Kosta Karageorge was a 22-year-old senior living the dream. Playing the sport he loves, on a team contending for a national championship and just months away from graduation, the 6-5, 285 pound defensive tackle was just days away from Thanksgiving and a long-awaited rematch with bitter rival Michigan — the most anticipated game of the year. However, it was what Karageorge did — or what happened to him — beforehand, that no one anticipated.
After disappearing early Wednesday, and long after a thorough search throughout the Columbus campus, the Ohio State football player was found dead Sunday inside a dumpster with a gun and apparent self-inflicted shot to the head. They needed his tattoos to help confirm his identity.
Karageorge never played a single down for the Buckeyes or even made the travel roster for that matter, but the three-year wrestler was a first-year walk-on for the team and was of course apparently close with some of his teammates. Head coach Urban Meyer called Karageorge’s death an “incredible tragedy.”
But beyond the shock, the tragedy, and general tear-evoking ire that emerges when a life is taken way too soon are the stories emerging surrounding Karageorge’s recent mental health following numerous concussions.
According to many sources, the police report says Karageorge’s mother told authorities her son had concussions and spells of confusion. The most alarming moment coming Wednesday at 1:30 am in a text from Karageorge to his mother that read, “I am sorry if I am an embarrassment but these concussions have my head all f***ed up.”
Karageorge’s sister reportedly told authorities her brother complained of a serious concussion suffered this fall, while also stating he’s probably had four or five throughout his athletic career.
So what do concussions and suicide have to do with one another? In case you are unfamiliar, the simple answer is that they could be directly related. And what’s scarier is that Karageorge isn’t the first and most likely won’t be the last to suffer from the correlation. Hell, he’s not even the youngest to do so.
CTE stands for chronic traumatic encephalopathy. It’s basically degenerative brain tissue that results from reptititive brain injury. It’s entirely unpredictable as to what part of the brain it will affect, but it’s safe to say that CTE could affect any part of your bodily health, mental or physical, considering your brain controls everything about you — which includes your mood and logical reasoning.
Boston University says that CTE has been known to affect boxers since the 1920, however it wasn’t until recently researchers have discovered the disease in football players. They say that changes in the brain could begin months, years or even decades after the last brain trauma and that those changes include “memory loss, confusion, impaired judgment, impulse control problems, aggression, depression, and, eventually, progressive dementia.” It has recently been found in nearly 80 percent of former pro football players.
Boston University goes into more detail here.
But again, what’s even scarier is that Karageorge isn’t the first, and isn’t even the youngest to die in recent years — that is of course if he did in fact suffer from CTE.
Here is an 18 year old John Doe who died with CTE – Boston University CTE Center
A 21-year-old Penn football player hanged himself in 2010; he had CTE – New York Times
A 17-year-old Kansas high school senior who did in 2012 with CTE – CNN
And there is an incomplete yet still impressive list of former NFL players who have suffered from CTE here. The list includes Mike Webster and Junior Seau.
According to USA Today, Julian Bailes, a neurosurgeon with the NorthShore Neurological Institute out of Chicago, said it’s too early to know whether or not Karageorge suffered from CTE.
“It’s somewhat conjecture to think that’s what led to his (apparent) suicide. We just don’t know. He is certainly not the typical CTE guy, only in college and so forth. So you don’t know.”
The NFL is currently trying to settle on what is expected to be a multi-billion dollar concussion lawsuit. The NCAA set aside $70 million for a ‘medical monitoring,’ fund after it was determined that football players are three times more likely to develop CTE.
Kosta Karageorge was living his dream. Unfortunately it was his success in accomplishing that dream that turned his life into a nightmare. What’s worse is that the alarm clock should have been going off a long time ago.
Josh Helmuth is the editor of CraveOnline Sports.
