Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE): A Growing Problem
[MUSIC PLAYING]
ZAC EASTER: I don't look back on my life with regrets, because at the time I loved my social identity—of being the tough guy, and being popular because of football. I realize that some of this might be shocking for some of you reading this, but anything I've portrayed to anyone in the past six years has been a lie to conceal my secret struggle.
ERIC KLUVER: We live in a small community. There's not a lot to do on a Friday night. The most important thing in the Fall is to go out and watch and see how their local football team is, and it's kind of a way of life. And as a coach, we try to make our community proud.
SUE WILSON: The nature of football is, you get the cheers when you hit hard. You get the cheers when you hit big. The pure recognition when you're the one that can hammer it.
MYLES EASTER SR: You know, we all played it in junior high, high school. And then my boys, there was a youth football, so they all played in the youth football program here in Indianola. And I'd say football is really important, you know, to us, anyway. Because I think it teaches kids how to be a part of a team. It teaches you work ethic. It teaches responsibility. And there's a lot of life lessons in football.
BRENDA EASTER: From a mother's perspective, it's a blessing and probably a curse, because now we know.
ZAC EASTER: I know for a fact and all the things I've experienced in my life are from using my head as a weapon.
ERIC KLUVER: Well Zac played for me on the varsity team in 2008 and 2009.
SUE WILSON: He was a very hard worker. And he was very passionate. And so any time you take somebody that's hardworking and passionate and you mix them together, you're going to get somebody that performs at a higher level naturally.
LEVI EASTER: Just the kind of guy you were scared of.
MYLES EASTER JR: People respected him, and they didn't want to go head to head with him, I can tell you that.
ZAC EASTER: I was always able to disguise a lot of my actions in the eyes of other people by making it look like I was just extremely motivated, or something like that. I was always shorter than a lot of other players, and learned to put my head down so I could have the edge and win every battle.
SUE WILSON: You have to push the body to certain limits. But there's some body parts you do that with, and there's some body parts you don't do that with.
ERIC KLUVER: Zac used his helmet and his head and in certain situations that obviously hurt him.
EZAC EASTER: I can look back and remember getting headaches during practice. Of course by now, I gained the reputation for my coaches and classmates about being a tough-nosed kid and a hard hitter. So I took this social identity with pride and never wanted to tell anyone about the headaches I got from practices and games.
ERIC KLUVER: Zac did suffer, I believe, three concussions his senior year. We went down to a team camp in Missouri, where he got his first concussion.
ZAC EASTER: The headache was so intense, I could barely talk to anyone. As usual, I sucked it up and practiced the whole time. By the last scrimmage of that day, I could barely walk or call the plays.
SUE WILSON: When the team got back, Coach Easter had brought in, and said hey, he's seen a doctor. It was a concussion, but he's been cleared to play.
ZAC EASTER: Either the first or second game, I got another bad concussion during the game. Don't really remember much, except I didn't get pulled out of the game until I could barely get up and walk. My buddy Nick told me that, at one point, I looked at him cross-eyed.
SUE WILSON: I said, are you OK? He says, I'm fine. And I said, no, are you OK? You have to look me in the eyes and tell me that. He's just kind of put his head down.
ERIC KLUVER: And then ended up having the third and final concussion his senior year.
ZAC EASTER: I don't remember anything from the game, except from the game and from what my friends tell me. I went head-to-head with a running back at full speed on the first play during a quarterback roll-out, to try to run him over. It wasn't long during the third quarter when my helmet came off during a play, and I guess I hit a guy without a helmet on, head-to-head.
SUE WILSON: I just said, you're done, and you're done for the year. You're done for football. There's no more.
LEVI EASTER: My name is Ali Epperson. I was Zac Easter's girlfriend for a very long time.
ZAC EASTER: My name is [GIGGLING AND BABYTALKING].
[LAUGHTER]
ALI EPPERSON: I like how you sound like that all the time, each time.
ZAC EASTER: He's a dork.
ALI EPPERSON: And we are in his bedroom with the story he wrote telling what he went through and how he suffered.
ZAC EASTER: Now that I'm still having post-concussion problems six years after my last diagnosed concussion, I figure it's time to get things off my chest about my hidden struggle with depression, anxiety, and headaches.
ALI EPPERSON: All of the sudden, his mind betrayed him and he didn't know what was happening, and he didn't know who he was anymore. He just knew he wasn't the same Zac Easter, and at the root of that he knew it was because of the concussions he sustained.
ZAC EASTER: Sometimes I couldn't tell which one would kill me first. The depression, anxiety, self-hatred, self-esteem, body image, emotions, and angry outbursts. All I know is, I always felt like a lot of my actions are not me.
SUE WILSON: He struggled silently because he didn't want to tell people what he was struggling with. The day-to-day short term memory loss, like, not being able to function on a daily basis. That's embarrassing for people.
ALI EPPERSON: And then one day he called me, and I was like, well what is it, what's going on? He goes, I'm really afraid. I have something called CTE. But that's when he first kind of told the whole story to me. And then a couple of months later is when he kind of mentioned it to his parents for the first time.
MYLES EASTER SR: And on his—it'd be his 24th birthday, he said, mom, well I've got news for you. The doctor says I have CTE. And it kind of caught me off guard. And I thought, well, maybe that's just, you know, what they said or thought. And then from then on it just seemed like it really went downhill pretty fast.
BRENDA EASTER: What we know about CTE is that when you experience hits, there's a protein called tau protein that's released from your gut and it goes straight to your brain. We have a normally functioning brain, it gets processed out. If you have a brain that's been damaged, The. Tau protein sits in your brain, and it starts to deteriorate your brain cells. Your emotional side of things gets impaired. Your sight, your speech.
ALI EPPERSON: "Around this time was when I started feeling depressed. I felt ashamed that I was hurt and had to sit out. I don't know exactly what I felt, but this is when I started to never be the same. Zac Easter."
MYLES EASTER SR: I saw a change in his kind of attitude. And then I would just go over to his house, and he'd be hammered. And then he quit his job, and I was just like, that's not Zac. Zac's never not had a job.
BRENDA EASTER: He had larger-than-life goals in college, his last year especially. He started struggling. We took him to doctors.
ZAC EASTER: I feel like I'm losing control of my thoughts and emotions. One minute I'm OK, and the next I feel very down. I still feel dizzy and like my balance is way off, off and on through the day.
BRENDA EASTER: The one doctor confirmed that he was having some early symptoms of CTE, and that there was no way to really diagnose it, because you can only diagnose it after death. And I sat there floored.
MYLES EASTER SR: When I first heard about CTE, I didn't know much about it. Realistically, I just it was the guys maybe that played in the NFL 10, 15 years, and went through a college career and the NFL. You know, it's a lot more physical than anything. I just assumed that, you know, the repeated blows that those guys would take at the high speed—and I feared that maybe that would have something to do with it. I never thought a person just playing high school football would get it.
BRENDA EASTER: And I think in the end, especially with the work that he had done with his journal and with the story that he left, it became clear to me that he believed it was more important to help save another athlete—to save another family from having to go through what we went through.
MYLES EASTER SR: I only read journals once. You know, I don't want to sit there, I don't want to read them, to be honest with you. I don't know. I like to think about fun times, and that kind of stuff. You know, we go outside and then we literally just walk around. I guess it gives me time to think, and a chance to get away, if that makes sense.
BRENDA EASTER: Zac says, mom, I want my brain donated to science so that I can help someone else.
[GUN FIRES]
NEWSCASTER: A young Indianola man took his own life because he believed he was suffering from the crippling effects of CTE.
NEWSCASTER: Zac shot himself in the heart at Lake Ahquabi, taking care not to damage his brain that he believed had been ravaged by Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy.
SUE WILSON: It took me a very, very long time to walk up to the casket. And all I could say was, I'm sorry. And it was really hard, because as an athletic trainer, your number one goal is to keep these kids safe. And we didn't, and he knew it.
ZAC EASTER: I know there's a kid out there going through something similar to what I went through. This kid's not quite sure why he changed all of the sudden. He's always scared to tell anyone about the pain, because he doesn't even understand it himself. Spread the word of mental illness and concussions, and over time, please spread my story. Great things can still happen from this event. Think of all the lives that can be saved if all of you come together and help people by spreading the word.
MYLES EASTER SR: Football is not going to go away. I don't want football to go away.
BRENDA EASTER: I do think we have to do more to keep our athletes safer. There needs to be more research. We need to change the protocol on concussions. Listen to Zac.
[MELANCHOLY MUSIC]