23:17another team.

00:23:18He couldn't, he wasn't cleared.

00:23:19But he packed his stuff anyways and drove from New York to Iowa so he could be ready.

00:23:29That's not a good thing.

00:23:32The eating here is, it's good, but it's really bad.

00:23:37Probably came out the ocean that day.

00:23:39Really?

00:23:40Or the day before.

00:23:41Yeah, I mean, you were down on the Gulf Coast.

00:23:43Where were y'all at, Bo?

00:23:44There should be a, how to turn it off.

00:23:48All of a sudden I got balloons popping.

00:23:55I figured that it was not on purpose.

00:24:05Atlanta has selected Brett Favre, quarterback, Southern Mississippi.

00:24:11I played 20 seasons in the National Football League.

00:24:15Farb falls down.

00:24:19And Farb!

00:24:21If you count college, I played all four years and started all four years in college, so 24.

00:24:26If you count high school, 26, so a long time.

00:24:31Farb carried it in for a touchdown.

00:24:33Look at me, kid.

00:24:35Look at this, kid.

00:24:36High school.

00:24:37Take a look.

00:24:39I can't tell you how many times my head hit the turf and stars or fireworks or whatever went off.

00:24:47Did I lose my memory?

00:24:49No, not really.

00:24:50Was I foggy?

00:24:51Yeah.

00:24:52Was I able to play?

00:24:53Yeah.

00:24:54I never thought about it.

00:24:55I didn't think that was a concussion.

00:24:57It's hard to even put a number on how many of those I had.

00:25:01There's an unwritten rule.

00:25:03You can't make the club in the tub.

00:25:06If you're hurt, sometimes it's legitimate.

00:25:10Other times you question it.

00:25:12But if you're not playing, you know, eventually they're not paying.

00:25:18And I got my job because the guy in front of me sprained his ankle.

00:25:22No one knew who I was, including me.

00:25:25And I was thrust into the spotlight.

00:25:28And here is the quarterback for the Green Bay Packers, Brett Favre.

00:25:33Don Mikowski, who had been a very good quarterback, and I'm sure he thought,

00:25:38this guy will screw it up, I'll be back soon.

00:25:40Twenty years later, he's still waiting.

00:25:43Mikowski under pressure and goes down.

00:25:45And here's second-year quarterback Brett Favre out of southern Mississippi by way of the Atlanta Falcons.

00:25:50From the 35, 19 seconds left.

00:25:53Oh, it's gross!

00:25:54Touchdown!

00:25:59No one would know who Tom Brady is if it were not for a guy hitting Drew Bledsoe on the

00:26:05sidelines.

00:26:20And for me, it was always like, remember how you got your spot.

00:26:24And remember how quickly he lost his.

00:26:28Don't ever be a fool and think otherwise.

00:26:36Here's your basic problem.

00:26:40The NFL dominates American culture in a way that no sport in our lifetime has ever done.

00:26:50If you actually understand the way football is played, we've created a new generation of robo-players.

00:26:59A size that was unimaginable 20 years ago.

00:27:04If a player was standing on the 95th story building, threatening to jump,

00:27:13he would find ten people around him that would say,

00:27:16law of gravity doesn't apply to you.

00:27:19Go ahead, show them.

00:27:22If you are engaging in a sport that has head contact in it,

00:27:28you might as well come to the conclusion that that is going to be one of the manifestations of what

00:27:33happens.

00:27:33Everybody knows you're going to have bad knees and shoulders and elbows and stuff like that,

00:27:37but nobody ever mentioned the brain.

00:27:40Well, we were just together that summer before I went to New York,

00:27:43and then I went back to Iowa State to finish up school.

00:27:46We kept in contact between then, but then after he got cut from the Giants and he came back here,

00:27:53I had since had a daughter.

00:27:56She's now four.

00:27:58And we just kind of picked back up where we left off.

00:28:02I said, I got up and I said, I'm finally taking the place for you.

00:28:13Ready, set, go.

00:28:20Haylin, say, rawr.

00:28:22Rawr.

00:28:26Haylin, look at mama.

00:28:28Say hi.

00:28:31It was one of a kind.

00:28:34Tyler was definitely her father figure.

00:28:37Talking to him every time he had gone out to do a tryout for a team.

00:28:42I remember him going to Denver and can't remember the team for sure in Florida,

00:28:49but going to multiple different places.

00:28:53I want to say he also went to the Eagles and did tryouts,

00:28:57and his body basically couldn't handle it.

00:29:01He always felt he could deal with pain.

00:29:03Pain was nothing.

00:29:03It's just a way of life.

00:29:05So when you tried to talk to him about stuff like that,

00:29:08you know, kind of brushed it off as in, you know,

00:29:10we all deal with it.

00:29:11We all have to, you know, worry about it.

00:29:13So we don't even need to talk about it.

00:29:14He had thrown up for, I'd say, six months after that last concussion.

00:29:20Well, he was confused in that he kept repeating himself

00:29:25over and over and over about things that were going on during the game

00:29:28or stories that he was telling us.

00:29:31And, you know, his brother finally said to him,

00:29:34Ty, you've already told us that three or four times.

00:29:37I felt sad because I thought his brother didn't understand.

00:29:41I didn't understand, but I knew that something was not right.

00:29:46His mom told me about some things that he was doing, you know,

00:29:50asking repetitive things and leaving the door open,

00:29:53leaving the refrigerator open, milk on the, you know, on the counter,

00:29:58all sorts of things that I didn't know was happening.

00:30:02And Tyler was so excited about the opportunity.

00:30:05And then, like, tomorrow you'd ask Tyler, well, has Charles called?

00:30:09No.

00:30:10You know, like, it was like he didn't even remember.

00:30:12Right.

00:30:12I had never actually heard of CTE at all.

00:30:17My thinking was I have no idea what that is.

00:30:20And so I immediately Googled it and I went down the list of,

00:30:24the list of symptoms and it was unbelievable.

00:30:28I looked at his girlfriend, her and I sat there on the couch right here

00:30:31and I was like, this is Tyler 100%.

00:30:37Like, every single one of them, the anxiety, the depression, the sleeplessness.

00:30:43When you think about concussion, no one concussion is really the same.

00:30:48You see different symptoms like headaches.

00:30:50You see dizziness.

00:30:52You'll hear fogginess.

00:30:53You know, you'll hear things like sleep deprivation that are associated with it.

00:30:58But ultimately, that means it's very heterogeneous.

00:31:01The brain, there's no one brain the same.

00:31:04If I get hit here and you get hit here, it might be a little bit different response.

00:31:07And that's the thing about concussions is you don't necessarily have to have a thousand

00:31:13to have worse brain damage.

00:31:15You could suffer one concussion and the repercussions could be as bad as having 5,000.

00:31:24We went five and six.

00:31:26We lost three games by a point.

00:31:28Each game by a point.

00:31:30Did you beat Bama that year or did you before?

00:31:32We didn't play them that year.

00:31:34No, we did play them.

00:31:35We did play them.

00:31:38You guys beat Alabama when you played?

00:31:41Why do you act so surprised?

00:31:43We beat Alabama.

00:31:44They haven't lost.

00:31:45We beat Alabama and we beat them up and down the field and we lost 16-14.

00:31:52We kicked the field goal at the end and our straight on kicker.

00:31:56I'll never forget.

00:31:57His name's Stump.

00:31:58Jim Taylor.

00:32:00And just hit it.

00:32:01I mean, it's like 20 yards.

00:32:02We lost to them.

00:32:03And then the next week we go to Auburn and play and we beat Auburn.

00:32:07If you can imagine two guys, two big, grown men running from opposite sides of the field full speed and

00:32:15running to each other, that's exactly what it is.

00:32:18It's like having a bunch of accidents within three hours.

00:32:21You know, I know that we're all going to have it.

00:32:25I know that it's in me.

00:32:27I know it's in a lot of players that played in the NFL, especially those that played right from Papuauna.

00:32:34You know, you played all your life.

00:32:37You're going to have some kind of damage when you keep hitting heads.

00:32:39You got a little headache.

00:32:41You got a little dizziness.

00:32:43You make millions of dollars versus out on the street.

00:32:48I'm going to take the dizziness and just try to go back in and play.

00:32:52But then, you know, at 50 when no one else is, you know, worried about you, no one cares, what,

00:32:59you know, what are you going to be like?

00:33:01For the most part, people that live here, you know, they might say hello, but they're good about it.

00:33:23For me, it's a bit like Sherlock and Holmes.

00:33:27You know, you've got the patient, you've got the clinical symptoms.

00:33:31Last month, Dr. Ann McKee was named the 2017 Bostonian of the Year by the Boston Globe for all this

00:33:37work.

00:33:37I recently named the time 2018 on the list of the 100 most influential people in the world.

00:33:44I unequivocally think there's a link between playing football and CTE.

00:33:48But the fact that over five years I've been able to accumulate this number of cases in football players, it

00:33:56cannot be rare.

00:33:58And the other feature of CTE is that the individual themselves complains that they can't control their mind.

00:34:05They have these impulses, they want to behave in certain ways, and it's very difficult for them to control these

00:34:13thought processes or these actions.

00:34:15My first year in Atlanta, I get drafted by Atlanta a week before this regular season starts.

00:34:22They cut every quarterback except the starter and myself.

00:34:25And I'm like, man, this is pretty good.

00:34:28Why I was thinking that, I have no idea.

00:34:30I put on 25 pounds in about four weeks.

00:34:33I was drinking a lot of beer, eating a lot of hot wings, and I'm thinking, this is a good

00:34:38thing.

00:34:38Well, no more than I said that, they bring in Billy Joe Tolliver.

00:34:43He comes walking in the building and they just traded for him.

00:34:45He was a starter in San Diego for a while.

00:34:49And firecracker red hair, cocky as all get out, worse than me.

00:34:54We hit it off, but we hated each other at first.

00:34:58And we sort of hated each other kind of even when we hit it off.

00:35:02But I had a strong arm.

00:35:03One thing I knew, I didn't think anybody in the country or in the world could throw it as hard

00:35:09as far as me.

00:35:10That was kind of my deal.

00:35:12He was five, six years older than me, been around, so he kind of pushed me around.

00:35:16Hey, rookie, carry my helmet.

00:35:18I'm like, I ain't carrying your helmet.

00:35:19I said, I'll tell you what, I'll challenge you to a throw off.

00:35:24Because he had a strong arm.

00:35:26He said, oh, let's do it.

00:35:29So everybody in the whole team gathered around at the end of practice.

00:35:33And he said, all right, rookie, you go first.

00:35:36Didn't matter to me.

00:35:37I backed up, I took two steps, threw it, and it kind of end over end wobbled.

00:35:4483.

00:35:45Billy Joe had a ball and he went, oh, hell, I quit.

00:35:50And after that, we were fine.

00:35:52We were fine.

00:36:02When I had talked to Dr. Bales, he said, what I'm trying to do is study living players to find

00:36:09out how much tau protein is in your brain.

00:36:14And I said, well, I don't know what tau protein is.

00:36:16And he said, well, tau protein, everyone has it.

00:36:19But what we're finding is all these deceased players have a high level of tau protein.

00:36:24And he said, I want to see if living players have elevated levels that obviously play football or hockey or

00:36:34whatever.

00:36:35And so I thought, you know, interesting.

00:36:39But my next comment was, okay, doc, so I got elevated levels of tau protein.

00:36:47Do you treat it?

00:36:49He said, no.

00:36:53All we can do is say you have elevated levels.

00:36:56So I chose not to do it because I said then if I have elevated levels, I'm always going to

00:37:02be wondering, all right, when is, you know, you know, when am I going to deteriorate to a point?

00:37:08So it's best not to know.

00:37:10It's an emotional roller coaster.

00:37:12Some days are good.

00:37:13Some days are bad.

00:37:14I think about if he would have gone the basketball route, you know, this might not have happened.

00:37:19You know, he's not making sense of things.

00:37:22He can't get the insurance.

00:37:23He can't move on because he hasn't had the shoulder surgery yet and he's still sitting here on pain medicine.

00:37:29Or he would be really focused on one thing.

00:37:31One time he would be focused on selling insurance or he would be leaning more towards real estate.

00:37:37He's Googling brain injuries and head trauma and things like that, like on his phone and on his computer.

00:37:44You know, when I would stay there on the weekends, he would maybe get an hour of sleep.

00:37:48If I would wake up, he would be cleaning or he would be watching movies or he was always awake.

00:37:54He could never fall asleep.

00:37:56He would get his mail every day and he'd throw it on the table.

00:37:59And I bet it laid there for a month.

00:38:02And I said, honey, don't you have some, you know, like your phone bill and your, you know, utilities and

00:38:08stuff?

00:38:08And he goes, yeah, I'll take care of it.

00:38:10You know, he just couldn't focus long enough to do the basic everyday tasks.

00:38:16When you do the physics of one person running at eight miles an hour and another person running at eight

00:38:22miles an hour and them colliding helmet to helmet,

00:38:25the force is almost equal to that of standing still and swinging somebody, swinging a sledgehammer and hitting somebody in

00:38:32the head.

00:38:32Think of a woodpecker. Woodpecker smacks its head thousands and thousands of times every hour.

00:38:40Woodpeckers have a tongue that's surprisingly longer than the bird is.

00:38:45And it goes back in and it wraps around its brain.

00:38:48And when it starts, when it starts pecking the wood, it's safe inside of that tongue that's wrapped around, it's

00:38:55cushioned in there.

00:38:57That's why a woodpecker can do that and not get chronic traumatic woodpecker encephalopathy.

00:39:02Other animals were made to do that. Humans were not.

00:39:05We have no protection, but a little bit of fluid around our brains.

00:39:09We weren't, we weren't meant as a species to do that.

00:39:13When I was in college before I started playing football, I used to hear people say I'm depressed.

00:39:19And I'm like, what is that like? You know, seriously, what is depression like?

00:39:24I said, I love life. Life is great. You know, why, why, why are people depressed?

00:39:30You know, but today I catch myself, you know, sitting at home sometimes, man, I'm really down right now.

00:39:40I played with a bunch of guys. I know a bunch of guys who took their lives and, and they

00:39:47were in the same boat as I am.

00:39:49Is that going to be me someday? You know, will I get that low and, you know, something will happen

00:39:55to me?

00:39:56When they talk about helmets, I laugh. I don't care what kind of helmet you put on a football player's

00:40:04head.

00:40:05When you have a collision, you're not going to stop the brain from smacking up against the inside of the

00:40:11skull.

00:40:28I had a traumatic injury. I broke my neck in 2016 against the Dallas Cowboys.

00:40:35And ever since that day, you know, laying on the field and not knowing if I was going to die,

00:40:39not knowing if I was going to live again, not knowing what was going to happen, you don't feel anything.

00:40:44You just think that you're going to die. And you're just hoping for another chance.

00:40:48And you're thinking about everything you did and you're thinking about, is it worth it?

00:40:51You're thinking about, did I make the best of my time? You're thinking about, if I got another chance, what

00:40:57would I do differently?

00:40:57And it's hard to convince somebody who wants to make money now that the damage that they're going to have

00:41:03five or ten years from now is going to be so significant that they won't be able to function appropriately.

00:41:10And there's an aspect to society that we want to be entertained.

00:41:14There's nothing like watching Terry Bradshaw throw a 60-yard pass of John Stallworth and he drags both his toes

00:41:20and inch from the end zone line.

00:41:23He catches the ball and makes a touchdown and wins a Super Bowl.

00:41:25A couple of things. I wasn't the sharpest guy, but I was always one that had a really good memory.

00:41:33And I was able to remember plays and recite plays.

00:41:37And still to this day, I can think of high school plays and how to call them as if it

00:41:41were yesterday.

00:41:43But there are things that happen almost daily where I'll meet someone and see them a week later.

00:41:53And no, I know that person from somewhere, but I can't remember where I met them.

00:41:57And to me, there's absolutely no reason whatsoever that there are certain things that I can't remember, whether it be

00:42:05a word.

00:42:06A word that I've said thousands and thousands of times.

00:42:10And I'm like, yeah, I can't.

00:42:13And it happened to me this morning. I was thinking of a person that I know very well.

00:42:19That's actually a doctor in my hometown who I saw two days ago and could not think of his name.

00:42:28What used to not bother me before bothers me.

00:42:31I'm sensitive to noise. I forget things.

00:42:35People's names, I can't remember at all.

00:42:36If you tell me your name, it's gone.

00:42:39I have two titanium rods in my neck, in my spine right now with 16 screws, you know, holding me

00:42:45together.

00:42:46You know? So that's one of the things I got from football.

00:42:51Whether it be self-destructing and committing suicide, considering it, losing everything, health declining, not knowing who you are, where

00:43:01you are, where you're going.

00:43:04Those are coming up way, way more frequent. And that's scary.

00:43:08Yeah, there were times where we'd sort of get up and we'd kind of look around and say, wow, he

00:43:13got a big hit there.

00:43:14But there was not the consciousness now of, well, we've got to take him in the tent.

00:43:19We've got to have him examined by an unaffiliated neurotrauma surgeon.

00:43:23We have to get him in the locker room. We have to go through these tests.

00:43:26It just wasn't there on our awareness.

00:43:29Taking the helmet-to-helmet contact out of the NFL didn't affect the game one bit.

00:43:35It's still a great game. The style, the grace, the ballet is still there. We love watching it.

00:43:43Athletes suffer, but that's part of making a lot of money as an entertainer.

00:43:47Tonight we are learning more about former Iowa Hawkeye football standout Tyler Sash,

00:43:52who's in trouble after police say he led them on a chase Saturday in Oskaloosa.

00:43:56So I guess he rode the scooter to this place here in town where all of his friends were at.

00:44:03And then had a drink and then he left and there was a cop sitting there.

00:44:10And Tyler, I don't know what his thought process was, but he ditched the scooter when he saw the lights.

00:44:21And the cop said he really was just gonna let Tyler know he needed to have a light on that

00:44:26if he was going to be driving it in the dark.

00:44:28They did have to tase him because they thought he wasn't cooperating by putting his arms back to be handcuffed,

00:44:35but he could not put his shoulders into that position.

00:44:38After talking to Tyler after that happened, he was embarrassed and he felt really bad for what he did.

00:44:45He called me because he wanted to tell me before it came out in the news.

00:44:51I know he came over here and talked to my parents and cried.

00:44:54We asked, you know, why, but why did you do it?

00:44:57And he, he literally just kept saying, I don't, I don't know. I don't really know.

00:45:02I think people, you know, not only does this affect the individual, but the stress and the trauma

00:45:08of taking care of these individuals cannot be underestimated.

00:45:12These people with this disease, they tend to behave erratically.

00:45:16They may be violent. They may be suicidal. They can be homicidal.

00:45:20They can be frightening for the family members.

00:45:23Are you with the, are you with the patient now?

00:45:26Oh yes, the baby's crying in here.

00:45:28Okay.

00:45:31We're on the way. Where's your son at?

00:45:33He left.

00:45:34He left?

00:45:35Yes.

00:45:35Okay. They were arguing in each other?

00:45:38Yes, they were arguing.

00:45:39We got a call here at Arrowhead Stadium to their practice facility in regard to a person

00:45:43who was in the parking lot armed with a handgun.

00:45:47Yeah, Jake, um, we've got, we do have a confirmed shooting.

00:45:51And it is, uh, I believe Belcher plays with the chiefs.

00:45:56So we have confirmed that.

00:45:57So, uh, you would head over to that facility.

00:46:00I'm guaranteed, I guarantee it's him.

00:46:02336, give me a couple more cars, rather out of district or what.

00:46:06And if somehow, I don't know if Arrowhead's got security or what, but get somebody on the phone.

00:46:14Uh, when the officers arrived, when they were pulling up, they actually observed a black male who had a gun

00:46:23to his head.

00:46:24And he was talking to a couple of coaches out in the parking lot.

00:46:27Uh, as officers pulled up and began to park, that's when they heard the gunshot.

00:46:31And, uh, it appears the individual took his own life.

00:46:33A neuropathologist says Belcher's brain showed evidence fully consistent with the pathological presentation of chronic traumatic encephalopathy.

00:46:43No one really has an answer for people because they can go to different hospitals and, and they may not

00:46:49get the advice they need.

00:46:51They may not understand that it's caused by trauma, caused by their exposure to football.

00:46:55So, for the families, it's, it's devastating.

00:46:58And it's not just the individual affected, it's everyone around them.

00:47:02Of course I've got CTE, as does anybody, in my opinion, who played ball.

00:47:08Because Boston University does a study.

00:47:11In the study, 99% of the people that they looked at showed signs of CTE.

00:47:15I'd be a fool not to think that I don't have it.

00:47:18It was, I got my bell rung when I was a little kid.

00:47:21Uh, back then it wasn't, you know, you didn't have these protocols where, you know,

00:47:24you gotta go in the locker room and do a certain test and everything.

00:47:27Back then it was, alright, follow my finger.

00:47:29You know, how's, how do you feel?

00:47:31You good?

00:47:32Okay, you're back in the game.

00:47:34Drive, Halen.

00:47:38Other way.

00:47:43Keep going.

00:47:45You know, if something was irritating him, you could see it easier that it was really bothering him.

00:47:52I think before, Tyler just kind of brushed it off.

00:47:54He let things go easier than he did more recently.

00:47:58If he was upset, he just wouldn't talk and he'd leave the room or he would cry.

00:48:02And sometimes, you know, I would ask him why and he couldn't tell me why.

00:48:06And I always thought he didn't want to tell me why, but I really think he didn't know.

00:48:10Eyes on the road.

00:48:12Not on Snapchat.

00:48:14Eyes on the road.

00:48:15Push!

00:48:20Stop!

00:48:22Right by Thomas.

00:48:23Good job.

00:48:28Found it.

00:48:29Alright.

00:48:30I remember when Charles Martin picked me up from behind and slammed me down.

00:48:35That was actually the start of my neck box.

00:48:37The doctor said, the only way your C1 and 2 can get twisted like this is if you get dumped

00:48:42on your head.

00:48:42And I said, well, here's the replay of that.

00:48:46But I told him, I said, that was 1986.

00:48:49And he said, well, you've been struggling since then.

00:48:53And the problem in this area is that players will not help themselves.

00:49:01Because from Pop Warner and Little League, they're brought up in a culture of denial.

00:49:09He had to clean out his house.

00:49:13And I saw that he had notebook after notebook.

00:49:17And he'd barely written in anything.

00:49:19I think he was trying so hard to be organized.

00:49:22Because he said to me, he couldn't remember anything.

00:49:25And so, he thought he'd start out fresh.

00:49:27And he'd have a new notebook.

00:49:29And he, you know, would be organized.

00:49:31Well, I looked at this and it really, it made me feel really sad.

00:49:36Because to me, this was a visible picture of what CTE does to a mind.

00:49:41This was a night that I watched him on the news and doing this interview.

00:49:46And he just kind of struggled for something to say.

00:49:49And when I saw this note, I couldn't believe, you know, how confused his mind was.

00:49:55Because what he wrote at the very top half of the page, he wrote almost identically the same thing on

00:50:01the bottom half of the page.

00:50:02You can see what his thinking, how confused his thinking would have been.

00:50:27I talked to Dave Doerson probably three months before he killed himself.

00:50:30And, you know, he seemed like the same kind of, same old guy.

00:50:35But he was a little more reserved, a little quieter.

00:50:39And he was explaining to me his frustrations with, you know, I can't remember where I'm at.

00:50:44You know, I get in the car to go pick up my kids.

00:50:46I can't find my way home.

00:50:48And I started having those same thoughts and same, you know, I walked down the hall to the kitchen.

00:50:54I couldn't remember why the hell I went down there.

00:50:56I'd have to go back and start again.

00:50:58And it's very frustrating for guys that, you know, we're very competitive people.

00:51:03And at the time, I couldn't figure out how, you know, it could get so bad that, you know, you'd

00:51:07think about taking your own life.

00:51:08But I had the same thoughts.

00:51:10I mean, if I had a gun, I probably wouldn't be here.

00:51:14Do you think there is a link between football and degenerative brain disorders like CTE?

00:51:20Well, certainly Dr. McKee's research shows that a number of retired NFL players were diagnosed with CTE.

00:51:25So the answer to that question is certainly yes.

00:51:28But there's also a number of questions that come with that.

00:51:31What's the answer?

00:51:32I guess I just want, is there a link?

00:51:35Yeah, yeah.

00:51:36Because we feel that, or I feel, that, you know, that was not the unequivocal answer three days before the

00:51:45Super Bowl by Dr. Mitchell Berger.

00:51:48Well, I'm not going to speak for Dr. Berger.

00:51:50Well, except you're speaking for the NFL, right?

00:51:56Well, this is just like big tobacco.

00:51:58I mean, they said for years cigarettes don't cause cancer.

00:52:01But, you know, obviously we know differently now.

00:52:04It's the same with the NFL.

00:52:05They've known for years.

00:52:07When this settlement, we just got this settlement, but they had, they didn't have to disclose what they actually knew.

00:52:15So they, you know, it's still a big lie, but at least now it's out in the open.

00:52:20At that time, the NFL said to players, one concussion has no effect on another.

00:52:28It doesn't matter how many you get.

00:52:29We haven't found any long-term consequences.

00:52:32But intuitively, you had to understand that something had to be happening.

00:52:39Today, we'd like to inform the public of some of our findings as we continue to investigate the death of

00:52:45Aaron Hernandez.

00:52:47I would have to wonder and ask what your reaction was to this considering how young Aaron Hernandez was.

00:52:53It's very frightening.

00:52:56I was shocked by the information.

00:52:58I was shocked by the recent study of the 110 former players, 111, 110 of them having some form or

00:53:08advanced stages of CTE.

00:53:09The numbers were shocking. The numbers were 110 NFL players out of 111 that were examined had histologic evidence of

00:53:19CTE.

00:53:20The implication is that individuals who play football, particularly football for long periods of time and at a high level,

00:53:28develop CTE at a much higher rate than those who do not play football.

00:53:34You could play flag football and that would reduce a considerable amount.

00:53:38But every occasion, a guy trips and hits his head or two guys bump into each other and get a

00:53:43concussion.

00:53:44But you get maybe two per game as opposed to 20.

00:53:50And I still think that there's probably a lot of concussions that are not revealed.

00:53:55There's some good in what they have done as far as putting the right rules in place, but it's tackle

00:54:01football.

00:54:01And unless you reduce the athlete to 150 pounds, eight flat 40, as weak as can be, you're not, I

00:54:10mean, two guys 300 pounds running full speed.

00:54:14Something's got to give.

00:54:18It was always confusing to us because he would, he would say how much he missed his parents and his

00:54:24family, but he wouldn't come over.

00:54:27We could never figure that out.

00:54:29And now, after knowing about the CTE, we understood why he didn't come over.

00:54:34Because he would kind of expose some of the things that were wrong with him.

00:54:38And he really, bless his heart, he tried not to, he tried not to let us know all that was

00:54:45going on because he didn't want us to worry about it.

00:54:49The kids over here, of course, with Uncle Tyler playing, playing softball.

00:54:54So he was, he was pitching to them.

00:54:56He was running the bases.

00:54:58He was trying to tag them out, sprinting after all of them and just cheering and kind of acting like

00:55:05his wild self.

00:55:06So they all had, they all had a lot of fun with that.

00:55:09I remember that we were watching a movie in my grandma and grandpa's bed and he kept, we kept on

00:55:17bumping heads together.

00:55:18And she kept saying, ow, and he said, he just, does that hurt?

00:55:23No.

00:55:24And he said, so why did you say ow, and then she'd say it again.

00:55:27And so they'd just sit there bumping heads and giggling about it.

00:55:31We were laughing and we were also watching a movie at the same time.

00:55:35When we started building this house, I hadn't played but about half of my career.

00:55:43Fortunately, I was able to play longer, but I also got more game balls.

00:55:49The longer you play, the more good or bad you get records.

00:55:53So it's like, all right, then you get to a point when you break a record, the next week you're

00:56:00always breaking a record.

00:56:01And I'm like, all right, we give out the game ball to Brett because this is, he just broke the

00:56:06record that he set last week.

00:56:08After a while, you know, they were like, I think the guy's going to play another 100 games.

00:56:12So we ain't giving out any more balls.

00:56:14Only with the brain do they not treat that immediately other than the treatment being go into a room, turn

00:56:22the lights off,

00:56:23don't let somebody talk as loud as I'm talking right now, whisper. That's not treatment.

00:56:28I know I got it. I don't really care about how severe it is. It's just, you know, I know

00:56:34because that stuff sat on my brain for 20 years.

00:56:38I'm lucky to have a brain, I guess, right now.

00:56:40You still have the same mentality in the players. My mentality is to run through you. My mentality is to

00:56:46dominate you.

00:56:46So no matter what rules you change, I'm going to figure out a way around the rules to get that

00:56:51done.

00:56:51You know, knowing what I know now, probably I wouldn't have played football because my dad didn't want me playing

00:56:59football when I told him that I would want to play football.

00:57:02Probably wouldn't have played when I was hurt as much as I did, but especially the head trauma.

00:57:08One, two. No, they didn't even see Martin behind him. Well, we expected the rough stuff.

00:57:16I mean, after a concussion, I probably wouldn't have went back in the game, but back then you did.

00:57:23Would I have done it different had I known? I don't know that. I consider myself a warrior.

00:57:32You know, it meant a lot to me to play and play every play and be accountable game after game.

00:57:38And it got to a point where it almost took on a life of itself that I can't miss.

00:57:44You know, I've come this far. I'm not going to miss, regardless of how much it hurts.

00:57:49Well, you know, you're in the moment. You're 28, you're 33, you're 35.

00:57:54Did one more game or did one more hit or one more play make a tremendous difference in the quality

00:58:02of life after football?

00:58:16Whenever he came over, he bought something for me and my brothers and he would always come over with something

00:58:24for us.

00:58:25We played in the backyard.

00:58:27Who would win, your sophomore, your uncle or you and your brother?

00:58:31Um, he would win.

00:58:33Your uncle, Tyler, would win.

00:58:37Birthday to you.

00:58:40And Tyler.

00:58:44Happy birthday to Tyler.

00:58:48Tyler was that kind of person that he used what he had to try and benefit Oskaloosa and the kids

00:58:56that were in it.

00:58:57They raised a lot of money.

00:58:59And then they had a little boy that died of cancer here and they raised $106,000.

00:59:06And there was hundreds and hundreds of people that came out and he sat and he signed autographs for hours

00:59:12until every person that wanted one got an autograph.

00:59:15And he made sure that that money went to help that kid as he fought cancer.

00:59:20So those are just a small illustration of some of the things that he did.

00:59:24I would say the Holy Grail here is getting a marker, a biomarker to detect CTE in the living.

00:59:31That will change everything.

00:59:34First of all, we'll know the prevalence of the disease in college players and maybe high school players if we

00:59:40have a way to diagnose it during life.

00:59:42And importantly, if we can find a way to detect it during life, not only will we have a diagnosis

00:59:48for individuals that are concerned about it, but we'll have a way to monitor treatments.

00:59:53The NFL has 15 padded practices a year.

00:59:57Now that is since I retired.

01:00:00When I was playing, you could, you know, depending on the coach, you could practice some pads all the time.

01:00:06But yet we're putting our youth 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 and up kids full pads and we're telling them

01:00:19to go out and tackle, which I don't think is a good thing.

01:00:23Any, whether it be for a game or practice.

01:00:31I got more interested in looking at this epidemic, which is concussion or mild traumatic brain injury.

01:00:39Knowing that we were going to have to create a drug that could be given longer to be able to

01:00:44handle a period of time when things wax and wane.

01:00:46And knowing that the outcome measure to predict its efficacy was not going to be whether the patient survived or

01:00:52not.

01:00:53You know, of course, for the most part, you're going to survive concussion.

01:00:57What I realized is we just really had not put any effort into trying to find a way to treat

01:01:02it acutely.

01:01:02In hopes that if you could get that pathological cascade of events stopped in the short term, then you wouldn't

01:01:10end up with post concussion syndrome.

01:01:12In the sports world, and especially in the violent sports world, the individuals are violent.

01:01:19And there's a pattern of violence that can spill over into other parts of life.

01:01:24Here's a flag as...

01:01:26Whoa!

01:01:27Hello!

01:01:27Whoa!

01:01:31Oh, gosh!

01:01:33Especially when there is something that is perceived as irritating, that actually then can be addressed in an impulsive way,

01:01:41if you will.

01:01:42And they've developed protocols to test for concussion that can also be used as a measure of whether a drug

01:01:50for concussion is working.

01:01:53All right, here we are at the tradition.

01:01:56Great American.

01:01:57We've got a lot of disturbing.

01:01:59Okay.

01:02:04We're all in.

01:02:08We're going to go through the clinic here.

01:02:12So what will happen is in Phase 1B there will be a concussed patient at the hospital right down the

01:02:17road.

01:02:17They will be transitioned here.

01:02:20There will be intake done in this room.

01:02:22They will have the drug delivered nasally in this room.

01:02:25And then they will sit in here and have blood draws and testing after that drug for a period off

01:02:31and on once a day for five days.

01:02:33Football has increased awareness of brain injury.

01:02:36And it's increased awareness of the consequences of brain injury.

01:02:39And that's been good for all of society.

01:02:41I think what's important to realize is that sports have risk-benefit.

01:02:46And it's, in my opinion, not proven to ban activities without understanding the full ramifications of such a ban.

01:02:54We looked at 53 college players and 48 had CTE for about 91%.

01:03:01And then we also looked at high school players and we had 21 high school players that had come into

01:03:06the bank.

01:03:07And three of those had CTE.

01:03:11But what that study says is that this can affect amateur athletes.

01:03:15This can affect players who don't go on to play professionally.

01:03:19And at least in our experience, it's fairly common.

01:03:22My husband said one day he remembers Tyler getting up after getting hit by this kid.

01:03:29And Tyler had tears in his eyes.

01:03:32And I never saw that and I never knew that.

01:03:35He even remembers some times when Tyler was in maybe third or fourth grade football.

01:03:42And he was kind of dazed coming off the field after a hit.

01:03:48And I remember my dad getting very choked up about telling him that he was alright and sending him back

01:03:56out there.

01:03:56Because it's just, you know, it's just the competitive nature of it.

01:04:02Like you can work through this and you think that hardcore competitive spirit, like nothing can break me, is exactly

01:04:14what broke my brother.

01:04:15Another thing is that people think that, you know, college athletes are catered to.

01:04:20And, you know, maybe they are in some ways, but I think that those people also don't realize the cost

01:04:28to those athletes for what, for their pleasure, for their entertainment, you know, that they get on a Saturday or

01:04:37a Sunday.

01:04:37How much it actually costs those people.

01:04:40I told my husband, I said, honey, you know, because he played football, you know, I said, and he loves

01:04:44sports.

01:04:45And I said, if you want to go, you go.

01:04:47And he said, no, I don't want to go.

01:04:49Because I don't want to keep him back just because I can't watch it anymore.

01:04:53So I just see more than I want to see.

01:04:56We've had kids from our church, their parents have asked me, what do you think?

01:05:00Should we let our kid play?

01:05:02You know, should we let him play?

01:05:03And, like, I had one dad say, well, my son's a senior, you know.

01:05:06And I'm like, you know, you have to do what you have to do.

01:05:10What's really, I take from looking at all this is how fast time goes by.

01:05:17And life goes on, man.

01:05:19You know, when I coached, and my two daughters, if they were here right now, they'd tell you the same

01:05:25thing.

01:05:25Dad's always talking about, enjoy the moment, because before you know it, you look back and you go, I remember

01:05:34us having that discussion, and that was 10 years ago.

01:05:36What happens when you go from birth through those early 20s, when brain development continues and develops?

01:05:43What happens if it's interrupted along the way?

01:05:46So, for example, if a child really hits the frontal regions of the brain and sustains injury there at age,

01:05:55say, eight or nine, we might not really see what's happening to that brain and that brain development until the

01:06:00child is 16, 17, or 18.

01:06:02If 50% of the moms in this country understand the danger of playing football and tell their teenage boys,

01:06:14you can play any sport and your dad and I will back you, but not tackle football, it won't kill

01:06:22football.

01:06:23It will just change the socioeconomics, but they need it to escape economic poverty, they'll play.

01:06:31The state has limited the amount of time that you can have full contact and teach how to tackle, which

01:06:39in turn turns it around.

01:06:42They sent this to you guys?

01:06:45They sent it to the high school.

01:06:47It's called the high school honor roll, and so they did this at the fifth year.

01:06:53And they sent a football, a gold football, to every high school that had a player play in a Super

01:07:01Bowl for the last 50 years.

01:07:07You see a lot of guys retiring early, young guys, not even at the peak of their career, they haven't

01:07:13even gotten to that point, retiring.

01:07:14We're looking at a dangerous full contact sport where too many players play too long and therefore suffer physical consequences,

01:07:22including especially, importantly, CTE.

01:07:24There's an enormous backlash against that.

01:07:27That, I believe, is a bigger threat to the game than anything in terms of marginalizing the game.

01:07:31But football's here to stay. I love watching it.

01:07:35At what age do you start playing tackle football?

01:07:37I wouldn't let kids put helmets on until they were juniors in high school.

01:07:41They should stop playing football as a junior.

01:07:43There's no reason whatsoever for anybody to have any kind of contact, in my opinion, before the age of 12.

01:07:49My son is 8. He plays football. He plays tackle as well.

01:07:52The only reason that he plays is because I'm the coach.

01:07:55There's nobody that can coach my son better than me.

01:07:58I think I would come down on the side of saying we shouldn't have sports in this society that we

01:08:05know injure kids' brains.

01:08:06If everyone plays flag football until you're 17, then during that time you can teach tackling fundamentals without tackling.

01:08:18I really don't see any reason why someone would need to play tackle football until they're in high school.

01:08:24I had two teenage sons. Both of them had heard me talk about this many times. And both of them

01:08:34played.

01:08:34You know, I think there's a risk at any age, but at least when you're old enough to make a

01:08:39decision for yourself, I think that's when you should start playing tackle football.

01:08:43So maybe that's 18.

01:08:45You know, I see sports can be a way out from a tough situation, but you can still do it

01:08:51a better way.

01:08:52You know, we like to tell people with football, no one's getting recruited off of their fifth grade film, right?

01:08:58You can still have a great football career waiting until high school for the tackle part. Don't play tackle football

01:09:03too young.

01:09:04There's a sort of an inflection point that if you play before 12 and you get hit in the head

01:09:08while your brain is still developing, you're worse off in the long run.

01:09:11You have a greater risk of having symptoms or a greater risk of having earlier symptoms related to CT or

01:09:17brain damage.

01:09:17I just think that you pass a law that says no tackling to the age of 17.

01:09:23If you don't want to give a cell phone to a 10 or 12 year old because their skull is

01:09:30not fully developed, then why are we putting a football helmet on a 10 or 12 year old?

01:09:38I have a 12 year old son and I don't want him playing football, but his mom insists that he

01:09:46plays football.

01:09:48He's had two concussions already and his mom still insists that he plays. Go figure.

01:09:55All the work that I've done with these doctors the past couple of years and what they've told me about

01:10:00the head trauma.

01:10:00He said there's probably 90% of kids shouldn't be playing because their necks and their heads are just not

01:10:06strong enough.

01:10:07Like you've probably never heard of Pat Dye. Legendary coach, he's what Bear Bryant is to Alabama, he is to

01:10:16Auburn.

01:10:17He actually coached under him and was really his mentor was Bear Bryant.

01:10:23We go stay at Pat Dye's house every year. We do a bike ride at Bo Bikes Bama just outside

01:10:28of Auburn.

01:10:31And he shows me around his place. Coach Dye is 78 years old, but he's still sharp as a tack.

01:10:40He goes, he says, all right, this is y'all's room. This is our kitchen. We kind of hang out

01:10:47in the living room right here.

01:10:48He says, now the upstairs bedroom is, we go here and he said, now that room right here really don't

01:10:55mean a hell of a lot.

01:10:57It's got my memorabilia in it. He said, I'm 78 years old. Ain't none of it.

01:11:02It means a hill of beans.

01:11:05I'm still thankful in many ways that Tyler playing football brought us together so many times.

01:11:12We went to, Josh was away, but the rest of us went to most of the games, all of the

01:11:19games together.

01:11:19And Josh came back for as many as he could. So, you know, we probably would not have, have enjoyed

01:11:26that, that time together.

01:11:29I just couldn't even bring myself to watch it because it wouldn't ever be what it once was.

01:11:34It just flatlined for me.

01:11:38You know, I know there's a lot of guys out there that would still play football, even knowing all the

01:11:43facts.

01:11:45But I'd like them to make them all aware of it when they come in as a rookie and let

01:11:50them choose.

01:11:52Sometimes it's good to talk about it.

01:11:55You know, it's not always good.

01:11:57And there's times when I get to a place where I have to say, Lord, I can't go there.

01:12:01You know, I can't think about that.

01:12:05And I guess there's other times that I just feel like I don't want other people to have to go

01:12:11through this.

01:12:11I want to help the cause. I want the awareness to be out there.

01:12:16And I feel like I'd be honoring Tyler because he'd like to help people.

01:12:20You know, one of the things that really hurts me is when I look at Tyler's baby pictures and him

01:12:27as a little boy.

01:12:30You know, you think of an NFL player, you think there's some big tough guy, but this is somebody's child.

01:12:36This is a little boy that was blessed with that talent.

01:12:42It's just hard to see that and think of what could have been what you could have had grandchildren.

01:12:52You know, we were planning on more grandchildren.

01:12:54Tyler helped me put it put together a crib that I never bought a new one for any of my

01:13:00own children.

01:13:01But when the grandkids came along, I bought a new one and Tyler helped me put it together and totally

01:13:08planned on having more grandchildren and a future, you know, for Tyler.

01:13:13But it wasn't in the plan.

01:13:16And so God's ways are different than our ways.

01:13:21And I accept that.

01:13:25The story of Tyler Sash in some ways revealing of what the CTE is about.

01:13:31Obviously, in the prime of his, I say career, but also in his life, probably the most healthy he would

01:13:37ever be.

01:13:38He, by all accounts, was a model citizen.

01:13:45I think good things will come from Tyler's story.

01:13:52Former Hawkeye football star Tyler Sash found dead in his Oskaloosa home in September.

01:13:57Diagnosed Tyler with CTE.

01:14:00It's a degenerative brain disease caused by repeated trauma.

01:14:02It's rarely seen in someone Sash's age.

01:14:07The shock of the death of Tyler Sash.

01:14:10I mean, I haven't seen Tyler in a couple of years.

01:14:12I didn't see that coming, obviously.

01:14:14Our condolences go out to his family and his friends and all those that cared for him.

01:14:19He was an outstanding teammate now.

01:14:21There's, when he was here, during the time he was here, the players really enjoyed Tyler Sash.

01:14:31We traveled back here for Labor Day weekend in 2015.

01:14:36Came on a Friday and my husband didn't come with us because he had a bachelor party and they were

01:14:43in Ames.

01:14:44And so I brought the kids and Friday night Tyler came over with his girlfriend and Halen.

01:14:49Kids all played together and their favorite thing to do is slide down the stairs here at Grandma and Grandpa's.

01:14:56And Tyler had a dance party, dance competition.

01:14:59Tyler would play some crazy music and make a mage take a turn to NSYNC.

01:15:03So that was pretty fun for them.

01:15:06There was an Iowa game.

01:15:08My brother had just moved in to a house there in Ottumwa.

01:15:11So we all traveled down to Ottumwa and watched the game there with Tyler.

01:15:17And Tyler was very confused that day.

01:15:20He multiple times asked me.

01:15:23I take Advocare Spark and he multiple times asked me if he could have a spark.

01:15:29And I was like, you just had one.

01:15:31And I said, you can have another one.

01:15:33I don't care.

01:15:34And he'd make another spark.

01:15:35And then he would say, hey, anybody know where my drink is?

01:15:40And it was probably five times that he would ask where his drink went.

01:15:46And we're like, it's right there on the counter right where you left it.

01:15:49He went and played with the kids there.

01:15:51We watched the game.

01:15:51And I know Tyler fell asleep during that game, which wasn't like him at all.

01:15:58And he kept saying that he had allergies like my mom.

01:16:02And he kept saying that his head hurt.

01:16:06Well, Tyler came over Sunday.

01:16:08And he was playing out in the backyard with them all, you know, all day.

01:16:12It was really a hot day.

01:16:14And he, you know, just was sprinting up and down the yard and throwing balls.

01:16:18And they were just doing all kinds of fun things.

01:16:21And they were laughing and having fun.

01:16:23And the kids all played.

01:16:24And that's when they had the softball game here in the back.

01:16:27And we all just hung out as a family.

01:16:30And he seemed better on Sunday than what he was on Saturday.

01:16:35Grandson was in the house sleeping.

01:16:37And I came in to check on him.

01:16:39And meanwhile, Tyler had come in.

01:16:41And, uh, but then right before he left here on, on that Sunday night, he, it was the strangest

01:16:51thing.

01:16:52He went to get a drink at the sink in the kitchen.

01:16:57And, uh, after he took his drink, he, he dropped to his knee.

01:17:01And really just like grabbed his head and sat here for about 15, 20 seconds.

01:17:09And I was looking at him and I said, Ty, I said, what's wrong, honey?

01:17:13And he said, I just feel like I could die.

01:17:16And we're like, what is wrong?

01:17:18And he said, my, my head hurts so bad.

01:17:23And that's haunted me ever since then, because I thought what could have been going on with

01:17:29him to make that statement.

01:17:32And then he just stood up.

01:17:34Ran out the backyard and started playing with the kids all over again.

01:17:38And so I, you know, I, I, I didn't think much of it at the time.

01:17:43Later that day, Tyler left with his girlfriend and her little girl.

01:17:47And he said they were going to go get something to eat.

01:17:50And he, he called me about, I think it was quarter to nine that night.

01:17:55And he said, Mom, did I leave my billfold there?

01:17:57I can't find it.

01:17:59And I said, uh, look.

01:18:01And so I looked around the house and I, um, I couldn't find it.

01:18:06And I said, no, I don't see it here anywhere, honey.

01:18:09And he said, I was just going to buy a couple Gatorades.

01:18:11And so she gave him a $20 bill.

01:18:14And I really hardly talked with him because he'd been here all day.

01:18:17And I was helping the grandkids, getting them ready to get to bed.

01:18:21So he left.

01:18:27Monday would have been the day I left town, because my kids had school on Tuesday.

01:18:32And so I took them back on Monday.

01:18:34And I had texted him when I left town, but I thought he was busy because he was supposed to

01:18:39be at a party with his girlfriend.

01:18:41And so I didn't think anything of it that he didn't message me back.

01:18:44Took the dog for a walk and I went over to his house and I opened the door and I

01:18:48saw him sleeping on the couch.

01:18:51And, um, so the dog came running to the door and I took her and we went for an hour

01:18:55walk and I came back.

01:18:57And he was still asleep and I was really surprised because he did not sleep very well.

01:19:02So I kind of snuck in and tiptoed really pretty close to him that I could have reached out and

01:19:07touched him.

01:19:08And I didn't look at him.

01:19:12I hadn't heard from him, um, yet that morning it was still 8.30, 9 o'clock.

01:19:18And then I hadn't heard from him the day before, which is when I assumed he was catching up on

01:19:22his sleep.

01:19:22I got a text message from his girlfriend saying,

01:19:26Hey, have you heard from Tyler?

01:19:29She said, Jane, just text me and said that Tyler's medicine is still here at the pharmacy from yesterday.

01:19:37And he hasn't come today yet.

01:19:40And I asked her, you know, if she saw him before she left and she hadn't.

01:19:43And so she was going to get a hold of her mom and that's when we kind of put everything

01:19:47together.

01:19:48My daughter had called and said that, um, his girlfriend had called her and said she had texted Tyler a

01:19:57few times and she didn't hear back from him.

01:19:59She was concerned.

01:20:01She said, are you going over there to get Bella?

01:20:03And I said, yeah, I'll be over there probably in a half an hour.

01:20:06So I felt a little sense of relief.

01:20:09And then I, then that fear started creeping back up in me.

01:20:13And I said, I said, just go make sure.

01:20:16Cause I thought, you know, she didn't talk to him.

01:20:18So I went over and I, uh, opened the door.

01:20:22The dog was sitting in the chair, scared to death.

01:20:25I opened the door and she bolted right for me.

01:20:28I took her out and put her in my car.

01:20:30I could see him.

01:20:31Um, and so I went back in after I got the dog and I, it was like somebody else was

01:20:39inside my body walking up to my son.

01:20:44Cause I knew it'd be the last time I'd ever see his face.

01:20:48And it wasn't a good picture.

01:20:52And I just, I don't know, I was hoping to get some kind of peace by seeing him.

01:21:01But I, but I didn't get that.

01:21:04His sister Megan called me and was crying hysterically and I couldn't really understand what she was saying.

01:21:10All I could make out was she kept saying, he's gone, he's gone, he's gone, Heather.

01:21:14And then I started crying and I picked up my stuff and went out the door and went over to

01:21:26the house.

01:21:28I just stayed outside cause the police were just getting there.

01:21:32And then eventually his mom came out and said he was gone.

01:21:47I'm not going to.

01:21:49I am going to.

01:21:49He's gone.

01:21:54That's me.

01:21:56He's gone.

01:22:01I am.

01:22:02I am.

01:22:05I am.

01:22:09Just don't say goodbye

01:22:16The air is feeling thin

01:22:24Breathe, take your time

01:22:30And when you feel like flying

01:22:38Glow

01:22:43Still see it in the shadows

01:22:48If you could have two minutes with Tyler, what would you tell him?

01:22:56Oh, that's a hard one. Two minutes, huh? Is this the two-minute drill?

01:23:05Well, I guess I would tell him how sorry that I was

01:23:10That I didn't know

01:23:13That I didn't have the compassion for him

01:23:17Because I didn't understand

01:23:19Because as a parent, I was still hard on him

01:23:24I didn't understand why he wasn't going to get a job

01:23:28Even though he couldn't, his mind was not there

01:23:33I just thought I needed to use tough love on him

01:23:38But I would have told him that I was so sorry

01:23:42Tyler was the type of person

01:23:43That, especially in the last couple years of his life

01:23:48Would just randomly text me

01:23:51And say, I love you Megan

01:23:52I'm so proud of you for this, this, and this

01:23:55He just didn't leave it unsaid

01:23:58He made sure to tell the people that he loved

01:24:01How much he cared about them

01:24:03And so because he did that

01:24:05It was reciprocated by me

01:24:08And him and I had many of those heartfelt conversations

01:24:13I think I'd tell him I loved him

01:24:16And I would have done anything for him

01:24:19But I know he already knows that

01:24:24I'd tell him I loved him

01:24:26I'd tell him how much we care about what he stood for

01:24:32That's great

01:24:34That's what I'd do

01:24:36Because, you know, a special person

01:24:42You know, a special family person

01:24:47A great player

01:24:49I would tell him that

01:24:50And it had nothing to do with football

01:24:53I'd tell him I loved him

01:24:54I'd tell him what he stood for was really important

01:24:57I'm still kind of lost

01:24:59I don't really know where I want to be yet

01:25:03Or what I'm doing

01:25:07I just hope everyone listens

01:25:09And the awareness is raised for it

01:25:13The facts come out

01:25:16Thanks

01:25:41Did that hurt?

01:25:42No

01:25:44Then why did you say ouch?

01:25:57What do you miss most about your uncle today?

01:26:00No

01:26:09For people 15, 20 years down the road

01:26:12I'd want them to say

01:26:13That kid came out every day

01:26:15No matter what it was

01:26:17He'd do it

01:26:17He'd get it done

01:26:19And he'd work hard

01:26:20He was a good role model for kids

01:26:22Kids looked up to him

01:26:24And he was a leader

01:26:36Well, the good news is that my son knows Jesus

01:26:40And my son's gonna be waiting for me on the other side

01:26:44And so I have that hope

01:27:03And so I've had to do that

01:27:04And so I'll come back to him

01:27:04And he's having a good one

01:27:04And so I'm like

01:27:04I just hope that my son knows

01:27:04You know

01:27:15That was important

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