By JOHN ROMAN
STAFF WRITER
On December 1st, the body of Kosta Karageorge, a twenty two year old defensive linemen for the Ohio State Buckeyes, was found in a dumpster just a few minutes from his apartment. The apparent cause of death: a self-inflicted gunshot wound. It was later reported that Karageorge had suffered from several football related concussions in close proximity, one approximately a month before his death, and had been unstable in the time before the incident.
The athlete’s family released a statement saying that before he went missing, Karageorge had sent a text to his mother saying, “I am sorry if I am an embarrassment, but these concussions have my head all fucked up.” Karageorge had been a wrestler at OSU for three years and walked onto the football team in August. According to his wrestling coach, he had never reported a concussion in his years on the team.
This incident, though not the first of its kind, is relatively uncharted territory for the NCAA (a Penn State’s players death was also linked to head injuries in 2010). It is still unclear why Karageorge was still practicing despite numerous concussions. NFL players and concerned onlookers have always cited concussions and head injuries in general as one of the main drawbacks of the incredibly popular sport. One of the most common conditions that develop as a result of head injuries is chronic traumatic encephalopathy, also known as CTE. In addition to football, the disease has been commonly found in athletes participating in boxing, ice hockey, and other contact sports. CTE has been linked with insomnia, depression, impaired judgment, and dementia, as well as a host of other complications. One of the difficulties in treating symptoms is that the disease can only be diagnosed after death.
Experts stress that one of the key indicators of CTE is multiple concussions suffered within a short amount of time, while the brain tissue is still recovering. It is unlikely that one concussion, if reported and addressed, will result in the condition. This is why the NFL has begun to take extreme caution in its concussion protocol. It was only recently that the detrimental effects of repeated head injuries were fully understood. Before, players rarely reported concussion-like symptoms unless they were blatantly obvious.
A postmortem examination of twelve NFL players was conducted between 2008 and 2010 and revealed that all twelve of them had CTE. This investigation revealed the shocking prevalence of the condition in players who had experienced multiple head traumas throughout their careers. Although the NFL has begun to take extreme precaution, it seems likely that NCAA could have done more to prevent the untimely death of Kosta Karageorge.