SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. — As they prepared to learn this week if former Oakland Raiders quarterback great Ken Stabler will make the Pro Football Hall of Fame, his loved ones found out the results of an even more important issue that bothered them since he died last July.
This week it was confirmed that Stabler, known for his raucous lifestyle off the field and fearless play on it, was diagnosed with CTE by Dr. Ann McKee of the VA-BU-CLF Brain Bank, a collaboration between the Boston VA, Boston University, and the Concussion Legacy Foundation. The results were released in Wednesday’s New York Times.
Stabler died last July 8 from complications of stage 4 colon cancer with Kim Bush and his family by his side. He was 69 and would have been 70 last Christmas Day. Long before that, he instructed his family to donate his brain for study.
Those studies showed his brain disease had progressed to stage 3 out of 4, with 4 being the most advanced and usually associated with dementia. Stage 3 disease is pathologically associated with damage to the frontal and temporal lobes along with deeper brain structures, and is usually associated with problems with memory and often with mood and behavioral changes.
Bush, his life partner for the last 16 years, was not surprised. In recent weeks, she said she often feared Stabler had CTE. She recounted incidents that more than hinted the great quarterback was struggling with some fairly simple things at times.
“My feelings are all over the place,” she told The Sports Xchange Wednesday. “An overwhelming sorrow yet a small sense of peace in understanding what he was enduring. So much makes sense now about the last few years.
“Kenny was a kind considerate man. I am sad that he paid such a great price for playing the game he loved. But true to his spirit he always said he would do it again tomorrow. He loved football and football loved him. We must take this science and invoke change and progress, for every athlete out there and for the great Ken Stabler.”
Bush and Stabler’s adult daughters — Kendra Stabler Moyes, Alexa Rose Stabler and Marissa Leigh Stabler — seemed all but certain that tests would show something was wrong.
“He wanted to do whatever he could to help protect football players of the future,” Bush said. “As much as he loved the game — and he loved it as much as anyone who ever played — Kenny loved people, his teammates and players and fans, oh how he loved the fans. He didn’t do this to hurt football. He wanted to help the game and those who played it.”
Stabler recognized he had a problem but, true to his manner, he didn’t complain. After all, he didn’t tell anyone right away when he was diagnosed with prostate cancer because he knew he would beat it, just as he did most other things in life. And he did beat it, only to learn in February last year he had stage 4 colon cancer and was told he had two years to live, max.
But even before the prostate and colon cancer, his family knew something was amiss. In his prime, Stabler built and drove fast cars and boats and was a great driver.
He loved the thrill of taking a car to its limit, much as he did his own life on and off the field. But in recent years he had trouble at intersections with four-way stops. He kept letting all the other cars go first and didn’t seem to know when it was his turn. He even had trouble with stop lights.
In 2014, Stabler moved to Arizona to watch his twin grandsons — Justin and Jack Moyes — grow up and play football. Nicknamed “Grand Snakes” after their famous grandfather, the boys knew something wasn’t right with “Poppa Snake.”
“I remember them calling me and saying, ‘Mom, Papa keeps stopping at green lights,'” Stabler Moyes said. Other times he would take a drive and either forget where he was going or lose his way.
“On some days, when he wasn’t feeling extremely bad, things were kind of normal,” Bush said. “But on other days it was intense. I think Kenny’s head rattled for about 10 years.”
Doctors explained to the Stabler family there was progressive brain damage linked to hits to the head, both concussive and subconcussive.
They said an examination of Stabler’s brain shows evidence of chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE, the degenerative brain disease believed to be caused by repeated blows to the head.
“He had moderately severe disease,” Dr. McKee told the family. “Pretty classic. It may be surprising since he was a quarterback, but certainly the lesions were widespread, and they were quite severe, affecting many regions of the brain.”
The NFL and football in general have focused on the effects of concussion recently. The issue was dramatically presented to the public in the movie “Concussion,” which is based on the tragic life and death of Pittsburgh Steelers center Mike Webster.
The disease is progressive and stage 3 is usually associated with age, so Stabler’s disease was not abnormal for a CTE-positive former NFL player of his age. Stabler is the 90th former NFL player diagnosed with CTE by the research team, and the seventh confirmed quarterback.
“He played 15 seasons in the NFL, gave up his body and, apparently, now his mind,” Alexa Stabler told the Times. “And to see the state that he was in physically and mentally when he died, and to learn that despite all the energy and time and resources he gave to football — and not that he played the game for free, he made money, too — without the knowledge that this is where he would end up, physically and cognitively, and for the settlement to say you get nothing? It’s hard not to be angry.”
Stabler loved watching his “Grand Snakes” play high school football. During the season he lived with them, drove them to practice. They are juniors and neither play quarterback, but Justin wear’s “Poppa Snake’s No. 12 jersey. As much as Stabler loved the sport, his view of the game changed slightly in recent years as his daughter Kendra notes.
“One year one of my boys wasn’t sure he was going to play, and my dad was almost super-excited about it,” she recalled. “He said: ‘I think that’s great. He can focus on his studies.’ He loved that they played, he loved watching them, but he was so worried about concussions. He was worried about their brains.”
Bush recalled that after they attended services for a former teammate, Dave Dalby, Snake seemed concerned. Dalby died when his car mysteriously ran straight into a tree. The former center was troubled and moody for months before the crash. Bush said Dalby’s death bothered Stabler and he talked about it often. Then they attended a Hall of Fame function and the great John Mackey, one of the best tight ends ever to play, was in a bad way, often wandering around and making little sense.
“Kenny looked at Mackey, then he looked at me and there were damn near tears in his eyes,” Bush recalled. “‘See that?,’ he said. ‘Are you ready to deal with that?'”
Not long after that former linebacker Junior Seau committed suicide by shooting himself in the chest and then leaving his brain for study. It was determined he had CTE.
“I asked him if he wanted to take part, to leave his brain for study,” Bush said. “He said, ‘Absolutely. Whatever we can do we should do.'”
Stabler played 10 seasons for the Raiders, three for the Houston Oilers and two for the New Orleans Saints. He took the Raiders to five consecutive AFC Championship games (1973-1977 seasons) and they won Super Bowl XI. He led all three teams to at least a tie for their best record in franchise history (Raiders 13-1 in 1976; Oilers 11-5 in 1980 and Saints 8-8 in 1983). He retired after playing three games in 1984 because he needed a fifth knee surgery.
This year is his fourth time as a finalist for the Pro Football Hall of Fame. In previous years, there were questions about his increase in interceptions beginning in 1978 when he threw 30, followed by 22 and 28 the next two seasons. But, not coincidentally, his sack totals also increased from 16 in 1977 to 37, 24 and 27 the next three years.
There is no telling exactly when the game began taking a toll on Stabler. But judging from results of the CTE study, it is likely that dramatic rise in sacks beginning in 1978 resulted in something more important than interceptions.
The Pro Football Hall of Fame selects the Class of 2016 on Saturday. Stabler is a finalist as a seniors candidate.
— Frank Cooney, founder and publisher of The Sports Xchange and NFLDraftScout.com, is in his sixth decade covering football and 26th year on the Pro Football Hall of Fame Selection Committee.
