Does O.J. Simpson Suffer From C.T.E?

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[author image=”https://www.the3pointconversion.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Frank2-e1458609092549.jpg” ] Frank Harris @FW_HARRIS [/author]

 

 

Everyone’s well aware of the show that began on February 2, 2016 entitled “American Crime Story” (The People vs. O.J. Simpson) on the FX channel. This 10 episode mini-series gives us a detailed analysis of Orenthal James Simpson’s (O.J.) life beginning on June 12, 1994. But are you aware of the O.J.’s timeline of 1967, the year he entered and played football for U.S.C.? His career as a collegiate athlete was very impressive for the two years he played. During his time with the Trojans, he earned the Maxwell and Walter Camp Awards, along with the Heisman Trophy. He would go on to win the National Championship before entering the NFL Draft in 1969. As a player for the Buffalo Bills, he broke the single season rushing record in 1973…And continued his prolific career until the trade to the San Francisco 49ers in 1978. During his final two years in the league, O.J. played hampered by injury due to the pounding he took as a featured back and of course age. He retired from football in 1979 and was inducted into the Pro Football Hall Of Fame in 1985.

With this brought to our attention, could it be possible that O.J. Simpson suffers from Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE)? In order to draw a true conclusion to this hypothesis, we must first know what CTE is. Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy or (CTE) is a progressive degenerative disease of the brain found in athletes (and others) with a history of repetitive brain trauma, including symptomatic concussions as well as asymptomatic subconcussive hits to the head. CTE has been known to affect boxers since the 1920s. Now that we have our definition, we can assume that multiple incidents of violent head trauma without proper medical attention can bring about CTE. We have the meaning, now what are the symptoms of CTE? The known symptoms of CTE so far are memory loss, confusion, impaired judgment, impulse control problems, aggression, depression, anxiety, suicidality, parkinsonism, and eventually…progressive dementia. These symptoms often begin years or even decades after the last brain trauma or end of active athletic involvement.

We now have a very interesting chain of symptoms, and actions from O.J. that seem to correlate. He clearly suffered from anxiety, depression, and suicidality before and during his trial. The suicide note he left to his family, the infamous low-speed chase and not to mention his mental mindstate and mood swings on the bench during his liability court hearings all point towards CTE. Sadly, we can obviously see the impaired judgment, aggression, and impulse control problems regarding the incident in Las Vegas over the robbery of his memorabilia. He held people captive at gunpoint and threatned their very lives, when the situation never warranted such action.

As of right now, there’s no definitive way of diagnosing CTE in the living, and hopefully that will change over the course of time. So we will draw our own rational conclusions with the information we have at hand. From the start, I want to express this….I’m not a doctor or a person authorized to work in the field of medicine. Therefore, what I’ve drawn up here for you is MERELY speculation. It was designed for the entertainment, and stimulation of the readers mind. With that in tow, based upon the present information at hand, I think we can safely assume O.J. Simpson has some form of CTE.

I also want to go further in saying that the conclusion I’ve drawn here doesn’t make light of things which happened that fateful day. Lives were lost, impacted, and changed. Therefore Im not trying to make excuses for a person that could possibly be guilty of committing such a horrific crime. I wrote this in an effort to give a different perspective on the situation, and to give you something else to think about.

F.W. Harris

F.W. Harris is a Free Lance Writer for the 3 Point Conversion. Mr. Harris also works as a Sport's Analyst for the show Intentional Grounding, Loss Of Reality, heard here on the 3 Point Conversion.

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