Writing Career
In October 2006, Nowinski released a book, Head Games: Football's Concussion Crisis, which details his career-ending injury and discusses the dangers of concussions in football and other contact sports. The book includes stories from National Football League players as well as fellow wrestlers, with an introduction by Jesse Ventura. Later in the year, Nowinski initiated an inquiry into the suicide of Andre Waters, a 44-year old former NFL defensive back who shot himself on November 20, 2006. Waters had sustained several concussions over his career, and at Nowinski's behest, Waters' family agreed to send pieces of his brain to be tested. Bennet Omalu, a pathologist at the University of Pittsburgh announced that "the condition of Waters' brain tissue was what would be expected in an 85-year-old man, and there were characteristics of someone being in the early stages of Alzheimer's."
Nowinski played an integral role in the discovery of the fourth case of CTE in a former NFL football player, former Pittsburgh Steelers offensive lineman Justin Strzelczyk, who was killed in a fiery automobile crash in 2004 at age 36 after a 37-mile police chase at speeds up to 100 miles per hour on the wrong side of the highway. Julian Bailes, the chairman of the department of neurosurgery at West Virginia University and the Steelers' team neurosurgeon during Strzelczyk's career, insisted to Nowinski over a phone conversation that he thought Strezelcyzk's death, which was precipitated by strange behavior that some had labeled as "bipolar", was worth looking into due to its similarities to the Andre Waters case. Nowinski contacted Omalu, who discovered the brain was still available, and Nowinski called Mary Strzelczyk, Justin's mother, to ask for permission to Omalu to examine it for CTE. Omalu's positive diagnosis was confirmed by two other neuropathologists.
Nowinski also collaborated with Ted Johnson, former New England Patriots linebacker, on symptoms of concussions after Johnson (who received over half a dozen concussions in his career) retired from the NFL after much controversy. Johnson was commissioned to write the foreword in Nowinski's book but at the last minute decided to pull what he had written.
Nowinski alerted police and the coroner of Chris Benoit, asking them to do a brain exam on Benoit's brain to see if concussions had any part in his rage or depression at the time of the double-homicide of his family and his suicide. In June 2007, Nowinski co-founded the Sports Legacy Institute, an organization dedicated to furthering awareness of and research on sports-related head injuries, and increasing the safety of contact and collision sports worldwide. Nowinski's work was documented on ESPN's Outside the Lines on September 5, 2007. On the same day, Benoit's brain examination report showed extensive damage due to concussions that could have led to dementia. To further the Sports Legacy Institute's mission, the Sports Legacy Institute and Michael Benoit, Chris' father, have started the Benoit Family Fund for Brain Injury Research.
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