Did Concussions Help Kill Former Football Player?

TAMPA — Tom McHale died fighting the wrong opponent.

The one-time Tampa Bay Buccaneer, local businessman and father of three died last May battling a drug addiction he thought was responsible for driving him mad.

Instead, it may have been brain damage McHale sustained on the playing field each Sunday that transformed him from a supportive spouse into a man who lost his passion for life at the age of 45.

Findings announced this afternoon in Tampa reveal that McHale is the sixth former National Football League player found with brain abnormalities that Boston University researchers say may be tied to concussions received during their playing days.

McHale’s widow told The Tampa Tribune her husband’s nine-year career as an offensive lineman was violent, but they didn’t understand that constant blocking may have slowly destroyed his brain tissue. McHale, who retired from the game in 1995, instead focused his final three years of life on trying to overcome increasing anxiety and depression and an addiction to prescription pain killers.

“He was fighting with everything he had and he didn’t have a chance,” Lisa McHale said of her husband, who died of an accidental overdose of oxycodone and cocaine. “It’s extremely disturbing for me. Tom and I had no idea such risk existed.”

Chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) has long been linked to boxers, but in recent years it also has been tied to football and professional hockey players who experience repeated head trauma.

The neurodegenerative condition is known to hamper a person’s cognitive abilities, trigger depression and affect behavior, said Chris Nowinski, president of the Sports Legacy Institute, which works with the Boston University researchers to study the long-term effects of concussions.

While the behaviors are similar to the effects of dementia in the elderly, all of the former NFL players studied died between the ages of 38 and 50. Former Philadelphia Eagles defensive back Andre Waters, who was 44 when he committed suicide in Tampa in 2006, was among the first NFL players the Boston University Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy tied to CTE.

Lisa McHale said her husband showed these kinds of symptoms before his death. McHale, who owned two McHale ChopHouse eateries and a South Tampa sports pub, was working in real estate at the time.

“In the last three to six months, I was increasingly concerned that Tom was not getting better,” she said. “He was trying with everything he had in him. And I wasn’t seeing it.”

She said McHale, a hulking 320-pound lineman, never knowingly sustained a concussion during his football playing days in college or the pros. Still, Nowinski said the motions McHale conducted time and time again were like having the affects of whiplash build on every play.

“Obviously, the other 20,000 hits Tom took to the head played a role,” Nowinski said.

NFL spokesman Greg Aileo told The New York Times last year that the league has an active committee on concussions and is expected to complete its own study in 2010. It does not endorse claims that concussions sustained in football are to blame.

“Hundreds of thousands of people have played football and other sports without experiencing any problem of this type,” he said, “and there continues to be considerable debate in the medical community on the precise long-term effects on concussions and how they relate to others.”

Since 2007, the NFL has instituted tougher penalties involving helmet-to-helmet blows and issued rules that prohibit a player who loses consciousness from returning to a game or practice. The player must have normal neurological test results before playing or practicing again, the league’s Web site states.

Nowinski, who timed today’s announcement to coincide with this week’s Super Bowl events, has become increasingly critical of the NFL, which he claims has a laissez-faire attitude toward the long-term risks players face.

“I think it’s because this is considered an on-the-job injury and it’s a huge liability,” said Nowinski, a former college football player and professional wrestler who himself retired after suffering the effects of multiple concussions. He said he’s in Tampa to recruit current and retired NFL athletes for future research.

McHale and Nowinki were joined at the press conference by the Boston University researchers. They announced additional research finding CTE in the brain tissue of an 18-year-old high school football player who sustained multiple concussions. The teen’s identity and cause of death were not disclosed.

The risk facing current NFl players and young athletes has led several former NFL players to volunteer their brain tissue for CTE testing after their death, including former New England Patriots linebacker Ted Johnson, who at 35 has been diagnosed with permanent degenerative problems with his memory.

Johnson said that the brain donor registry also includes Hall of Famers Joe deLamielleure and Willie Wood, and Ken Gray, Dan Pastorini and Wayne Hawkins.

“It’s an opportunity to be a small part in finding answers,” said Johnson, who retired from the NFL in 2005.

Lisa McHale said she hopescurrent and future football players pay attention to the research and avoid fighting unknown demons like her husband did. The key is getting players – and eventually the NFL – to invest in research, she said.

“We don’t want to destroy the game,” she said. “We want to make it safer.”

MARY SHEDDEN is a staff writer for The Tampa Tribune