Results of CTE study upholds Wilbur’s word of concern

Three and a half years after his death, John Wilbur this week helped give voice to the most compelling statement yet about the perils of repetitive head trauma in football.

Before his life ended in 2013 at age 70, Wilbur had spent a decade as an offensive lineman in pro football and served as an NFL Players Association representative and University of Hawaii assistant coach. He came to decry the terrible toll that chronic traumatic encephalopathy (C.T.E.), a progressive degenerative brain disease, took not only on him but so many former teammates and opponents.

In death he has remained an advocate for the understanding and prevention of CTE. Wilbur’s brain was among those of 111 deceased former NFL players — 110 of whom were determined to have CTE — in the largest, most comprehensive study yet compiled on the subject. Its findings were published this week in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

In addition, brains of Canadian League football veterans, semi-pros and others were studied. Of the overall 202 athletes studied, CTE was found in 87 percent.

Upon his death, Wilbur’s family had donated his brain to Boston University for research and determination.

Dr. Ann McKee, a neuropathologist and director of the CTE Center at B.U. which is said to have the largest CTE “brain bank” in the country, conducted the study.

Linemen, in part because there are more of them employed in a game and the frequency and ferocity of their collisions, were the position group with the most incidents of CTE.

In a suit filed five months before his death, Wilbur contended the NFL had researched head injuries but concealed the long-term impact from players. In his suit, Wilbur charged the NFL with negligence, fraud, fraud concealment, misrepresentation and conspiracy.

Wilbur, a graduate of Stanford and UCLA moved to Hawaii in the 1970s after playing for the Rams, Cowboys and Redskins. He joined The Hawaiians of the World Football in 1975.

He claimed he began showing signs of CTE in the 1990s with a progressive lack of ability to maintain and operate his real estate business. In addition, Wilbur alleged, he developed symptoms of depression, mood swings, anger management issues, disoriented thinking and poor judgment. He also suffered a stroke and cited pronounced short-term memory problems in his final years.

But the family “opted out” of an NFL settlement in 2014 to address a greater need, creating a legacy fund in his name that set up “Neuro-Huddles” in conjunction with the Hawaii Concussion Awareness &Management Program. The purpose has been to bring together experts in the field to discuss and disseminate the latest findings on CTE and its prevention.

After years of denial, only recently has the NFL begun to officially come to terms with CTE, acknowledging its dangers and promoting safer instruction at youth and other levels.

But some influential figures, including Dallas Cowboys’ owner Jerry Jones, claim to remain unconvinced.

Jones last year termed the connection “absurd.” Jones told the Washington Post, “There’s no data that in any way creates a knowledge. There’s no way that you could have made a comment that there is an association and some type of assertion.”

It is a claim that increasingly rings hollow in the face of the newest, mounting evidence to the contrary. You imagine Wilbur would have been proud to stand for that.

Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@staradvertiser.com or 529-4820.