PHILADELPHIA — Irv Cross was a man of faith and avid football fan who could no longer attend Bible studies or watch NFL games with friends in his later years. A degenerative brain disease that has festered inside the body before Philadelphia Eagles The full-back has caused depression, mood swings and the type of amnesia that forced him into isolation.
“He really didn’t want to be with people,” said his widow, Liz Cross. “The only person he wants to be with is me. When he’s with me, he really doesn’t want to be with me. He just wants me there.”
Cross, the former NFL quarterback who became the first Black to work full-time as a sports analyst on national television, is the latest football player to be diagnosed with the brain disease. CTE. Pass, who was 81 when he died Boston University researchers said Tuesday, February 28, 2021, has stage 4 chronic traumatic encephalopathy.
Stage 4 is the most severe stage of CTE, indicating the type of injury that often causes cognitive and behavioral problems in people with repeated head trauma. He struggles with his balance and is paranoid.
“In the end,” Cross said, “he saw things that weren’t there.”
Cross said her husband, who was diagnosed with mild dementia in 2018, often sits in a chair and grimaces from headaches that don’t go away. He refuses any medication because it doesn’t help with the pain. He stopped going to church. Once a pupil of the game, NFL games were mostly background noise because he didn’t know who was playing.
“He was afraid someone would ask him a question,” Cross said, “and he wouldn’t know the answer.”
Of course, Irv Cross isn’t alone in the plight among his former NFL brethren. According to its latest report, the BU CTE Center said it diagnosed 345 former NFL players with CTE out of the 376 former players studied, a rate of 91.7%. The disease can only be diagnosed after death.
“He was the most wonderful, kindest, most helpful man I’ve ever met,” Cross said. “But in the end it wasn’t who he was. And it wasn’t who he was. It was the illness that did it.”
Dr Ann McKee, professor of neurology and pathology at Boston University, said she was not surprised that Irv Cross’s brain reached stage 4 given the length of his overall football career (studied). calculated as 17 years) and his age. Irv Cross and his family decided to donate his brain to help raise awareness of the long-term consequences of repeated blows to the head.
“I really think there’s more education about the risks of football and I really think there’s more awareness about concussion management but I still think we’re a long way from what we think we are. we should,” said McKee. “We need to educate young athletes that this is the risk they are taking. We need to educate coaches to avoid head injuries during competition. We need to manage athletes more. by monitoring them better. I still think there’s a lot of cavalier attitudes towards CTE. There’s a lot of denial.”
In fact, Liz Cross said she and her husband “both denied” what caused his health to decline until about five years before his death.
“For someone who used to be very active and can do everything, and an athlete who has no balance, no strength, can’t do anything he’s done before, that’s just amazing. shameful,” she said. “He almost fell into a constant state of depression.”
One of 15 kids from Hammond, Indiana, Cross competed in football and track and field at Northwestern. He was enlisted in the seventh round by Philadelphia in 1961, and was traded for The Los Angeles Rams in 1966 and returned to the Eagles in 1969 as player coach for his final season.
The two-time Pro Bowl fullback had 22 interceptions, 14 clumsy recalls, 8 clumsy catches and a few defensive touches. He also averaged 27.9 yards in kick-off and return kicks.
Chris Nowinski, founder of the Concussion Legacy Foundation, said he met Cross in 2018 and it was “very clear” the former Eagle was suffering.
“It is important to highlight cases like Irv Cross’ because he was able to live a long and successful life without CTE seriously affecting him,” he said. “But in the end, it was a struggle.”
Cross joined CBS in 1971, becoming the first black network sports host. He left the network in 1994, and later served as athletic director at Idaho State and Macalester College in Minnesota. In 2009, he received the Pete Rozelle Radio-Television Award from the Pro Football Hall of Fame. He had been married to Liz for 34 years when he passed away.
Cross said her husband has never regretted his football career.
“He would do it again in a heartbeat,” she said. “But he doesn’t think children should play football.”
As for the concussions diagnosed, Cross said her husband told her he’s had it several times in his competitive career but not counting. He suffered so many head injuries during his rookie season that his Eagles teammates referred to him as “Paper Head.”
Irv told his wife that after a blow to the head that nearly made him swallow his tongue, doctors said if he had another concussion he “would die”.
“And so he stopped playing? No,” said the 76-year-old widow. “They made him a stronger helmet.”
Liz Cross said she wanted to remember the joy their young grandson brought to Irv in the last years of her life, not agonize over how she had to watch the man she loved die. .
“He was a wonderful man,” she said, “and this illness changed his life.”
