a real moral quandary

[bags27]

really, really sobering. goes to the heart of how we judge/blame/understand/even forgive people who have committed horrible acts. I have lots of complicated feelings about this. After all, he also did angel dust from when he was at least 20, but maybe he was already self-medicating for CTE. And he was supposedly a great kid (and befriended by the Auriemmas) until his father suddenly died when he was 16. A tragedy all around.

Hernandez had advanced stages of CTE in brain

 

[j66kicker]

To me part of the moral quandary is that the justice system values human life by the person's earning potential if he were still alive. If the suit says the Patriots and the NFL should have warned him that football was dangerous (presuming he didn't already know this - hmmmmm... because he had an IQ below 50??? ), then wouldn't the assumption be that he would not have played had he been warned? If he didn't play, then he wouldn't have gotten any multi-million $$ contracts. So how would his life be worth $20 million if the NFL had "done the right thing"?

 

[oldude]

While CTE's link to suicidal behavior is well established, any link between CTE and violence towards others is far from proven. The most disturbing new element of this story is that Hernandez attorney will now sue the Patriots and the NFL, supposedly on behalf of Hernandez daughter.

I hate to be so cynical, but I'm not at all surprised that this all boils down to money.

 

[DaddyChoc]

He still killed Oden...

Junior Seau didnt kill anyone, but himself

 

[cbraarj]

Aaron was opposite from his brother and had problems before his father died. Jonathon was reserved, responsible and hard working kid growing up. Aaron was a great natural athlete that was doing drugs from the beginning of HS. His father and uncle played at Uconn with another Bristol resident named Rocco Testa. They were close all their lives. They broke into houses around Storrs the whole time they were there. Testa along with his uncle, Gary Castonguay were breaking into houses during the day in Plainville, Ct. They were seen and police were called to the neighborhood. Police Officer Robert Holcomb was shot and killed that day! Castonguay is still in jail and Testa did 5 years for cooperating. he has been in and out of jail half his life. Holcomb was killed about 35 years ago. He said his Uncle shot him but everyone that knows them believes it was Testa including myself. Aarons father and uncle were always in fights in their teens and twenties and would team up to beat up one person. I seen it a number of times and with Testa joining them. This is what aaron grew up with and he was around gangs by his Freshmen year of HS! IMO this is just about money and they will try to get it by any way possible!

 

[bags27]

really interesting background, cbraarj. Obviously you know a great deal more than is presented in the media, which always seemed to have suggested that Aaron's life suddenly changed with the death of his father.

Sure, this is all about money for the estate. But this doesn't change the fact of the diagnosis or our attempts at understanding why a guy sitting on a $40M contract would risk it all.

And while Junior Seau--a great player and an ever greater person--never killed another human, at the time of his suicide he was separated from his family who implied afterwards that now they understand his erratic behaviors. I think there are probably a great number of domestic violence cases (short of homicide) that have CTE behind them. We aren't even in the early stages of understanding the various manifestations and issues behind this affliction.

 

[j66kicker]

So... Since Brittany Jackson, Chamique Holdsclaw, Glory Johnson and Tyler Summitt are stains on Pat's legacy, is Aaron Hernandez a stain on the legacies of Urban Meyer and Bill Belichick, who knew all about him before they got involved? (At FL Meyer even assigned Tim Tebow to be Aaron's roommate and try to straighten him out, but Tim finally reported back that there was nothing he could do - hopeless case.)

 

[huskyd]

Lawyers were created to keep folks from taking responsibility for their actions. The Hernandez family is now suing the NFL for culpability in Aaron's death by suicide. They shouldn't get a nickel. Any athlete who plays a contact sport, especially one with an accumulating record of debilitating brain injury like football, must understand the risk. Same for boxers. You don't even need scientific evidence of likely injury to guess that constant trauma to the head (and other parts) is likely to result in something bad. Any professional athlete who chooses to play a contact sport implicitly accepts the risk and should not complain (in the absence of negligence on a team's part) about the outcome.

Someone on the BY noted the passing of Jake LaMotta at 95—amazing longevity for a boxer. Not sure if there was an autopsy, but LaMotta's specialty was playing “possum” by letting his opponent bang him in the head for 8 rounds or so and then exploding into an all-out attack. Muhammed Ali used a similar tactic with his “rope-a-dope.” Ali now suffers from Parkinson's, though there is no established connection between that disease and trauma-induced brain injury. Many suspect that if his Parkinson's was not caused by boxing, it certainly wasn't helped by it.

Now the question is: are fans of football and boxing complicit in the injury and death of athletes by supporting these violent sports? Responsibility is a puddle capable of expanding outward.