Football Season’s All Fun and Games—Unless You’re Caring for Someone With a Brain Injury

It’s the season of a thousand tackles, touchdowns, and roaring crowds. High school football teams rule Friday night. Saturday is packed with storied college matchups, and Sunday and Monday nights are a television ratings bonanza for broadcast networks and the NFL. But for 27-year-old Welcome to Fairfax cast member Gavin “Mizzle” McNeill, every game is a painful reminder of the physical toll years of hard hits have taken on his father. “It’s sad to watch,” he says. 

Gavin’s father, 63-year-old Fred McNeill Sr., is one of the many former NFL players who have been diagnosed with dementia and chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a degenerative brain disease caused by head trauma. For most of the past five years, Gavin has been his father’s primary caregiver.

Fred McNeill Sr. began playing football as a kid growing up in Los Angeles. He earned a full ride to UCLA and was an All-American first-round NFL draft pick. McNeill Sr. then spent 12 years as a star for the Minnesota Vikings, where he helped take the team to two Super Bowl games. Over those decades of playing as a linebacker, McNeill Sr. suffered concussions and took countless little hits to the head that, over time, damaged his brain.

In September, the Department of Veterans Affairs Biorepository Brain Bank in Bedford, Mass., released the results of a study on the brains of 128 former football—high school, college, semiprofessional, and professional—players. Researchers found that the brain tissue of 101—roughly 80 percent—of the athletes tested positive for chronic traumatic encephalopathy. In recent years, the suicides of high-profile players with the brain disorder, such as former Chicago Bears safety Dave Duerson and legendary linebacker Junior Seau, have put the NFL’s concussion crisis in the spotlight.

More than 4,500 former players, including megastars like former Chicago Bears quarterback Jim McMahon and former Dallas Cowboys running back Tony Dorsett, are suing the NFL in a class action lawsuit. They allege that the league knowingly concealed the risk of concussions and their long-term effects on players’ health. The impending settlement of the suit does not require the league to admit any wrongdoing. However, beginning in 2013, the NFL began requiring that every game have a neurotrauma physician unaffiliated with either team on the sidelines.

Gavin, who launched the streetwear line Just Be Cool in 2010, says that initially caring for his father mostly meant keeping his dad’s life organized, such as paying his bills and ensuring he wore clean clothes and got exercise every day. But as the disease progressed, his father required more than someone who could make breakfast, take him to the doctor, or talk to him about his plans for the day.

“I saw his life just getting worse and worse,” says Gavin. “There became a point where he couldn’t drive, so he needed someone to get him from place to place and spend time with him every day.” After Fred McNeill wandered off while Gavin was in the shower one morning, Gavin knew it was time to hire a caregiver to stay with his dad during the day.

Gavin says he first began noticing that something was really wrong about eight years ago. His father had gone to law school while playing for the Vikings, and he practiced as an attorney after his departure from the team. “He started to become forgetful of the little things. He was having a hard time working. It just seemed like something was off,” explains Gavin.

Even though his dad insisted that nothing was wrong, Gavin and his mom had heard of other NFL players who were having similar problems. “This was very early on when [concussion-related head injuries] weren’t in the news. I noticed that they were having the same symptoms that my dad was having,” says Gavin. Once Fred McNeill Sr. was tested and diagnosed with dementia and chronic traumatic encephalopathy, the family immediately went into caregiver mode.

Although having someone there daily helped, Gavin says he and his family came to the tough realization that putting McNeill Sr. into a facility would be safer. The emotional day when Gavin moved his father in was filmed for Welcome to Fairfax.

“He needed 24-hour care, and we didn’t feel like we were able to completely provide that for him,” says Gavin of the decision. “We were also having trouble finding caregivers that we could afford that knew how to talk to him properly. It takes a certain trained person to understand the mind of a person with dementia. “

Gavin says he misses having his dad around every day, but he “realized that for five years of my life I was his caregiver first rather than being his son first. When we would go out, I wasn’t able to just go out and have a good time with him,” he explains. “I had to be his caregiver first, and now I am able to be his son and pick him up, have a good time, and just focus on being his son.”

Now that it’s football season, Gavin says it’s difficult to see players, like his father, “who have played pee-wee and then high school and then college and have hit their heads.” He says his dad and other older NFL players are just the beginning of an epidemic of players with brain trauma. That makes raising awareness of how dangerous football can be an uphill battle.

“Where do you start in trying to get every young kid in the U.S. to drop their dreams because of what right now seems like only a handful of players that have been affected?” asks Gavin. “Ten years from now, you’re going to have a lot more players [with dementia and chronic traumatic encephalopathy], and you’ll have a lot of kids who will walk away [from football] on their own. I think you’ll have a lot of players who will retire and say this was not worth it. I think it’s going to have to come from the players.”

As for other folks who are family members of someone who needs a caregiver or has a disability, Gavin has nothing but encouragement and empathy. “Just do your best, and don’t let anybody guilt you into feeling like you’re not doing your job,” he says. “Don’t be too hard on yourself, because it’s a lot of pressure to feel like you’re doing everything you can to take care of somebody you love. Just take it one day at a time.” 

Related stories on TakePart:

• Real-Life 'Jerry Maguire' Says NFL Concussions Are an Epidemic

• Former Football Star Goes Back to High School With Concussions on His Mind

• Is Keeping Kids Safe From Concussions as Simple as a High-Tech Sensor?

• Bullying in The NFL Is No Longer Incognito After Shocking Allegations

• Op-Ed: What’s Really Causing Most Traumatic Brain Injuries

Original article from TakePart