Frank Gifford’s family announced Wednesday that the Hall of Fame player and broadcaster suffered from the effects of brain trauma before his death earlier this year.
Frank Gifford suffered from CTE before his death
Gifford’s family announced that a study of his brain showed the debilitating disease.
Brad Penner-USA TODAY Sports
“While Frank passed away from natural causes this past August at the age of 84, our suspicions that he was suffering from the debilitating effects of head trauma were confirmed when a team of pathologists recently diagnosed his condition as that of Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) -- a progressive degenerative brain disease,” the family said in a statement. “We decided to disclose our loved one’s condition to honor Frank’s legacy of promoting player safety dating back to his involvement in the formation of the NFL Players Association in the 1950s.”
The statement said that Gifford had studied the repetitive brain trauma issue in his later years, and recognized the symptoms as things he was experiencing. That led him and his family to the decision to have his brain examined after his death for signs of CTE.
“We appreciate the Gifford family’s desire to help the medical community understand more about CTE, and we are grateful for their support of the league’s efforts to improve safety in our game,” NFL commissioner Roger Goodell said in a statement. “At the NFL, we are supporting grants to NIH and Boston University as well as other independent efforts to research the effects of repetitive head trauma. ”
While Gifford probably sustained many of the minor head traumas that players experienced constantly in the 1950s and 1960s, he also suffered one of the era's most famous major head injuries. In a 1960 game against the Philadelphia Eagles, he was knocked unconscious by Chuck Bednarik and sustained such severe damage that he sat out the entire 1961 season.
He returned to the New York Giants in 1962, but switched positions from running back to flanker in order to avoid more hits to the head. He retired in 1964 and moved directly into the broadcast booth, where he spent 27 years announcing Monday Night Football.
Passing of an NFL Great
Gifford is one of hundreds of NFL players who have decided to have their brains studied for CTE after their deaths. Earlier this year, a PBS documentary reported that 87 of the 91 former NFL players who had donated their brains showed signs of CTE, and the Boston University CTE Center has signed up more than 150 athletes, including current and former NFL players, to donate their brains after death.
Other players, most famously Hall of Famer Junior Seau, have donated their brains to the National Institutes of Health, which are leading governmental research into CTE in both athletes and members of the armed forces.
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