Brandi Chastain will continue blazing trails long after her soccer-playing career, and natural life, have ended.
Chastain, an icon of the United States’ 1999 FIFA Women’s World Cup-winning team, revealed Thursday she’ll donate her brain to the Concussion Legacy Foundation with the expectation that Boston University’s Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy program will study it in the future, according to USA TODAY’s Christine Brennan.
Chastain, 47, suffered two concussions as a college player and had no diagnoses during her professional career, but she hopes her contribution to concussion research will help shape how soccer is played and coached at the youth level in the future.
“I’m not going to be needing it at the end of my life, No. 1,” Chastain said in a phone interview, “and hopefully, what can be learned is, can doctors and scientists and neuroscientists look at the brain of someone like me, who has been playing soccer a majority of my life, and really dissect the brain and say, ‘Here’s where we see it beginning?’ Could we then use that information to help say that before the age of 14, it’s not a good idea to head the ball?’”
BU’s School of Medicine’s and the Department of Veterans Affairs’ joint brain bank contains 307 donations, of which just seven have come from women. CTE hasn’t been diagnosed in any of the seven women’s brains, but the director of BU’s CTE program sees Chastain’s brain as potentially key to understanding how women’s and men’s brains might react differently to trauma.
“We currently know so little about how gender influences outcome after trauma,” Ann McKee said. “Her pledge marks an important step to expand our knowledge in this critical area.”
One photo, that of Chastain celebrating her game-winning penalty kick in the 1999 Women’s World Cup final, serves as the legacy of her playing career. Furthering concussion and CTE research only can add to her legend and just might be as impactful as her exploits in the summer of 1999.
Thumbnail photo via Kirby Lee/USA TODAY Sports Images
