“PROFESSIONAL FOOTBALL PLAYERS DO NOT SUSTAIN FREQUENT REPETITIVE BLOWS TO THE BRAIN ON A REGULAR BASIS.”
So concluded the National Football League in a December 2005 scientific paper on concussions in America’s most popular sport. That judgment, implausible even to a casual fan, also contradicted the opinion of a growing cadre of neuroscientists who worked in vain to convince the NFL that it was facing a deadly new scourge: A chronic brain disease that was driving an alarming number of players — including some of the all-time greats — to madness.
League of Denial reveals how the NFL, over a period of nearly two decades, sought to cover up and deny mounting evidence of the connection between football and brain damage.
Comprehensively, and for the first time, award-winning ESPN investigative reporters Mark Fainaru-Wada and Steve Fainaru tell the story of a public health crisis that emerged from the playing fields of our 21st century pastime. Everyone knew that football is violent and dangerous. But what the players who built the NFL into a $10 billion industry didn’t know – and what the league sought to shield from them – is that no amount of padding could protect the human brain from the force generated by modern football; that the very essence of the game could be exposing these players to brain damage.
In a fast-paced narrative that moves between the NFL trenches, America’s research labs and the boardrooms where the NFL went to war against science, League of Denial examines how the league used its power and resources to attack independent scientists and elevate its own flawed research — a campaign with echoes of Big Tobacco’s fight to deny the connection between smoking and lung cancer. It chronicles the tragic fates of players like Hall of Fame Pittsburgh Steelers center Mike Webster, who was so disturbed at the time of his death he fantasized about shooting NFL executives; and former Chargers great Junior Seau, whose diseased brain became the target of an unseemly scientific battle between researchers and the NFL. Based on exclusive interviews, previously undisclosed documents and private emails, this is the story of what the NFL knew and when it knew it – questions at the heart of crisis that threatens football, from the highest levels all the way down to Pop Warner.
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This gripping effort examines football-related dementia and the lengths the NFL traveled to deny this phenomenon. The author focuses largely on Mike Webster (1952-2002), a hall-of-fame center with the Pittsburgh Steelers and KC Chiefs from 1974-1990. After football, this personable family man descended to irritability, dementia, and early death at age 50. The cause? Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy, or CTE, caused by multiple concussions, countless lesser blows to the helmet, or both (the experts aren’t quite sure). Webster’s demise was diagnosed via post-mortem examination of his brain. Several other ex-players soon suffered similar fates, including linebacker Junior Seau and defensive backs Andre Waters and Dave Duerson, the latter a sharp and personable ex-Chicago Bear who left a suicide note asking that his brain be examined for CTE. We also learn about pathologists Bennet Omalu and Ann McKee, plus neurologists and other MD’s (both good and bad) that sparred, consulted, and competed for status. Not surprisingly, those employed by the NFL acted as skeptics, eerily similar to those scientists for the tobacco industry that once cast doubt on the link between smoking and cancer. Could we expect different from the NFL, a $9 billion industry? Actually, the NFL did change course in Sept. 2013, agreeing to pay a settlement of $765 million (plus legal fees) to 4,500 ex-players. All is here in readable prose that may disturb even the most hardcore gridiron fans.
The authors touch on but don’t entirely address some added issues. How have many ex-players apparently avoided CTE while others suffer memory loss, depression, and worse? What about the ex-college players who received no pay (except a scholarship) and are not eligible for workers compensation? Does CTE result from concussions, insufficient recovery time, non-concussive helmet blows, or some combination of all these? Finally, can a safer game hopefully emerge via changes in rules, techniques, and helmet design?
League of Denial: The NFL, Concussions, and the Battle for Truth Details
- Author: Mark Fainaru-Wada, Steve Fainaru( Download PDF :
) - Language: English
- Paperback: 432 pages
- Publisher: Three Rivers Press; 1 edition (August 26, 2014)
- ISBN-10: 0770437567
- ISBN-13: 978-0770437565
- Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.9 x 8 inches
About the Author
Mark Fainaru-Wada is an investigative reporter for ESPN. With his colleague Lance Williams, he co-authored the New York Times best-seller “Game of Shadows — Barry Bonds, BALCO and the Steroids Scandal That Rocked Professional Sports.” He lives in Petaluma, California, with his wife Nicole, son Max and daughter Ella.
Steve Fainaru is an investigative reporter for ESPN. While covering the Iraq war for the Washington Post, he received the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting for his investigation into the U.S. military’s reliance on private security contractors. He lives in Berkeley, California, with his wife Maureen Fan, and son Will.
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