Officials confirm CTE diagnosis as cause of death for NFL player Marshawn Kneeland
Heartbreaking new details have emerged about Marshawn Kneeland’s death.
After the Dallas Cowboys player died last November at the age of 24, researchers who performed a postmortem brain analysis found that he was suffering from stage 1 chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) at the time of his death. They also confirmed his cause of death was suicide.
“Unfortunately, I was not surprised to find CTE in Mr. Kneeland’s brain, as this progressive brain disease is found in nearly half of the athletes we study who die before age 30,” Dr. Ann McKee, director of the Boston University CTE Center and chief of neuropathology at the VA Boston Healthcare System, said in a July 7 press release. “Thanks to the generosity of brain donor families, we now have a better understanding of the early stages of CTE and are closer than ever to a lifetime diagnosis of CTE.”
The statement noted that Kneeland had been playing tackle football since he was 7 years old, and explained that degenerative brain disease, which occurs when repeated head trauma causes brain cells to die, remains a risk for football players despite modern safety measures, according to the Mayo Clinic.
