Transcripts For KQED Frontline 20170823

You cant go against the nfl. They will squash you. Narrator now, part one of the awardwinning investigation, league of denial. Frontlinis made possible by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. Thank you. And by the corporation for public broadcasting. Major support for frontliis provided by the john d. And catherine t. Macarthur foundation, committed to building a more just, verdant, and peaceful world. More information is available at macfound. Org. Additional support is provided by ford foundation, working with visionaries on the front lines of social change worldwide, at fordfoundation. Org. The park foundation, dedicated to heightening Public Awareness of critical issues. The john and Helen Glessner family trust, supporting trustworthy journalism that informs and inspires. And by the frontline journalism fund, with major support from jon and jo ann hagler, and Additional Support from scott nathan and laura debonis. horns blowing erenberg touchdown listen to this crowd, theyre on fire the steelers have their key receivers in. Stallworth on the left, 82, swann, 88, on the right. Franco harris is now at the 30, big pileup. He fumbled the ball and lets see. Minnesota has it jeff siemon on it. Oh, yeah its still wild and woolly, and i love em that way. You love em wild and woolly and youre seeing it now. Impressive drive by the steelers. Everybody loves everybody when you win. The drive has used a lot of time. Heres a rollout. Bradshaw fires. Touchdown an awesome physical team were the steelers today. crowd chanting pittsburgh, the super bowl champs. Narrator pittsburgh. For 70 years, theyve loved their Football Team the steelers. This is a tough town. The people here are tough, toughminded. The way the steelers played the game meshed perfectly with the people. Hit him hit him they loved that hardhitting, punishing, brutal defense that they played. Narrator they called the defensive line the steel curtain. That just fit perfectly into the way they saw their own lives and what they had to be in order to survive. Narrator and if there was one iconic steeler, it was number 52, iron mike webster. Mike webster exemplified what it was like to be a player in the steel city and a player in that era that for me was the greatest team of all time. Pittsburghs going to the super bowl narrator in the 1970s, webster anchored four super bowl championship teams. Mike was a legend and a hero. He may have been the legend and the hero because heres that bluecollar Worker Center who doesnt get any glory, doesnt catch the touchdown passes, doesnt kick the 52yard field goal to win a game. Hes just in every play. I just loved watching him play. And mikes favorite games were the ones that were cold and snowy and frigid, and he could get up there with these short sleeves. And the dirtier and muddier it got made things better. Narrator then, 11 years after he retired, the people of pittsburgh received some bad news. At what price glory . The hall of Fame Center Mike Webster died at the age of 50. He died on tuesday. He was just 50 years old. He was known as iron mike. He had heart disease. Narrator the news that day would start a chain of events that would threaten to forever change the way americans see the game of football. It is hard to find a former pro Football Player whose body hasnt paid a very high price. Narrator mike websters body was delivered to the Allegheny County coroners office. Webster ends up in the autopsy room. And the pathologist whos on call that day is this guy, bennet omalu. Omalu parked his car and walked into the office and he said, whats going on . And one of his colleagues said, its mike webster. Hes up in the autopsy room. And omalus response was, whos mike webster . And everybody looked at me like, where is he from, is he from outer space . Who is this guy who doesnt know mike webster in pittsburgh . Hes a nigerianborn, incredibly welleducated guy, but he doesnt know anything about football. Narrator a doctor, omalu was also a trained neuropathologist. From the beginning of the autopsy, dr. Omalu could see the effects of 17 years in the football wars. Mike looked older than his age. He looked beat up. He looked. He looked worn out. He looked drained. If i had not been told his age, i would say he looked like 70. Narrator omalu started at the feet and worked his way up. There were cracks running the length of his feet and they were incredibly painful, and so webster would ducttape his feet as well to sort of close those cracks and keep them together. Narrator there were several herniated discs, a broken vertebra, torn rotator cuff and separated shoulder. His teeth were falling out. His body. He had cellulitis, his heart was getting enlarged. You know, he was supergluing his teeth back into his head, and he actually made that work. I mean, i think dads the only person who could actually have a medical problem like that and decide to fix it with superglue. Narrator then there was the matter of websters forehead. Websters forehead was essentially fixed to its scalp. The skin on his forehead had built up almost a shelf of scar tissue from the continuous pounding of his head into other people. Narrator websters death certificate made omalu suspect he may have suffered from a brain disorder. When i opened up his skull, in my mind, i had a mental picture of what his brain would look like based on my education. I was expecting to see a brain with alzheimers disease features, so a shriveled, uglylooking brain. But upon opening his skull, mikes brain looked normal. He didnt understand why that would be, but he became more and more curious. It became sort of like his little private mission. Narrator dr. Omalu wanted to fix the brain, preserve it in a chemical bath for further study. I said, let me fix this brain. Let me spend time with this brain. There is something. Something doesnt match. I remember the technician telling me, he said, what are you fixing the brain for . That brain is normal. And omalu becomes very firm in that moment, and he says, fix the brain. I want you to fix the brain. Narrator what omalu could not see was that hidden inside websters brain was evidence of a chronic disease. And that decision would change the nfl, because if websters brain had not been examined, i dont honestly think that we would be where were at today. Narrator Steve Fainaru and his brother mark fainaruwada are investigative reporters. Steve has a Pulitzer Prize for reporting in iraq. Mark broke the barry bonds steroids story. For frontline, espn and in their own book, theyve been investigating how the nfl has handled evidence that football may be destroying the brains of nfl players. I think in the simplest form, one major piece of our reporting just revolves around the simple question of what did the nfl know and when did it know it. Narrator the nfl would not cooperate with the fainaru brothers, nor would it talk to frontline. We went to new york to meet with them and say, look, this is what were doing. Wed like you to participate. Wed like you to make available these various people. And the nfls message was, sorry, were not going to help you. Narrator but they continued to report the story, beginning with mike websters career in the nfl. Theres almost a darwinian quality about the nfl. Webster wanted to prove to the world that he was going to be the toughest, and he did anything that he possibly could to do that. Narrator websters sunday afternoons were spent on the line of scrimmage, brutal territory known as the pit. He had violence in him. He could explode into the player. Every play was a fight. Narrator websters favorite weapon was his head. When he would fire off the ball, hes coming to block me, and if im not ready for him, you know, hes going to pancake me, you know, hes going to hurt me. Narrator hall of fame linebacker for the new york giants harry carson went to war with mike webster. And so i have to meet force with force. All of my power is coming from my big rear end and my big thighs into my forearm, and i hit him in the face. I have to stun him, get my hands on him, throw him off when i see where the ball is going. And when i hit him in the face, his head is going back. Hes going forward, but all of a sudden, his head is going back and his brain is hitting up against the inside of his skull. Narrator for mike webster, the head hits just kept on coming for 17 years. You have to survive, so you learn the methods to survive and be the best at surviving in that environment the minute you put your pads on. Youre only one play away from getting seriously injured. Narrator for webster and others on the field, physical injuries went with the territory. I mean, its affected my life, it surely has, but im not out there crying about it. I know that i went to war, and i came out of the battle with what i got. And you know, thats the way it is. Thats the way mike webster would say it too, im sure he would. I mean, we battled in there, and this is the result of it right here, sitting here looking at you. Narrator but what otto and others do not know is whether football has also caused injuries they cannot see the result of what they called getting their bell rung. Oh, did they hit him that time his helmet went off. I dont know how he held onto that. Sammy white, well, he did, a remarkable catch with skip thomas and jack tatum jackknifing him as he caught the ball for a first down on the oakland 45yard line. Narrator in 1991, mike webster left football. Soon, he and his family would come to believe those hits to the head had taken a devastating toll. Mike wasnt mike. He was angrier quicker than before and didnt have the patience to have the kids on his lap or take a walk with the kids, like he didnt have that stamina physically. Narrator over the years, he became increasingly confused. He would forget, you know, which way the Grocery Store was, which way it was to go home. He actually broke down in tears in front of me a couple of times because he couldnt get his thoughts together and he couldnt keep them in order. Narrator at home, there were bouts of rage. He took a knife and slashed all his football pictures. They were all destroyed and gone and broken glass, and they were all down. It wasnt mike. Narrator theyd been college sweethearts, but 27 years and four children later, mike and pam websters marriage ended. We didnt understand what was happening. Youre just trying to get by in this storm. I mean, your moneys gone, your prides gone, our bills are all overdue, our house is getting foreclosed, all the security is gone. All those parameters are removed. So everythings crumbling. Narrator once one of pittsburghs greatest football heroes, webster began living out of a pickup truck. Id come outside sometimes and just see him sitting in the truck and it would be freezing, and hed just be sitting there, looking miserable. Hed say, the worst thing is im actually getting to the point where sometimes, or if i dont have my medicine, he said, im cold and i dont realize that i can fix it by putting a jacket on. Narrator webster was often unable to sleep. He had a lot of pain and he hasnt slept for days, so he asked me, said, sunny, can you tase me . And im like, what does that mean . So he pulls out this stun gun and goes, bzz, bzz. Im like, mike, thats not healthy. He said, but i havent slept nothing. He said, all you got to do is tase me right here. And im like, okay. I dont know, you know, hes my hero, im going to do whatever he tells me. So i tased him and he goes to sleep. Im like, wow narrator for iron mike, tv interviews became impossible. No, im talking about. No, im trying to find. Yeah, well everybody went through trauma as a kid, im not saying i was different than that, im just saying. The things we do to one another, okay. Uh. Hell, i dont know what im saying. Im just tired and confused right now, thats why i say i cant really. I cant say it the way i want to say it. I could answer this real easy at other times, but right now im just tired. Maybe the saddest i ever heard him say was when someone saw my dad and said, arent you mike webster . And he said, i used to be. I think that was really how he felt, because he really was, he wasnt the same person. It was like a picture of him that was just shattered into a million pieces. Narrator nearly broke, homeless and losing his mind, webster decided football had hurt him, and the nfl was going to pay for it. In 1997, he went to see a lawyer. The thing that struck me the most was how intelligent mike was. And the problem was that he just couldnt continue those thought patterns for longer than a 30second period or a minute or two minutes. He would just go off on the tangents at that point. It was pretty obvious, actually, the first interview that he had some type of cognitive impairment. Narrator attorney Bob Fitzsimmons drew up a disability claim against the nfl. He began to assemble a case with webster to basically say that webster had suffered brain damage as a result of his 17year career in the nfl. Narrator fitzsimmons pulled together websters complicated medical history. So i took the binder of records and got four doctors together, four separate doctors, asking them, does he have a permanent disability thats cognitive, and is it related to football . Narrator websters final application for disability contained over 100 pages and the definitive diagnosis of his doctors football had caused websters dementia. His claim for disability was filed with the National Football leagues retirement board. They were fighting it from the beginning, against just the common sense of, heres this guy, look at him. He played for nearly 20 years in a brutal and punishing sport, and this is whats going on with him. Why would you fight that . What possible motive . Narrator the league had its own doctor review websters case. The nfl had not only hired an investigator to look into this, they also hired their own doctor and said, hey, we want to evaluate mike webster. Narrator dr. Edward westbrook examined him. Dr. Westbrook concurs with everything that the four other doctors have found and agrees that absolutely, there is no question that mike websters injuries are footballrelated and that he appears to have significant cognitive issues, brain damage, as a result of having played football. Narrator the nfl retirement board had no choice they granted webster monthly disability payments. Mr. Webster is currently totally and permanently disabled. Narrator and buried in the documents, a stunning admission by the leagues board football can cause brain disease. His disability is the result of head injuries he suffered as a Football Player. The nfl acknowledges that repetitive trauma to the head in football can cause a permanent disabling injury to the brain. Narrator the admission would not be made public until years later, when it was discovered by the fainaru brothers. And that was a dramatic admission back in 2000, and in fact, when you talk about that later with fitzsimmons, he describes that as the sort of proverbial smoking gun. Narrator it was now in writing the nfls own retirement board linked playing football and dementia. At the time, it was something the league would not admit publicly, and webster felt hed never received the acknowledgment that his years in the nfl had caused his problems. Mike would call this his greatest battle. Hed say it was like david and goliath, over and over, because it was. He was taking on something that was bigger than him. He took on this battle for the right reasons. He was the right person to do it. Unfortunately, it cost us everything. Narrator just two years later, in 2002, mike webster died. 15 seconds to air. Stand by all cameras. Ready with slowmotion. Narrator the first broadcast of monday night football in 1970 marked a turning point in the games popularity and its revenues. Take tape. upbeat music playing i think the nfl has done an incredible job at marketing itself and turning itself into a spectacle, a sort of cultural part of our lives. lively music continues it became an entertainment show. It became a happening. Are you ready for some football . A monday night invasion. Narrator the glory and the violence of football was beamed into tens of millions of american living rooms during primetime. Here come the hits, the bangs, the blocks and the spikes, cause all my rowdy friends drop in on monday night. People liked the violence of it. Oh you watch a pro Football Game and naturally, the biggest cheers are for the touchdowns, but the secondbiggest cheers are for a nasty hit. Narrator the nfls own highly crafted Film Productions celebrated the violence and the spectacle. classical piano playing on this down and dirty dance floor, huge men perform a punishing pirouette. players grunting the meek will never inherit this turf. players grunting . Because every play is handtohand and bodytobody combat. Nfl films captures the essence of football itself, that tension between the violence and the beauty. In the pit, there is more violence per square foot than anywhere else in sport. players grunting the sense of football as something powerful and elemental and mythic and epic. When you talk about big hitting safeties, the Eagles Brian Dawkins always emerges. Were gonna dominate this thing. Respect is not given, it is earned what the nfl would do was they would market tapes crash course, moment of impact, search and destroy in the context of describing the brutal nature of the violence of the nfl. Narrator but away from the glamorized hits, there was a darker side. Superagent Leigh Steinberg saw it firsthand. I watched athletes i represented play with collapsed lungs. I watched them completely fight with doctors at every time to get into the game. I watched players deceive coaches on the sidelines when they were injured and run back into a game. Narrator the inspiration for the movie sports agent jerry maguire, steinberg was a powerhouse alongside the new nfl. He was very much a creature of this expanding juggernaut of the nfl. He ends up at one point representing 21 quarterbacks in the nfl, 21 starting quarterbacks in the nfl one year. Narrator in the early 1990s, steinberg represented one of footballs top stars dallas quarterback troy aikman. Second and 14, passing down, coming up for aikman again. Narrator in 1994, during the nfc championship, aikman took a knee to the head. Down he goes. Stubblefield was there first. Troy aikman took a knee to the head. You see it right here. Its dennis brown coming in, you see the knee right there, knee right on his helmet. Narrator aikmans concussion was bad enough that he could not return to the game. Aikman was taken to a local hospital. I went to visit troy, who was sitting in a darkened hospital room all alone. The room is dark because aikman cant even stand looking into the light. Its this sort of surreal scene where the city is celebrating and the quarterback who won the game is in the hospital with his agent. He looked at me and he said, leigh, where am i . And i said, well, youre in the hospital. And he said, well, why am i here . And i said, because you suffered a concussion today. And he said, well, who did we play . And i said, the 49ers. And he said, did we win . Yes, you won. Did i play well . Yes, you played well. And so whats that mean . It means youre going to the super bowl. Five minutes later, theyre sitting there, theyre continuing to hang out, and aikman suddenly turns to steinberg and says, what am i doing here . And then next thing you know, they are reliving this conversation theyd had five minutes earlier. For a minute, i thought he was joking. And i went through the same sequence of answers again. And his face brightened and we celebrated again. Maybe ten minutes passed. And he looked at me with the same puzzled expression and asked the same sequence of questions. It terrified me to see how tender the bond was between sentient consciousness and potential dementia and confusion was. Third down and nine, young throws and thats incomplete. And. Down. Narrator 49ers quarterback steve young was another one of Leigh Steinbergs clients. A sight that is the last thing in the world the 49ers would want to see. It looks almost as if hes out cold. Well, ive been there. And there he is, hes up, thats a good sign. What i like is he wants to get up off the ground. Look at this. He looks like hes out cold and now hes walking off. I remember thinking as i walked to the sidelines, this is not good, you know . This is just not the right thing to happen. Narrator it was youngs seventh concussion. Thats a sight we thought would be impossible. Steve young apparently knocked cold, knocked out cold, walks off the field. Narrator he would never play again. If my knee is hurt, everyone knows it and i know it and we can go deal with it, and shoulders and. Theres only one place in your body that you really dont understand, and people always say the brain is the last frontier. Narrator for steinberg, there was a growing recognition of just how dangerous the sport was. The damage was occurring every week, and i had people who i loved and cared for. And i intuitively knew that this was not just a football issue, that it was happening to Football Players in the pros, it was happening in college, it was happening in high school. It was happening to every player in every collision sport. So not only was it an issue for my clients, it was a huge societal issue. We have put football injuries on the american agenda tonight. Playing with pain, increasingly the price of life in the National Football league. Weve heard so much recently on the danger of concussions in sports. This year, injuries in the National Football league may be out of control. Narrator by the mid90s, the concussion crisis had made its way to nfl headquarters on park avenue in new york city. Concern rapidly escalates of the longterm effects of taking hits to the head on the football field. Narrator nfl commissioner Paul Tagliabue orchestrated the leagues response. Obviously, its an athletic competition. Narrator and tagliabue said he was skeptical about the risk from concussions, once calling the controversy the result of pack journalism. Concussions i think is one of these pack journalism issues, frankly. There is no increase in concussions, the number is relatively small. The problem is its a journalist issue. This is the commissioner of the nfl saying that theres no concussion issue. If it was ignorance, they should have known. They should have known because the issue is so critical. Narrator still, tagliabue created a Scientific Committee, the mild Traumatic Brain Injury Committee the mtbi. To lead it, he chose elliot pellman, the new York Jets Team doctor, a Firm Believer that concussions were not a serious problem. And so you had this behind the scenes, this dynamic going on where you had a guy, elliot pellman, who very clearly believed that this wasnt a problem, it just wasnt a big problem for the nfl. Narrator to outsiders, the choice of pellman was unusual. He was not an expert in neurology and had no background in Brain Research. He went to a school in guadalajara. Dr. Pellman is not a neurosurgeon, hes not a neuroanything. Hes a rheumatologist. Putting a rheumatologist in the head of a committee that arguably was going to have more influence over Brain Research than any particular institution in the country at the time was, i think a lot of people felt, surprising. Narrator most of pellmans committee was made up of nfl loyalists. Nearly half the members were team doctors. If youre going to put together a Blue Ribbon Committee to study brain trauma, it should have as its chair somebody who has that as a background either a neurologist, neurosurgeon, neuropathologist, preferably a clinician. Narrator for years, pellmans committee would insist they were studying the problem, that the danger from concussions was overblown. The way the nfl handled this was for 15 years to do research that looks awfully like it was designed to say that the league was okay in doing what it was doing, which wasnt much, to protect players from the dangers of concussions. Narrator pellmans committee began writing a series of scientific papers, and in 2003, got the first of them published in the medical journal neurosurgery. Those initial studies from the nfl were notorious in telling the world over and over and over again, no, there is no relationship between hitting your head in football and later life problems. No, there is no relationship. Narrator the papers downplayed the risk of concussions. Mild tbis in professional football are not serious injuries. Narrator insisted that players could return to the same game after suffering a concussion. Return to play does not involve a significant risk of a second injury. Narrator denied players suffered any longterm problems from concussions sustained while playing football. That there was no evidence of worsening injury or chronic cumulative effects of multiple mtbis. Narrator and in one of the papers even suggested their research might apply to younger athletes, despite the fact they had not studied high school or college players. It might be safe for College High School Football Players to be cleared to return to play on the same day as their injury. They were making comments which were greatly at odds with prospective, doubleblinded studies done at the college and the High School Level that just werent finding the same things. And that just didnt make sense to anyone thats a scientist. Narrator dr. Robert cantu edited the journals Sports Medicine section. The papers were published despite his objections. The papers that started to make statements about multiple head injuries were not a problem in the nfl. If they went back into the same contest with a concussion, it didnt matter. If they got knocked out and went back into the same contest, it didnt matter, and there were no longterm psychological problems or cognitive problems in these athletes, in essence saying it wasnt a problem. Narrator dr. Cantu says he took his concerns to the journals editor in chief, dr. Michael apuzzo. Apuzzo was also a consultant for the new york giants. I said that i really think this data is flawed. I really think it shouldnt be published. Hes the one that made the decision to publish papers, no matter whether the reviewers felt they should be published or not, no matter whether the section editor felt they should be published or not. Narrator mark lovell was a member of the committee and an author on some of the studies. He now admits there were problems with the research. I look back on some of the papers, yeah, i think i could have done it differently. I think the fault of the paper was it was maybe too early to be making those statements based on a fairly small sample of players, which is the major criticism of the study, which i think is a valid one. Narrator the nfl Committee Published 16 papers. Neither dr. Apuzzo, dr. Pellman, nor commissioner tagliabue would speak to frontline about the papers. But in those articles, the league had issued its definitive denials. The closer you look, the less this holds up, but it did establish this kind of impressivelooking set of findings which pushed off the day of reckoning for the league. Thats really what is happening here, right . During this whole run of research thats being published, the day of reckoning where the league has to answer to somebody about what its doing about concussions just keeps getting pushed off and pushed off and pushed off. Narrator in pittsburgh, at just about this time, mike websters brain tissue was being examined. Dr. Bennet omalu was studying the microscopic samples. I put the slides in and looked. Whoa. I had to make sure the slides were mike websters slides. I looked again. gasps i looked again. I saw changes that shouldnt be in a 50yearold mans brain, and also changes that shouldnt be in a brain that looked normal. He saw collections of tau protein, collections which shouldnt be there in someone of mike websters age. And this is what jumped out at him as he looked at it through the microscope. Narrator dr. Omalu believed he saw physical evidence of the longterm damage playing football could have on the brain. It was a scientific first. Because after i looked at it over and over and over, i was convinced this was something. Narrator it was a disease never previously identified in Football Players chronic traumatic encephalopathy cte. Chronic traumatic encephalopathy is a disease, a progressive neurodegenerative disease where the end stage leaves tau protein deposition in distinctive areas of the brain, in distinctive locations that separate this disease from any other, like alzheimers or some other dementia. The tau is effectively closing in around the brain cells and choking them and its impacting the way the brain is working and ultimately erupting in issues around memory, agitation, anger. Narrator omalu shared his evidence with leading Brain Researchers who confirmed his findings. Then he submitted a scientific paper on the webster case to the one journal that seemed to be most interested in head injuries in football neurosurgery. And dr. Apuzzo accepted it. Narrator it was the first hard evidence that playing football could cause permanent brain damage. Certainly we knew that if you got hit on the head so many times, maybe you had a 20 chance of having dementia pugilistica if you were a former professional boxer, but we didnt really relate that in a modern sport like football, in a helmeted sport, that it could lead to that. And that was the big discovery, i think. Narrator dr. Omalu believed the National Football league would want to know about his discovery. That was what i thought in my naive state of mind. But unfortunately, i was. I was proven wrong. It wasnt meant to be that way. Narrator in a letter to the journal neurosurgery, dr. Pellman and other members of the nfls mtbi committee attacked dr. Omalus paper. These statements are based on a complete misunderstanding of the relevant medical literature. Narrator they even questioned whether mike webster was suffering from neurological problems. There is inadequate Clinical Evidence that the subject had a chronic neurological condition. The league officials, the doctors and scientists serving on the mtbi committee, not only disputed those findings, they went after dr. Omalu with a vengeance. They publicly said he should retract his findings. Narrator the nfl doctors insisted dr. Omalu was misunderstanding the science of brain injury. We therefore urge the authors to retract their paper. Its an extraordinary move under any circumstances. Like, you dont try to get a paper retracted unless theres evidence of fraud or plagiarism or Something Like that. Omalu et al. s description of chronic traumatic encephalopathy is completely wrong. They went after him with missiles, i mean, like a Nuclear Missile strike on a guys reputation. They basically told him to go away and never come back. And that was just for starters. Narrator in the end, dr. Omalus paper was not retracted. And now omalu had another case. Terry long killed himself by drinking antifreeze. Narrator a second steeler had died. Terry long committed suicide by drinking antifreeze. Terry long was young. Narrator and dr. Omalu received his brain. I came to work one morning and everybody there said, hey, we have another case for you. I said, what are you talking about . They said, oh, terry long died. Im like, whos terry long . They said, oh, hes another nfl player. He died. Narrator long was an offensive lineman with the steelers for eight years. He battled in the pit alongside mike webster. He, like webster, his life had sort of fallen apart in a lot of ways. He had issues certainly during his career. He was a steroid user. He had been involved in some serious financial problems. And so ultimately, he committed suicide by drinking antifreeze. Narrator as he had for webster, dr. Omalu sectioned part of longs brain and again had it stained. He ran the same test, same stains, found the same splotches. Cte in this brain too. Now two former steelers who had gone crazy about the same time. When i saw terry longs case. I became more convinced that this was not just an anomaly, a statistical anomaly. Narrator omalu submitted another paper to neurosurgery, this one about terry long. That caused the mtbi committee to say, this is preposterous. This is not good science. This is still not something that were buying into. If you read, pellman made statements like what i practice is not medicine, its not science. They insinuated i was not practicing medicine, i was practicing voodoo. Voodoo. thunder rumbling narrator the nfl would not publicly sit down with dr. Omalu, but one night in a private meeting, he brought his cte slides and finally met facetoface with one of the nfls doctors. And the nfl doctor at some point said to me, bennet, do you know the implications of what you are doing . I looked. He was on my left. I said, yeah, i think i do. He said, no, you dont. laughing so we continued talking, talking. At some point, he interrupted me again, bennet, do you think you know the implications of what you are doing . I said, i think i do. I dont know. He said, no, you dont. So we continued talking again. Then a third time he interrupted me, and i turned to him and i said, okay, why dont you tell me what the implications are . He said, okay, ill tell you. He said, if 10 of mothers in this country would begin to perceive football as a dangerous sport, that is the end of football. thunder rumbling for the most part, people didnt want to believe its true. They didnt want to admit to themselves or anybody else that our beloved sport, probably our most popular sport, could end up with brain damage. I didnt want to admit it to myself either. It was a hard message, a difficult message, a bad message, but it appeared to be true. thunder rumbling just minutes ago, owners of the 32 teams. Narrator then in new york, a change in the nfls top leadership. The nfl will have a new commissioner. Theres a changing of the guard at the National Football league. Narrator in september of 2006, commissioner Paul Tagliabue stepped down. The righthand man to tagliabue is running the show. Tagliabue will be succeeded by roger goodell. Narrator his second incommand and closest aide, roger goodell, took over. Goodell had grown up in washington, the son of a United States senator from new york. Early in his career, he worked as former commissioner Pete Rozelles driver. He basically got his job by writing to the commissioner and saying, please, id like to work in the nfl. Narrator it took goodell 24 years to work his way to the top. He was chief operating officer when the leagues Scientific Committee sent those controversial papers to the journneurosurgery. Heres a guy who spent more than half of his life in the nfl and more than anyone should be acutely aware of sort of the dangers that are lurking in this problem. Narrator now goodell was fully in charge of the leagues handling of the concussion crisis. He soon replaced the rheumatologist dr. Elliot pellman and promoted the neurologist dr. Ira casson. Dr. Ira casson, who is an expert, but an abrasive person who is contemptuous of the arguments that concussion can cause damage. Narrator casson had once joined pellman in attacking omalus work. Now one of cassons first moves a public denial of omalus conclusions. Ira casson leads a team of nfl doctors who did a study of several hundred active players and reported that the concern over head injuries is overblown. Is there any evidence, as far as youre concerned, that links multiple head injuries among pro Football Players with depression . No. Dr. Ira casson ends up with this very Famous Exchange that earns him the nickname dr. No. With dementia . No. With early onset of alzheimers . No. And ira casson was asked repeatedly, is there any link between trauma, head trauma, and the kind of dementia were seeing in these players . And he says, no, no, no, no. Is there any evidence as of today that links multiple head injuries with any longterm problem like that . In nfl players . No. Narrator then, just one month later in chicago, a dramatic gesture from commissioner goodell. At an airport hotel, the league gathered the top nfl brass, team doctors and trainers. The nfl convenes a summit in the summer of 2007. About 200 people are gathered there, and running the show is ira casson. The stakes for the nfl are obvious. Its huge business. If the business is potentially lethal, then thats going to have major implications for the game. Narrator on this day, the commissioner would take a front row seat to listen to the best medical minds in the league. All the teams are present. All the teams had to send doctors and trainers. And the leagues concussion people are there. Narrator they had even invited outside scientists who had become some of the leagues biggest critics. But one person was missing. Dr. Omalu is excluded, just underscoring how they dont want to do business with him. I was not aware of it. Nobody ever told me. Dr. Bailes called me and said, the nfl is putting together a conference on cte, and you were not invited. He is shunned. I mean, it was a loud, just, no, not you. Yes, youre the guy with all the research, youre the guy whos published the papers, youre the guy whos got the brains, but no, youre not coming. Narrator former Steelers Team doctor and neurosurgeon Julian Bailes had become a true believer in cte and omalu. They were now research partners. He offered to present omalus work to the group. So i presented and showed our data, which was four or five cases at that point. Narrator besides mike webster and terry long, omalu also found cte in the brains of andre waters and justin strzelczyk. Bailes delivered omalus message playing football could cause permanent brain damage. It wasnt met with any broad acceptance, to say the least. Julian bailes got up and talked about omalus work, and while hes up there, casson is off to the side and hes rolling his eyes. Hes clearly distressed by what hes hearing. And that was basically the idea that was conveyed by the nfl in that moment. There was skepticism, there was dismissiveness on his part. There was great doubt. Narrator as bailes left the meeting, he ran into New York Times reporter alan schwarz. I remember julian being furious, absolutely furious at how they had been treated in that room. And there was clearly, among the nfl committee, there was just a very steadfast belief that, this is not a problem, you guys dont know how to do research the way we do, and thank you for coming. I was not the bearer of good news probably in many peoples minds. But this was not something that i made up. This was showing what the findings were. Narrator earlier, goodell had watched his mentor tagliabue downplay the concussion controversy. Now he had heard firsthand how serious some respected scientists thought the issue was. Roger goodell is on notice. The nfl has a serious issue around the question of concussions, around the issue of brain trauma, on the rising suggestion that there is a link between football and neurodegenerative disease amongst its former players, and that there is a growing body of science that clearly establishes this link. Narrator outside the conferences closed doors, the new commissioner insisted that the nfl had the problem under control. The evidence is that our doctors are making excellent decisions. Thats proven by the sixyear study that we have and the research thats been done that looks at that issue intensively. Narrator the head of goodells concussion committee, dr. Ira casson, took on the critics. Anecdotes do not make scientifically valid evidence. I am a man of science. I believe in empirically determined, scientifically valid data, and that is not scientifically valid data. Narrator casson insisted there was no evidence that Football Players were at risk for cte. In my opinion, the only scientifically valid evidence of a chronic encephalopathy in athletes is in boxers and in some steeplechase jockeys. Narrator dr. Casson declined to be interviewed by frontline. This venerable stadium will be a wild scene tonight. Narrator and as the teams took the field just a few months later in the fall of 2007, the leagues definitive statement on brain injury was given to every Single Player in a pamphlet. The cover says, what is a concussion . It said, if i get a concussion, am i further at risk for longterm problems . And the answer was, and im virtually quoting, research has not shown that there are any longterm consequences to concussions in nfl players as long as each injury is treated properly. The message was that football is safe to your brain. That was the message. Dont worry about it. Narrator the commissioner and the league had successfully held the line, denying the dangers of football. They refused to listen to people who didnt share their opinions about the research, and it was very much putting a stake in the ground, saying everybody else is wrong. And thats what they did. Narrator shunned by the league, bruised by the struggle and looking to make a change, dr. Omalu left pittsburgh. He moved to lodi, california. He ends up in the dust bowl of North Central california, and hes working as a medical examiner there, as far removed from the nfl as anybody could be and trying to figure out how to stay in it. I wish i never met mike webster. Cte has dragged me into the politics of science, the politics of the nfl. You cant go against the nfl. Theyll squash you. I really sincerely wish it didnt cross my path of life, seriously. Narrator next time, frontlines investigation of the nfls concussion crisis continues. They were in a very serious state of denial. So it was becoming almost impossible for the nfl to ignore. Narrator what does it mean for the future of football . An 18yearold High School Athlete with chronic traumatic encephalopathy that just shouldnt happen. Your child could develop a brain injury as a result of playing football. Narrator dont miss the conclusion of league of denial. Go to pbs. Org frontline to watch more of frontlines exclusive interviews with nfl players. Force against force. Nefarious injury, one that youd never feel. Their families. You know, your brain cant function. And the scientists. I was shocked. To learn more about how the nfl tracks concussions among todays players, visit our watch page, where you can screen more than 200 frontline documentaries, then connect to the Frontline Community on facebook, twitter, and pbs. Org frontline. Frontlinis made possible by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. Thank you. And by the corporation for public broadcasting. Major support for frontliis provided by the john d. And catherine t. Macarthur foundation, committed to building a more just, verdant, and peaceful world. More information is available at macfound. Org. Additional support is provided by ford foundation, working with visionaries on the front lines of social change worldwide, at fordfoundation. Org. The park foundation, dedicated to heightening Public Awareness of critical issues. The john and Helen Glessner family trust, supporting trustworthy journalism that informs and inspires. And by the frontline journalism fund, with major support from jon and jo ann hagler, and Additional Support from scott nathan and laura debonis. Captioned by Media Access Group at wgbh access. Wgbh. Org for more on this and other frontline programs, visit our website at pbs. Org frontline. Frontlines league of denial is available on dvd. To order, visit shoppbs. Org or call 1800playpbs. Frontline is also available for download on itunes. Be more pbs vo it was fought in the north and in the south. ] in the air and on the ground. It was fought in the white house and in the halls of congress. In americas streets and colleges. And living rooms. And we continue to ask. What happened . [helicopter blades] the vietnam war. Woman some people are into shoes. Some people are into hair. 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