The Life and Death of a High School Football Player Killed by Concussions
Keeping a journal as he suffered from CTE, Zac Easter hoped his story would save the lives of others.
Originally appearing in its January 2017 print issue, GQ took to its digital pages today to publish its tragic story on the life and death of Zac Easter — a young man that documented his struggle with football-inflicted CTE just before taking his own life on December 19, 2015. CTE, or chronic traumatic encephalopathy, is a progressive degenerative disease found in people who have had a severe blow or repeated blows to the head. It is most commonly found in professional athletes participating in American football, rugby, ice hockey, boxing, and the like. The stages of CTE go from disorientation, dizziness and headaches, to memory loss, social instability, impeded speech, tremors, vertigo and thoughts of suicide. Many high school, college, and professional footballers have died as a result of CTE and the concussions they experienced during their career, and has since become a hot topic in the world of sport.
This particular story, as told through the short documentary above, is a particularly heart-wrenching one, as Easter kept a journal while battling the effects of CTE, a disease he developed after experiencing multiple concussions during his high school football career. Even in death, Easter wanted his story shared with athletes around the world with the hope of saving at least one life with his words.
The Easter family has launched a nonprofit called CTE Hope with the goal of spreading education and awareness about head injuries, as well as to support research around concussion prevention and treatment of head trauma. To learn more or donate, visit www.cte-hope.org.
Read the full story here.
