Vicki Mayk

Growing Up on the Gridiron Vicki Mayk

Does loving a sport justify risking your life? This is the insightful and deeply human story of Owen Thomas--a star football player at Penn, who took his own life when he was 21, the result of the pain and anguish caused by chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE). Owen's landmark case demonstrated that a player didn't need years of head bashing in the NFL, to cause the mind-altering, life-threatening, degenerative disease known as CTE. And Owen's case could not have come to light without Dr. Ann McKee, the neuropathologist who bucked conventional wisdom, and the football establishment, as she examined Owen's brain and built an ever-stronger case that said football should not be played by children under the age of 14. With its focus on a single life and the community touched by it, Vicki Mayk explores the role of football in our lives--why it matters so deeply to many young men, and why they continue to play despite the evidence of serious, long-term harm.