On concussions in high school football and the future of the sport:

Rollinson then leans forward in his chair, as if he’s about to tell me a secret. “Look, most of my players aren’t going to play ball for a living,” he says. “I know they don’t want to hear that, but it’s the truth. So there’s really no reason they should risk messing up their brain.”

On Dave Duerson and the Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy:

The areas of Duerson’s brain in which she found the accumulations of tau matched perfectly Alicia’s description of his deterioration: there was damage visible to the inferior and dorsal frontal lobes that are crucial in regulating impulsive behaviour, and in the amygdala, which controls emotions such as rage. “With this kind of injury I would expect the person to display exaggerated and at times assaultive responses,” she says.

Chris has since learned what Dave was concealing: That he was bankrupt — with no income and heavily in debt — and facing legal action from his ex-wife, brother, and sister. That his lavish South Florida lifestyle was secretly supported by his father’s modest estate. And that Dave, despite his braggadocio, was afraid he was losing his mind.

The definitive account.