Kevin Turner Dies From ALS, NFL Does Not Give a Damn

[Jefferson23]

Kevin Turner played in the National Football League for eight years. When he died, the NFL said nothing. They could have started by asking for forgiveness.



Former NFL player Kevin Turner, left, speaks at a news conference in Philadelphia in 2013 after a hearing to determine whether the NFL faces years of litigation over concussion-related brain injuries. (AP Photo / Matt Rourke)

By Dave ZirinTwitter
Today 10:52 am

I first met Kevin Turner for an interview in New York City in 2011. At 42 years old, he walked into the room looking like a slightly older version of the top-shelf athlete that he was as a running back at the University of Alabama and during his eight-year career in the NFL. He had a shaved head, which thinly disguised his receding hairline, and some white in his mustache and stubble, but other than that, looked like someone who could credibly take the field the next day. Before the interview started, I couldn’t help myself. I said to him, “No one would ever look at you and think that you have been diagnosed with ALS.”

He smiled at me and took his hands out of his pockets and said, “Yeah, but there’s this.” His fingers were curled up into themselves, as if he was double-crossing both digits. He then demonstrated the amount of effort it took for him to pick up a pencil. Without an ounce of self-pity, he said to me, “This is just the beginning.” It was. Over the next five years, ALS robbed Kevin Turner of his bodily control joint by joint, yet he never lost either his fierce dignity or courage. In fact, Kevin Turner’s willingness to be as public as possible about the condition of his body and take on the NFL is really one of the more courageous acts we’ve seen in this sports world. He said to me, “I am very confident that head trauma—concussions—play a part in ALS symptoms. Maybe we can get to the point where we can say who may be predisposed to ALS if they have a lot of head trauma.”

Turner was then lead plaintiff in a lawsuit levied against the league, which resulted in a $765 million class-action settlement. Some players believed that this amount was not enough, but Turner argued that to appeal it meant that people in his situation, dealing with crippling medical bills on a regular basis, would leave this world before assistance could help their families.

Now Kevin Turner is dead, and his passing really does make me wish fiercely for an afterlife. Not only because he was a beautiful person, but because there are people we should want to meet their maker and explain what the hell happened to Kevin Turner as a result of malignant institutional neglect. There is NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, the sort of person who will do the ice-bucket challenge to fight ALS, while denying the very clear science showing that there is a connection between CTE and the crippling disease; a man who when asked about the dangers of football earlier this year smirked and said, “There’s risk in sitting on your couch.”

in full: http://www.thenation.com/article/kevin-turner-dies-from-als-nfl-does-not-give-a-damn/

[SoLeftIAmRight]

1. RIP KT

ROLL TIDE

[LoisB]

2. R.I.P. Kevin.

[Baobab]

3. When every baby is born, they should collect their umbilical cord blood

and freeze it in liquid nitrogen. because its quite possible those cells, a person's own cells, which have only divided a very few times, could later on in life be used to repair serious injuries like brain trauma.