‘Football Media, Courts Still Not Tackling Lesson of Dave Duerson Suicide’ … today at Beyond Chron

Six months after Dave Duerson put a bullet through his own chest, the annual national brain trauma toll mounts again, from the National Football League all the way down to the peewees. Meanwhile, the mentally flabby sports media continue putting out the same sugar-coated message: that we should become more “aware” about concussions, and that pro football players should emulate Duerson by donating their brains for research – as if Duerson, who spent his late life denying others’ claims of concussion syndrome, personally invented chronic traumatic encephelopathy.

Here’s a better idea. Next month, in federal court in Maryland, there will be a pretrial hearing in a case against the NFL retirement plan by Andrew Stewart, who played linebacker for the San Francisco 49ers and two other teams from 1989 to 1993, and whose application for increased disability benefits had been rejected. Stewart’s lawyer wants the court to examine the work of NFL Player Care’s joint owner-players’ union board of trustees – which included Duerson.

CONTINUED TODAY AT BEYOND CHRON, THE SAN FRANCISCO ONLINE NEWSPAPER:

http://www.beyondchron.org/articles/Football_Media_Courts_Still_Not_Tackling_Lesson_of_Dave_Duerson_Suicide_9447.html