The family of Zach Hoffpauir has donated the brain of the former Stanford football and baseball player for concussion research.
He passed away last Thursday at the age of 26. No cause of death has been released, but his father, Doug Hoffpauir, told the San Jose Mercury-News “it was absolutely not suicide, and please make that clear.”
Doug Haufpauir confirmed to the newspaper Sunday night that the process was underway to donate his son’s brain to Boston University. There it will be tested for signs of chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE, the degenerative brain disease linked to head trauma in contact sports.
“We won’t find out for over a year,” Doug Hoffpauir said. “I hate that it’s because of this, but maybe some positive can come of it. We’re going to let them do the research.”
Zach Hoffpauir was preparing to begin his first season as defensive backs coach at Northern Colorado.
A safety, he played in 46 games for Stanford from 2012-16 and recorded 101 tackles, including four for loss. He earned All-Pac-12 honorable mention in 2014.
He played three baseball seasons (2013-15) for the Cardinal and was All-Pac-12 honorable mention in 2015. He was a 22nd-round draft pick of the Arizona Diamondbacks in 2015 and batted .224 with three homers and nine RBIs in 107 at-bats over 33 career low-level minor-league games over two seasons (2015, 2018).
He revealed on the “Untold” podcast last September that he had medically retired from football at Stanford after sustaining “five or six” concussions. He said he had battled depression, including a suicide attempt last year.
