Kendra Stabler Moyes with championship rings belonging to her father.
Kendra Stabler Moyes, Stabler's oldest daughter, with her twin 17-year-old sons, Jack, left, and Justin, at their home in Scottsdale, Ariz.
Posted on 02/03/2016 4:27:19 PM PST by afraidfortherepublic
Shortly before he died last July, the former N.F.L. quarterback Ken Stabler was rushed away by doctors, desperate to save him, in a Mississippi hospital. His longtime partner followed the scrum to the elevator, holding his hand. She told him that she loved him. Stabler said that he loved her, too.
"I turned my head to wipe the tears away," his partner, Kim Bush, said recently. "And when I looked back, he looked me dead in the eye and said, 'I'm tired.' "
They were the last words anyone in Stabler’s family heard him speak.
"I knew that was it," Bush said. "I knew that he had gone the distance. Because Kenny Stabler was never tired."
The day after Stabler died on July 8, a victim of colon cancer at age 69, his brain was removed during an autopsy and ferried to scientists in Massachusetts. It weighed 1,318 grams, or just under three pounds. Over several months, it was dissected for clues, as Stabler had wished, to help those left behind understand why his mind seemed to slip so precipitously in his final years.
On the neuropathologist's scale of 1 to 4, Stabler was diagnosed with high Stage 3 chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or C.T.E., the degenerative brain disease believed to be caused by repeated blows to the head, according to researchers at Boston University.
~snip~
Stabler, well known by his nickname, the Snake ("He'd run 200 yards to score from 20 yards out," Stabler's junior high school coach told Sports Illustrated in 1977), is one of the highest-profile football players to have had C.T.E. The list, now well over 100, includes at least seven members of the Pro Football Hall of Fame, including Junior Seau, Mike Webster and Frank Gifford.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Also video. Worth reading and viewing.
When are we going to steer our sons and grandsons to safer sports?
When will they learn that violence only begets violence?
and daughters/granddaughters??? Women’s soccer 2nd in concussions after mens football. We won’t know until it’s too late as girls playing at an early age , going on to high school then college is relatively new.
Kendra Stabler Moyes with championship rings belonging to her father.
Kendra Stabler Moyes, Stabler's oldest daughter, with her twin 17-year-old sons, Jack, left, and Justin, at their home in Scottsdale, Ariz.
Neural plaques are ubiquitous with age. Certainly physical trauma may contribute in some cases, but in no way can be considered the sole cause in age related dementia and molecular neural pathologies which occur in old age.
There’s too much hype and politics involved with this issue.
It seems nothing is not politicized, distorted and used for a purpose these days.
For all of human history we have done things for fame, glory and riches that we have known were quite dangerous.
Football is one of those things.
If you’re fresh out of college, going to make the cut into the big leagues and make huge money, most will take the chance over long life.
Whose fault is it? Football’s? No. It’s ours. The NFL is today’s gladiators.
The Snake was a great quarterback, may he rest in peace.
When are we going to learn that Stabler died of Colon cancer, not CTE?
There’s a risk with every sport. Football may be one of the roughest, but even a sport like baseball has had its share of tragedies.
Really enjoyed high school football, got to play against Earl Campbell when he was at John Tyler High School, they beat the daylights out of us - three of our defensive guys had concussions from him running over them. I still enjoy football a lot but had my son play soccer and baseball - still get beat up some but not nearly the same.
Caveat emptor.
Occupational hazard. The good thing is from now on people will know more about the health risks of playing full contact sports and better able to decide whether or not they choose to assume those risks.
My sister played soccer in high school - still has headaches the doctors attribute to heading the ball 30 years ago.
We enjoyed watching Earl Campbell (The Tyler Rose) immensely when we lived in Houston. He is really crippled up these days. I think he’s on the athletic staff at UT, but can barely walk. At least that’s the last I heard of him.
Stabler lived a full life
Did you read the article? It’s there in the first few paragraphs. The article also mentions that CTE cannot be diagnosed until after death, so it is unknown how many footballers really suffered from its effects.
Next to last paragraph. Good grief, the guy had Stage 4 colon cancer and they're surprised that he said he was "tired"?
Fred Dryer....what position did he play.? He is healthy, just heard him on kfiam out of la.
When are people going to realize they assume responsibility when they knowingly play a very physical sport that knocks you hard and often injures you?
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