This is not a sports story, not in the usual sense. It’s not even a story about Duerson primarily. It’s a story about American football as a workplace.

In an earlier story about the coming NFL lockout, which included an interview with The Nation‘s sports reporter Dave Zirin, we noted:

▪ The typical player lasts 3.4 years, comes from a poor (and I would add, under-educated) background, and dies 22 years before the average American male. ▪ Zirin’s point (at 4:05 in the interview) that the players are both the labor and the product, both the chef and the steak being served, is striking. I’ve never seen that said before, and I think he’s right. Note that the steak is consumed.

Now comes Duerson, who leaves us in unusual circumstances. Up until a few years ago, Dave Duerson’s life was a real success. From Irish Sports Report (subscription needed; my emphasis throughout):

Duerson, 50, played at [Notre Dame] from 1979–82. He earned team MVP honors in 1982 and was a first-team All-America pick that season. The Bears selected him in the third round of the 1983 draft. After winning two Super Bowl rings with the Bears in 1986 and the New York Giants in 1991, Duerson served on Notre Dame’s Board of Trustees and was President of the Monogram Club.

This is not your bad boy of sports. Things started going wrong for him beginning about five years ago, which led to his suicide. Now note this:

The New York times reported that Duerson sent text messages to his family asking that his brain be examined for chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a degenerative disease linked to depression, dementia and suicide. According to an AP report, Duerson’s brain was expected to undergo studies looking for any disease or abnormality but would focus on CTE, which as been found in a number of former athletes.

Here’s more from that NY Times story referenced above:

As a longtime force in the N.F.L. players union, Duerson, 50, was keenly aware of chronic traumatic encephalopathy, the degenerative brain disease linked to depression, dementia and occasionally suicide among more than a dozen deceased players. He had expressed concern in recent months that he might have had the condition, said one person close to him who spoke on condition of anonymity. … Duerson’s request to have his brain examined for C.T.E., first reported by The Chicago Tribune, indicates how much acceptance of the disease has changed since it first made headlines in January 2007. That month, it was found in the brain tissue of the former Philadelphia Eagles player Andre Waters, who also had committed suicide.

Lou Somogyi, senior editor at Blue & Gold Illustrated, a Notre Dame sports publication, notes (hard-copy only):

Gradually, though, in the last several years he became agitated and frustrated with blurred vision, headaches, memory lapses, and he spoke to friends specifically about a pain on the left side of his brain. … Suddenly [he] could not spell the simplest of words or recall an elementary detail, according to a Feb. 26 Chicago Tribune report.

Duerson must have known what was ahead for him. It’s not lost on those who knew him that he put the fatal bullet in his chest, not his head. CTE can only be tested posthumously, by studying brain tissue.

To which LA Times writer Bill Dwyre adds simply:

Dave Duerson’s suicide could be a turning point for NFL

Listen again to Sam Seder’s interview with Dave Zirin, linked above, and keep in mind, again, that NFL players earn football money for less than four years. In addition, they die 22 years earlier, on average, than the rest of American males. Duerson was 50.

I’ve been a football fan my whole life, but I would never let my children play the game, at any level. It pains me to ask this, but I must — Should American football be legal?

God bless you, sir.

GP