Ontario鈥檚 Minister of Sport, Neil Lumsden, will donate his brain to research.
The 10-year CFL veteran and four-time Grey Cup champion made the announcement at a press conference at Varsity Stadium in Toronto, on the very field where he used to compete as a star running back with the University of Ottawa Gee-Gees.
鈥淚f I'm going to continue to walk the walk, to try and make things better, then the next thing for me is to try and really make things better,鈥� he said while standing at a podium near the 50-yard line.
Lumsden is one of several former football players donating their brains through the . The organization has been working in Canada, the United States and around the world to promote safer sports and athletics through education and innovation. They鈥檙e also working to bring an end to Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy, also known as CTE 鈥� a disorder found in the brains of professional football and hockey players, as well as other contact sport athletes.
CFL champion Tim Fleiser is the executive director of the Concussion Legacy Foundation鈥檚 Canadian chapter. He says he hopes the announcement shines a light on concussion research underway, telling CTV News that 鈥渂rain injuries are a much bigger part of the mental health equation than anybody realizes.鈥�
Speaking to a group of reporters, Lumsden said he鈥檚 had multiple concussions.
鈥淚鈥檝e had my bell rung a number of times.鈥� However, unlike some of his former teammates, Lumsden doesn鈥檛 believe he鈥檚 had any long-term neurological injuries from his rough and tumble playing days. And that, in part, is why he says he鈥檚 donating his brain to research.
鈥淲hy haven鈥檛 I had some of the effects that some of my teammates who are either older or younger (have had.) Why have I been immune? There鈥檚 got to be a reason. I want the research to find out, when the time comes, to make things safer for those coming behind me,鈥� says Lumsden.
As part of his pledge, the Minister also announced $50,000 in provincial funding from Ontario to fund research that will collect data on the correlation between repeated head injuries and mental health issues in sport. While the financial investment may sound small to some, the director of the brain imaging centre at Toronto鈥檚 Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, Dr. Neil Vasdev says the money is going to fund crucial work.
鈥淓very dollar counts, and this type of funding is really critical because what it allows us to do is the high-risk, high-gain things that we normally wouldn't have funding for,鈥� said Vasdev, who added that the money will go towards work that traditional grants won鈥檛 cover.
is looking for current and former athletes at any level, military veterans, and victims of intimate partner violence, for head trauma research. People can also register to become a brain donor through the Concussion Legacy Foundation.
