SUNDAY: ESPN Airing Tyler Sash Related Outside the Lines

JonDMiller

JonDMiller

Publisher/Founder
(The following is from ESPN)

The Sunday, May 15, edition of ESPN’s investigative sports news program Outside the Lines will examine the tragic story of former pro and college football player Tyler Sash. The program airs at 9 a.m. ET on ESPN. It will also re-air Sunday at 10am ET


Sash was standout on special teams for the New York Giants and won a Super Bowl in his rookie season of 2011. Three years later, he was dead at age 27.


As ESPN’s Steve Delsohn reports, Sash’s story includes multiple concussions and an accidental overdose of painkillers that eventually took his life.


Sash was a native of Oskaloosa, Iowa, and played college football at the University of Iowa as a defensive back.


Among those interviewed in the report: Sash’s mother, Barney Sash, and brother, Josh; Tyler Sash’s girlfriend, Heather Dickinson; and Spencer Paysinger, a former teammate with the Giants who now plays for the Miami Dolphins.


Bob Ley hosts the program.

You can see a preview of the segment below

 


Such a tragedy. It's so sad that playing a game he loved so much ended up taking his life. Life has a way of teaching us very hard lessons.
 


Sad deal. Obviously, you wonder how his life would have played out if he had chose basketball. I also wonder what kind of player he would have been at UNI if he chose basketball. I knew he had CTE, but I didn't know it was on par with Junior Seau.


 








Great show, both for the technical aspects of the injury, but also the personal impact on relationships. Must see.
 


Does anyone have an idea of when this will air again or another way to access this content?
 


So what do we take away from his story? One thing I do is that for those of us that have loved ones that play should have closer eyes on them. ESPECIALLY IF THEY ARE ON POTENT PAIN KILLING MEDS. Don't get me wrong the question of should parents even let kids play it to begin with is going to be debated but how about after the fact? What's done is done right? So for guys like Sash (and there are thousands and thousands of them) shouldn't they at the very least have a much closer eye on them. They described many cries for help he put out there but he seemed to be living alone and popping pills at his leisure. I think that maybe doctors shouldn't be just handing out bottles of that really addicting/highly powerful pain killing medicine to those that may be highly susceptible to having CTE. Make sure that it's being administured by someone else. Be it a professional or another loved one. I think that those drugs are too easily gotten by players and they take em like candy. I know that isn't an end all be all fix but it sure may have helped Sash and maybe others in a similar boat anyway.
 


Did you watch the studio discussion afterwards? The NFL player explained how he beat the concussion protocol. He knew the answers to all the questions, except what team they were playing, so he distracted the doctor and looked at the scoreboard!
 


Maybe the airing of this will end up saving some lives, who knows. Yet I have to admit I'll still watch football as usual.
 


I thought this was very well done and enjoyed the commentary from the panel after the segment. The one guy knew he was messed and stayed in the game at whatever cost necessary. But like anyone who has played in competitive sports, especially at the NCAA D-1 or pro level, will tell you, the drive to continue on and keep going never stops, hence why most of us keep trying to play and relive the glory days until we basically aren't physically able to.

There's a difficult line to draw between the athlete who has to accept the potential consequences of participation in a sport and the officials who need to take responsibility for the safety of their participants. Injuries are inevitable in any sport and I suspect that as more data is gathered, and more education is given and absorbed by the NCAA and the NFL (players, coaches, and league officials), we are going to see larger rosters to accommodate the physical toll a longer season takes on players, shorter careers (whether forced or proactively chosen by the player), additional rule changes or all the above.
 


SteveGarvey1 said:
Maybe the airing of this will end up saving some lives, who knows. Yet I have to admit I'll still watch football as usual.
Click to expand...
Absolutely. Football is ingrained in our culture. I don't think it'll ever go away, but just may be played differently. Like anything else, it will evolve for better or worse.
 




I certainly feel remorse that Sash's life has ended early and for the pain and suffering of the loved ones left behind.

There is risk in every aspect of life. It's been interesting how as a society we have been lead to think that we are all going to live a long and prosperous lives without any concerns of any kind what-so-ever. This notion that we think we can simply manage and mitigate all risks in life.

The game of football has been played for over hundred years and in the early days some players dead literally on the field of play. Equipment was invented and the game was made safer to a degree but in the end it's still a contact sport. It's a truly great game with many rewards beyond just playing. Many players earned a living way beyond anything else they could have done or got a paid for degree that they used to live a good life.

Yes head injuries can and do occur from single serious hit events, multiple repeated minor contacts and combinations of both. No one would argue this fact. What I wonder is how good and complete is the data set? Lots of questions come to mind. How many players participated across the U.S. each year for the past 100 years at all levels? How many of those players had lives cut short as a direct result of participation and how long did they play, what positions, etc.? How do individuals not involved in football manage to develop dementia, depression, etc. without CTE? Are there any other contributing health factors that also lead to or contribute to these health problems as our bodies age? What is the affect of being a top flight athlete and then no longer training when a career is ended. What is the mental affect of being a star and being cheered the majority of your life and suddenly having that stop with the end of your career.

We have been told there was data supporting many truths only to learn later that these truths had inaccuracies in the collection methods used, analysis or that other factors were not considered in the study. Eggs were not to be consumed, the planet was warming at an alarming rate due to the burning of fossil fuels .... now it's 'climate change'. Many other examples all based on study and data.

I begrudge no one for not allowing their child to participate and there are definite risks to playing but I also know as a society we love to try to isolate everything to a single point of failure. There's a risk in doing nothing also.
 
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