Sports Legacy Institute - The Sports Legacy Project



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The Sports Legacy Project

As part of its mission to further research on the effects of Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) and associated neurodegenerative conditions caused or accelerated by traumatic brain injury, the Sports Legacy Institute continues to accept brain tissue donations from the families of deceased former athletes who played in collision and contact sports through the Sports Legacy Project.

The tissue sample is analyzed for evidence of neurodegeneration in a pattern consistent with a chronic traumatic origin, and stored at a medical school tissue bank.

On a recent episode of Outside the Lines, ESPN said the “groundbreaking” work of the Sports Legacy Project may be producing “the most significant concussion discoveries” and the “most startling and potentially devastating findings” in concussion research to date.

The Institute will continue accept donations and the Sports Legacy Project will expand into more sports.

Sports Legacy Project Pioneers

The Sports Legacy Institute has been the beneficiary of brain tissue donations from several benevolent families. These families had the foresight to understand that SLI's research could both help them more fully grasp a tragic death and help protect millions of other athletes competing today and in the future.

We are forever thankful to the families of Mike Webster, Terry Long, Andre Waters, Damien Nash, Justin Strzelczyk, and Chris Benoit, the first families to put their trust in the work of the Institute. Without their selfless actions, SLI would not have started down the path toward discovery.

Click the links below to learn more about the first Legacies to be part of the Sports Legacy Project.

The SLI also examines the brains of athletes who were not overtly symptomatic at the ends of their lives as control cases. While many brain banks have ‘normal’ brains that SLI can use for comparison, it is important to add brains that have been exposed to the same general sports trauma but do not show clinical symptoms. CTE would not be expected to be found in such brains. Thus far, neuropathological examinations performed by the SLI have not found evidence of CTE in a control brain.

Sports Legacy Institute: 2008