NFL plans to fund research in TBI football victims
John Mackey was a tight end for the Baltimore Colts (1963-1971) and San Diego Chargers (1972), five-time Pro Bowler, Member of the National Football League (NFL) 1960s All-Decade Team and the second tight end to enter the NFL Hall of Fame. He has frontotemporal dementia, a degenerative disease caused by the rapid deterioration of the frontal and temporal lobes of the brain, which Mackey injured on a goal post while playing professional football. Each year in the United States, about 300,000 athletes experience sports-related traumatic brain injuries. In the NFL, approximately 100 players suffer concussions resulting from collisions averaging 98 times the force of gravity. The issue of safety, brain injury, and athletics is in the spotlight, much due to action by the families of NFL veterans. The league has begun to take responsibility for the declining health of its players. When Mackey's wife, Sylvia, wrote to then-NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue about the financial burden that can result from the rapid decline of retired players'health, the league and the NFL Players Association responded by creating the "Number 88 Plan." Named after John Mackey's jersey number, the plan will pay up to $88,000 for each former player's treatment of assorted types of dementia.
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