Chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE, is a degenerative brain disease caused by repeated head traumas. Contact sports such as gridiron football expose players to these with regularity.

Meiko Locksley, one of 152 athletes diagnosed with CTE before even reaching the age of 30 as part of the Boston University CTE Center’s 2023 study, never made it past college football and began exhibiting signs of the disease in his 20s.