I was raised in Texas and was more the thin runner body than the football build, so I never played, though lots of people do play high school football there. It's interesting imagining that 1/4 of them could be walking around with CTE.
Of course, keep in mind the study is biased by the fact that these brains were specifically donated for evaluation for CTE. It seems probable that CTE findings would be lower in the general population.
> But 110 positives remain significant scientific evidence of an N.F.L. player’s risk of developing C.T.E., which can be diagnosed only after death. About 1,300 former players have died since the B.U. group began examining brains. So even if every one of the other 1,200 players had tested negative — which even the heartiest skeptics would agree could not possibly be the case — the minimum C.T.E. prevalence would be close to 9 percent, vastly higher than in the general population.
The real issue would arise if they can somehow test high school students and find similarly high percentages (90+ percent), but since you can't test right now until they are deceased (from what I understand), that would be extremely hard to do.
I think that's seriously downplaying the issue.
Let's say hypothetically HS football players are developing it at 10% vs 1% in the general population. That alone would be a massive discovery, and grounds for seriously reworking or even eliminating HS football. You don't need these rates to be in the 90% range for this to be game changing, so to speak.
[1] http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/schooled_in_sports/2012/12/lo...
[2] http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/high-school-footba...
[3] http://www.tsn.ca/a-possible-breakthrough-on-testing-cte-1.2...
[4] http://www.traumaticbraininjury.net/why-concussions-are-so-h...
[5] http://www.gq.com/story/the-concussion-diaries-high-school-f...
[6] https://www.forbes.com/sites/tarahaelle/2017/07/26/is-footba...