Seau Foundation Donates to UCSD

On Wednesday, the Junior Seau Foundation and the University of California, San Diego announced that the foundation will be donating 250 thousand dollars in an endowment fund to support UC San Diego's research of traumatic brain injury. The donation will be used to finance a faculty fellowship, as well as the Junior Seau Foundation Lecture Series, which will bring groups of K-12 students to campus to learn about TBI and its risks.

After committing suicide at the age of 43 back in 2012, the hall of fame linebacker and San Diego native was discovered to have the degenerative brain disease CTE. His neurological decline and death were heavily discussed in League of Denial and other popular books on football and TBI, and the discovery of CTE in Seau's brain really brought the disease into the national spotlight.

I think it's great that UC San Diego is using the donation for research and education alike. Obviously there's a lot of problems that exist as a result as a result of the concussion crisis in football, but the silver lining is that there are many solutions, too. An epidemic of this proportion can only be solved by a multi-front approach, consisting of awareness, education, prevention, research, and treatment. Having programs like what the Seau Foundation and UC San Diego are putting in place can accomplish all five of those methods.