Did Dave Duerson Commit Suicide For NFL Brain Research?

After experiencing early signs of dementia and other financial and familial hardships, former pro-athlete Dave Duerson took his life on February 18, 2011. However, it was his final, insistent request to have his brain donated to the NFL brain bank that raised a number of questions: was Dave Duerson's suicide a final act to shine a beaming light for greater research about sports-related brain injuries?

In the last months of his life, the 50-year-old former Chicago Bears safety had been experiencing difficulty in spoken and written word comprehension and had short-term memory loss that, according to his ex-wife Alicia Duerson, "got worse as time went on."

Though he spoke openly about NFL-related brain injuries, as well as his father's Alzheimer's and brain damage, the question remains whether or not Duerson's suicide is related to chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a degenerative brain disease recently found in a number of former pro-football players.

The disease, which has also been connected to the death of Cincinnati Bengals receiver Chris Henry, has been linked to depression, cognitive impairment and occasionally suicide.

Duerson noted in his final letter to family that he had been experiencing blurred vision and pain in the left side of his brain, insisting to his wife and son that his brain be donated posthumously to research. His brain will be examined over the coming months by doctors at the Boston University Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy.

Duerson's life, however, was not without its ups and downs. In an interview three months before his death with writer Rob Trucks, Duerson stated,

"OK, I consider myself strong and all of that. I'd lived the so-called celebrity life, and they considered me the golden child of my family. But, you know, I think they missed the part where I'm a human. And so that was profound. The flip of that is that I played into the plan God had. Every birthday and Thanksgiving, I will also remember saying goodbye to my parents."

"You know, people would ask me about longevity and all that. I would tell them I was going to die at 42. And I don't know what that was about, but, as it turned out, you know, I did suffer the greatest death, from my vantage point, two days before I turned 43. That was the death of my mom, you know, my absolute best friend, my biggest fan. But November 28th of '03, when I turned 43, I did realize I was likely going to make it to old age and so, from a mental perspective, I needed to get ready for things like a slowing gait and losing my step and failed health and all those types of things, whereas I'd always envisioned that I was going to go at the top of my game."

"In the NFL, I was ostracized from Day One - not by my teammates but by my defensive coordinator. I was drafted by the Bears in 1983. My first day walking into Halas Hall, I met Buddy Ryan. He knew I'd gone to Notre Dame, and he asked me if I was one of those doctors or lawyers. I said, 'Yes, sir.' He said, 'Well, you won't be here too long, because I don't like smart niggers.'"

To read the entire interview, click here.

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