NCAA withheld safety info that would ‘destroy football’ — and it killed my husband, widow says

The NCAA withheld vital info for many years concerning the dangers of brain damage associated with playing football, in line with a grieving widow who believes she has the smoking gun doc to show it.

Kelly Merlino hit the NCAA with a wrongful dying lawsuit filed in Manhattan Supreme Court docket final month, accusing faculty athletics’ prime oversight group of fraud and gross negligence within the 2021 dying of her husband Gene Merlino, who died instantly at age 55 after struggling no less than 14 concussions as a fullback for the Military within the mid-Nineteen Eighties.

A key piece of proof she hopes will likely be a game-changer is a 50-year-old letter despatched by an NCAA lawyer to varsity soccer’s then-top guidelines maker, advising him to blow off warnings by medical consultants to cease allowing helmet-first tackling in video games and follow.

“For my part, any heed paid to their options will destroy current day soccer as we all know it,” NCAA lawyer Donald Wilson writes to David Nelson, head of the group’s Soccer Guidelines Committee within the March 13,1973 letter.

“They won’t be happy of their prompt modifications within the guidelines however will thereafter consider arms, shoulders, knees, and so on., all of which we readily perceive are vulnerable to harm in a sport that the hazards of that are readily obvious and willingly accepted by those that take part and train this stunning Spartan sport,” Wilson continued.

Wilson feared if such issues had been raised to the NCAA Soccer Guidelines Committee, they might be used as fodder for future lawsuits by injured gamers and their households — and probably jeopardize the way forward for grew to become NCAA’s greatest moneymaking sport.

“Kindly keep in mind that if any of their letter, speeches and/or studies are revealed in any periodicals, it will type the idea of devastating cross-examination of soccer coaches in any respect ranges sooner or later,” he wrote.

Wilson wrote the letter 9 years earlier than Gene Merlino first suited up for Military, the place he performed from 1984 by way of 1986 —  and greater than 4 a long time earlier than the NCAA instituted concussion protocols to protect players in 2015.

“It’s clear to me from the letter that the first concern of the NCAA was defending the sport — not the people enjoying the sport,” stated Kelly Merlino, 55. “The results have been devastating to the gamers and their households.”

Her lawsuit contends enjoying soccer with out correct medical protocols in place brought on Gene to develop the “neurodegenerative mind illness” which led to his dying. She additionally alleges the NCAA knew concerning the deadly hyperlink between soccer and mind illness since no less than the early Nineteen Thirties.

Previous to his dying, Gene Merlino continuously spoke out about what he stated had been the hazards related to faculty soccer.

Wilson’s warning was sparked by the authorized staff for Steven Mark, a Colgate College halfback paralyzed from the waist down because of accidents sustained in a 1965 freshman soccer scrimmage. Mark later filed a $3 million lawsuit in opposition to Colgate, main his legal professionals to precise their issues about “head tackling” in soccer and search rule modifications to make the game safer.

Mark contended he was taught to deal with head-first at Colgate, however a 1972 jury finally discovered the university and its coaches weren’t at fault.

“The Wilson letter exhibits that legal professionals for the NCAA influenced whether or not the NCAA would defend the sport or defend the gamers,” stated medical historian Stephen Casper, who’s presently a professor of science historical past at Clarkson College in Potsdam, New York.

“The NCAA protected the sport,” Casper continued. “It turned a blind eye to what it was presupposed to do, which was to guard the gamers. Now, the NCAA is on the fallacious finish of 400 mind harm lawsuits in state courts across the nation and plenty of extra aggregated within the federal district courtroom in Chicago.”  

Kelly Merlino is searching for unspecified damages.

The NCAA didn’t return messages.