Hard Hitting

• Author: Julianne Hill
• Pages: 16-18

The Docket

EDITED BY KEVIN DAVIS / KEVIN.DAVIS@AMERICANBAR.ORG

PHOTO BY JOHN PANELLA/SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

National

Pulse

Hard Hitting

Youth tackle football faces litigation over head injuries, along with

proposals to ban the sport altogether

By Julianne Hill

When he was 8 years old, Tyler Cornell

proudly put on shoulder pads and a big

helmet for the fi rst time as he joined

the Pop Warner Little Scholars football

team in Rancho Ber nardo, California.

For the next 10 seasons, his mother,

Jo Cornell, spent hours on the sidelines watching her

only child play peewee tack le football organized by

Pop Warner, the largest U.S. youth football league.

Her son loved the game and all that ca me with it—

the friendship, the teamwork, t he adrenaline rush.

He played for the Pop Warner team until he switched

to the high school team, where he played on the line ,

taking do wn countless opponents , enduring countless

hits to the head. R ight before leaving for the University

of California at Sa nta Barbara, Tyler Cornell changed.

He started str uggling with depression and anxiet y.

He became impulsive and moody. He’d start a semes-

ter only to be hospitalize d for mental health issues.

Eventually, he transferred to the Universit y of

California at Sa n Diego, which was closer to home.

But on April 3, 2014, after seven years of s truggles,

25-year-old Tyler died by suicide.

Like most football fan s in Southern California,

Tyler’s mother knew the story of San Diego Chargers

linebacker Tiaina Bau l Seau Jr., better know n as

“Junior Seau”—how the linebacker had years of erratic

behavior and how after the Ha ll of Famer’s suicide

researchers at Boston Universit y discovered he had

chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a brain di sease

caused by repeated blows to t he head.

Cornell k new Seau’s family was a mong the more

than 4,500 litiga nts in a federal class action again st

the National Football Leag ue over concussion-related

brain injurie s.

In her grieving, she wondered: Could her son have

had CTE, to o, as a result of playing tackle as a child?

Signs of CTE include depression, apathy, substance

abuse, di cu lty thinking, dementia, impulsive behavior

and suicidality.

A few months later, she met Kimberly Archie, who

lost her 24-year-old son Paul Bright Jr. after he reck-

lessly drove a motorcycle and cra shed just months

after Tyler died. Like Tyler, Paul also played for years

on a Pop Warner team through middle school.

Both played in high school but not in college. Both

struggled wit h erratic behavior and depression. Both

mothers sent their sons’ brains to the Bos ton University

researchers.

And both brains were found to h ave stage 1 CTE,

Pop Warner

teams in Florida

16 || ABA JOURNAL AUGUST 2018