Kansas City News Blog

Kyle Turley

​A month ago, three NFL players became the first active players to donate their brains and spinal cord tissue to Boston University's Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy, a collaboration of the Sports Legacy Institute and BU's medical school to study the effects of repeated concussions.

Baltimore Ravens center Matt Birk, Seattle Seahawks linebacker Lofa Tatupu and Arizona Cardinals receiver Sean Morey all promised their brains and spinal cord tissue to the center after they die.

The Associated Press reported in mid-September that the center counted 150 former athletes (including 40 retired NFL players) as donors.

One future donor is former Kansas City Chief Kyle Turley, who retired after the 2007 NFL season.

Turley tells The Pitch that he's donating his brain because there hasn't been enough study on the effects of traumatic brain injuries, which he says he experienced in his 10 years of professional football.

"Nobody has really taken it on like these guys have," Turley says. "That's why I committed to give my brain to these guys. ... There needs to be more knowledge gained from the results of playing contact sports ... and dealing with head trauma."

Turley cites the stories of former Philadelphia Eagles defensive back Andre Waters (suicide; a study of Waters' brain showed the tissue resembled an 85-year-old Alzheimer's patient) and Justin Strelzyk (who died after leading police on a chase that ended with Strelzyk crashing into a tanker truck; watch the ESPN videos here and here). He even mentions wrestler Chris Benoit (who murdered his wife and child and then committed suicide; a study of Benoit's brain also revealed damage similar to an 85-year-old Alzheimer's patient).

"At such a young age, their brain basically is in the shape of an 80-year-old man experiencing Alzheimer's, dementia and all kinds of things," Turley says. "When you start dealing with those types of issues, life gets pretty serious pretty quick."

Playing in the trenches on the offensive line, Turley was hit on every play.

"When collisions in football are related to car crashes, when you start adding up how many plays you've run over a 10-year career, that's a lot of plays. That's a lot of car crashes."

​Turley lists off injury after injury. His shoulders. His knees. Memory lapses. Herniated discs. People still tell him, "You look like you could still play football."

"I might look fine, but I am not fine," Turley says.

But what may be most concerning is that Turley says he was hospitalized about a month ago after passing out and having "seizure-like convulsions." Turley told Yahoo! Sports that he was listening to music at a club near his Nashville home when he passed out. When he regained consciousness, he began throwing up and experiencing vertigo. His wife, Stacy, rushed him to a hospital, and Turley told Yahoo! that he was in and out of consciousness.

"When I was playing ball, I had those things come up and the trainers and doctors would be like, 'Kyle, come into this room and lay down and go to sleep. We'll go to practice and wake you up when we're done.' It's like, 'What if I died in that room? You didn't treat my injury.' They didn't know. They had no clue."

Turley says trainers and doctors in the NFL don't have the players' best interests at heart. He says management and coaches pressure players to play hurt. And since players don't have guaranteed contracts, teams can cut them at any time. It's so evident after seeing this clip from HBO's Hard Knocks with the Cincinnati Bengals. 

"In football, you're just pressured constantly to get back on the field," Turley says. "'Are you injured son or are you hurt? There's a difference.' Those are the words that are just rampant through football locker rooms. ... You can play hurt. Sometimes concussions fall under those categories where you weren't knocked out. 'You're all right. Go ahead. Go back out there and bash your skull around some more.' There's been some sad cases where adults have died and some kids have died tragically."

Turley's had concussions that knocked him out  -- one bad one while playing for the St. Louis Rams -- and sent him to the hospital.

"I was full-blown knockout concussion, and I had no idea where I was," Turley says. "They put me in the locker room, directed me to get my clothes on and went and got my wife because I had no idea where she was or how to get out of the room or anything."

After the team dumped him on his wife, Turley says he was acting drunk in the hallway of the stadium. Former teammate Joe Johnson saw him and helped Turley's wife find a cop and get him to a doctor.

"The team was just going to let me walk home," he says. "It's shit like that puts it in near criminal stance. But our collective bargaining agreement by our so-called union has allowed this to occur. And it's going to continue to happen unless there are regulations put into place and there's consequences."

Getting knocked out was probably better for him than the concussions that went undiagnosed.

"Those little small concussions can be worse than the big concussions because you don't realize that you had a concussion," Turley says. "You got dinged, but you're still moving ... but your brain is in a very vulnerable state at that time. That's when it's at its most vulnerable state -- post-concussion."

Turley estimates that he's maybe had a handful of undiagnosed concussions. He's seen it with other players too.

​Turley recalls sitting in the cold tub after a game while playing for Kansas City. He remembers seeing Richie Scanlon pass out in the 45-degree water and trying to wake him up. Scanlon had cracked open his nose, and Turley believed the guy had a serious concussion after seeing him get blasted on a special teams play. 

"Man, I'm fine," Scanlon kept telling him. "I'll be fine."

Scanlon didn't want to go the the hospital. But Turley called out the trainer, telling him that Scanlon had a concussion. Turley threatened to report the situation if the trainer didn't get Scanlon help. They heeded Turley's warning, and Scanlon ended up staying overnight in a hospital.

Turley isn't sure what his future health will be like.

"Who knows, man," he says. "You never know. Hell, you could walk out the day and get run over by a bus so ... while I'm here, I'm going to do whatever I can to help others in every situation I can and this is one of them."

Chris Nowinski

​The Sports Legacy Institute, which is co-chaired by Chris Nowinski, who played college football at Harvard and wrestled professionally for WWE (and whose wrestling career ended due to a concussion), studies the degenerative neurological condition these players have experienced, which is called Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE). Through the study, Nowinski says his group will get an idea of the risk factors, how the disease progresses, the symptoms and potential treatements.

"Two thirds of the brains that we've looked at have died in accidental situations, meaning suicide or car accident or drug overdose," Nowinski says. "And we believe that the disease contributes to that. You're much more likely to die in a bizarre way because you start losing control. Other ones have died in nursing homes after 10 years of dementia." 

Nowinski says there needs to be "a full culture chage on head injuries in sports."

"The way we're treating our brains in the last few decades is killing people. We've yet to find an NFL player in our study that hasn't had the disease."

Nowinski advocates better enforcement of helmet-to-helmet hits and a reduction of contact in practice (fewer full-contact drills). "You cut your blows the head in half and still have a quality team and players who know how to play the game," he says.

But the players need more education.

"Studies will show that the reason concussions aren't reported, the No. 1 reason, is athletes don't know that they're serious injuries," Nowinski says. "They don't understand the consequences of not reporting them. So when concussions do happen, you minimize the damage."

In professional wrestling, taking fewer bumps and fewer falls from high places would cut the number of concussions.

"The idea of going off the top of the cage into the ring may actually be as stupid as it looks," Nowinski says. "You cannot slow down the trauma to your brain. Your brain absorbs a ton of trauma. Even if it's not concust, it's a high level of trauma that didn't used to exist in the wrestling industry."

Nowinski calls today's WWE "an extremely unsafe workplace."

"Everybody who got black lung going into the mines and died knew they were going into the mines," he says, "but they didn't know the full consequences.The only way to get real change is for the McMahons to get out of the business or for the federal government to come in and declare it an unsafe workplace."