Chris Henry: Years Later

[Abe Sargent]

It's been a few years since Henry has died and since the report came from WVU hospital after researching his brain. Now that we have the benefit of hindsight, what do you think of Chris Henry now?


As a refresher, Henry was a WR of the Bengals who was regularly in trouble with the law. Drunk driving, giving minors alcohol, assaults and more happened on his watch. He was one of a few players that were regularly getting in trouble with the law and the league came down on them hard to send some messages. He was vilified in many quarters.


Then, in 2009, Henry tragically died after coming out of the back of a pickup truck. People honored him, and the league even gave him a moment of silence that week.


His brain was sent to West Virginia University for research, and a few month later, they announced that he had a condition called Chronic traumatic encephalopathy. This condition was likely due to multiple hits to his head, was the first appearance of it in a current NFL player, and since he had no history of concussions in college of in the NFL, brought about questions of how he had received it. This condition may have been a contributing factor in his off the field behavior issues.


So, with the benefit of hindsight and this information, and being a few years removed from the turmoil of his various issues, what is your assessment of Chris Henry today?

[Apathetic Lurker]

Still an ass

[PilotMan]

I guess it proves you still can't teach stupid.

[NorvTurnerOverdrive]

frontal lobe damage leads to all sorts of bad stuff. from anti-social behavior to sociopathy. it's a common diagnosis in serial killers.

that said, i believe:

a. he was dropped on his head as a child or
b. he was a screwed up kid (see: bryant, dez)

[JPhillips]

To me the tragedy was that he seemed to be getting his life on track. He made a lot of bad choices, but in his last couple of years he seemed to be more in control of his impulses. Terrible to see a young guy with a bright future die tragically.

That said, if I had a son I don't think I'd let him play football.

[MIJB#19]

Two whings jump out to me:" brain damage" and "drunk driving".

This to me sounds like it could have been part of the problem. It's a known fact that alcohol consumption causes brain damage and "drunk driving" could be a signal of excessive consumption. Perhaps EF27 is wiling to chime in on this?

[Abe Sargent]

Two whings jump out to me:" brain damage" and "drunk driving".

This to me sounds like it could have been part of the problem. It's a known fact that alcohol consumption causes brain damage and "drunk driving" could be a signal of excessive consumption. Perhaps EF27 is wiling to chime in on this?

That seems like a good question, so I went to wikipedia and looked up the condition he was diagnosed with . Here if the frist paragraph from wikipedia.


Chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) is a progressive degenerative disease, diagnosed post-mortem in individuals with a history of multiple concussions and other forms of head injury. A variant of the condition, dementia pugilistica (DP), is primarily associated with boxing. CTE has been most commonly found in professional athletes participating in American football, ice hockey, professional wrestling and other contact sports additionally on military service personnel exposed to a blast and/or a concussive injury [1], who have experienced head trauma, resulting in characteristic degeneration of brain tissue and the accumulation of tau protein. Individuals with CTE may show symptoms of dementia, such as memory loss, aggression, confusion and depression, which may appear within months of the trauma or many decades later.

[mckerney]

Two whings jump out to me:" brain damage" and "drunk driving".

This to me sounds like it could have been part of the problem. It's a known fact that alcohol consumption causes brain damage and "drunk driving" could be a signal of excessive consumption. Perhaps EF27 is wiling to chime in on this?

If it's CTE it's unlikely the cause was substance abuse.

[mckerney]

That seems like a good question, so I went to wikipedia and looked up the condition he was diagnosed with . Here if the frist paragraph from wikipedia.

Hockey Enforcer Bob Probert Paid a Price, With Brain Trauma - NYTimes.com (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/03/sports/hockey/03fighter.html?pagewanted=1&_r=0&ref=sports)

“How much is the hockey and how much is the fighting, we don’t really know,” said Dr. Robert Cantu, co-director of the Boston University center and a prominent neurosurgeon in the area of head trauma in sports. “We haven’t definitely established that the skills of hockey as a sport lead to a certain percentage of participants developing C.T.E. But it can happen to hockey players, and while they’re still relatively young.”

...

Cantu, while not speaking about Probert’s substance abuse specifically, also emphasized that “as of now, the medical community is not aware that any drug abuse, including alcohol, leads to” chronic traumatic encephalopathy.



If there is a connection it's more likely that mental problems from brain injury lead to substance abuse. Or he just made poor decisions like the so many other people without problems from brain injuries that get DUIs.

[claphamsa]

he was getting his shit together... so good for him. I would never let my kids play any contact sport. just stupid.

also, im wearing my Bengals #15 right now.

[MIJB#19]

If it's CTE it's unlikely the cause was substance abuse.Fair enough. Discard my suggestion. :)

[NorvTurnerOverdrive]

yeah, throw out my frontal lobe stuff too. the cte diag sounds spot on

[molson]

CTE has been found in almost every athlete brain that's been tested for it regardless of the cause of death, with one notable exception - Junior Seau. But other then him, it's either always there or almost always there - they've found it college aged kids. It's true, all these people died young, (albeit of various causes), so maybe there's some correlation there - though that's impossible to know for sure because you can't test for CTE in living brains. Still, my best guess from reading about this is that if you played football at any level, you probably have CTE. That doesn't automatically mean your doomed to fall off your girlfriend's car to your death, etc, but perhaps it increases your odds somewhat. And I don't think a CTE diagnosis is the smoking gun to explain all of person's flaws.

[TroyF]

he was getting his shit together... so good for him. I would never let my kids play any contact sport. just stupid.

also, im wearing my Bengals #15 right now.

See, I don't think it's contact sports. Basketball can be a contact sport. You can get concussions in baseball (There are thoughts Lou Gherig may have had a bunch)

What needs to be done is being smart about concussions and the long term effects. I don't care if your kid gets a concussion playing football, basketball or chess. . . be smart about it. Get him /her checked out. Follow the doctors advice, don't rush the kid back into the activity quickly. There are thousands of kids/adults who have played contact sports and not had concussion problems or shot themselves in the chest so their brains can be saved for research.

[kcchief19]

The outward symptoms of chronic traumatic encephalopathy will sound familiar to anyone who has experience with Alzheimer's disease and other dementias: memory problems, disorientation and difficulty concentrating are the earliest signs. As chronic traumatic encephalopathy progresses, people begin to show poor judgment, erratic behavior, significant memory loss and some degree of Parkinson's disease (impaired speech, difficulty with motor skills, slow movement and a loss of balance). In more advanced stages of CTE, patients experience tremors, full-blown Parkinsonism, a staggering gait, deafness and dementia.

It seems unlikely that given Henry's medical history that he had an advanced stage of CTE. It would seem unlikely that Henry would only display certain symptoms of CTE such as poor judgement and no other symptoms, notably physical symptoms.

"Poor judgement" and "being a jerk" aren't the same thing. Henry seemed to display the latter symptoms, not the former. There are plenty of people with CTE who don't get in trouble with the law, drive drunk, commit assault and other crimes.

It's a sad story anytime someone dies, so I don't want to dismiss it. And playing football may have played a role. But Henry display signs more associated with fame and privilege that can be found outside of sports and in entertainment, business and other fields.

I wouldn't make Chris Henry the poster boy for CTE. It seems like it's excusing his behavior. Even if Henry did have advanced symptoms of CTE, he was still responsible for his actions.

[panerd]

I know a few guys that act like Henry did and played zero contact sports in their life. I think he was just a punk and probably actually got the benefit of being a star at WVU and in Cincinnati which led to more poor decisions. And I am a huge Bengals fan so its not like I have it out for the guy either.

[molson]

They examined Chris Benoit's brain and said something along the lines of that it "resembled an Alzheimer victim's brains." Which Benoit's fans and apologizers really latched on to - they translated those findings as meaning Benoit didn't know or understand what he was doing. When in reality, Benoit was the farthest thing from an Alzheimer's patient you could imagine - up until he killed his family he was traveling independently every day, performing complicated physical activities in the correct order, ect. Taking account of his prior history, he just sounded like a regular-old domestic batterer to me. So I'm skeptical of excusing guys' actions because of these findings. Obviously, the ones with the actual diagnosis are all dead, so it's not like we can hold them accountable anyway, but I'm sure defense attorneys are already making sentencing arguments for their former high-school and college athlete clients who beat up their wives and girlfriends that reference the possibility of CTE

[RainMaker]

Haven't they found CTE in soccer players? I swear I remember reading an article said that soccer was extremely dangerous because of all the headers.

[NorvTurnerOverdrive]

yeah, not just headers but all the incidental contact in going for headers

[Abe Sargent]

Here's my take:


The brain doesn't work like we want it to. Everybody wants to know the cause of why something happens mentally. Here's how people want it to work:

Suppose I forget something. Now let's suppose that I have a 1% chance as a human of my intellect level of forgetting something. Whenever I roll a d100, when I get 100, I forget something. Okay,fine. Now let's suppose that the average human has an additional 1% memory decay after reaching the age of 35. So when I, a 35 year old, try to remember something, I now roll a d100, if I get a 99 its forgetfulness due to age, and on a 100, its due to normal forgetfulness. Now, with Huntington;s Disease ,let;s add another 2% forgetfulness right now. So when I roll those dice, 97-98 its HD, 99 its age, 100 its normal, and anything less I remember. All I have to do is check the dice to find out why I forgot something


But life is not D&D and the brain especially so. Things are contributing factors to something. When I forgot the job task in May that led to my being fired, it might have been age, normal forgetfulness, or HD. It's also likely that all three contributed to it.

When looking at anti-social behavior, its the same way. When someone has something such as CTE, and then they punch some guy at the club, why? We want a hard answer, and many on this topic have that view. It was because he was an ass, or because he was influenced heavily by CTE. But we can't know one way or the other. And in reality, it was likely both.

When a person who is born the child of alcoholics drinks, they often have a physical change in their body that makes them easier to become alcoholics. If they drink, and their body pushes them very quickly towards addiction, who's fault is it? The body or the mind? It's both. Both the physical nature of the addiction and their choices are at fault.

I don;t think CTE excuses anti-social behavior. And I don;t think someone with CTE is solely responsible for their actions either. I know we want to have this settled, but that;s not how things work. In reality, it's both. Both contribute to the action in question. One cannot be separated from the other.


EDIT (forgot my conclusion): So in conclusion, I think Chris Henry was responsible for his actions, but CTE was also responsible. I make no excuses for his behavior, but I understand and forgive it.

[NorvTurnerOverdrive]

i'm certain he was a screwed up kid but the whole -jumped in the back of a moving truck- smells of... not right (loss of inhibition or something)

[kcchief19]

EDIT (forgot my conclusion): So in conclusion, I think Chris Henry was responsible for his actions, but CTE was also responsible. I make no excuses for his behavior, but I understand and forgive it.
But how do you reconcile the apparent lack of physical symptoms with the apparent mental symptoms. Granted, there is so much we don't understand about the human mind, how it works and how it can be damaged. Diagnoses are not easy when the mind is involved.

I just have a problem with the idea that illegal, immoral and damaging behavior can be explained away by a medical diagnosis. The vast majority of people with Alzheimer's, CTE and other neurological diseases are law-abiding and ethical people. Lou Gehrig likely suffered from CTE rather than ALS, and his symptoms were classic -- declining physical and mental performance. But by all accounts he wasn't using drugs, beating up people or being a jerk of the world.

I can forgive any behavior that harms only yourself and not others. Situations where you are troubled mentally to the point where you will physical harm others and not be in control of your faculties enough to seek professional help are exceedingly rare. Nothing will make me forgive Chris Benoit.

[Abe Sargent]

But how do you reconcile the apparent lack of physical symptoms with the apparent mental symptoms. Granted, there is so much we don't understand about the human mind, how it works and how it can be damaged. Diagnoses are not easy when the mind is involved.





From wikipedia:



The individual may also progress through three stages of the disease. The first stage is characterized by its disturbances and psychotic symptoms. In the second stage of the disease the patient may suffer erratic behavior, memory loss, and the initial symptoms of Parkinson's disease. The final stage is full-blown dementia as well as symptoms related to Parkinsons disease.




So, there are often three phases of CTE, and the first does not often have physical symptoms. The first stage has psychotic symptoms, the second may have physical and increased mental ones, and the third is more physical. Thus, a person with CTE likely has impacted behavior without any physical symptoms showing.