Write An Essay On Andre Waters's Suicide

Andre Waters

McKenna Templeton

02/13/18

7

Andre Waters was born on March 10th, 1962. Later on after graduating college Andre was a NFL player for the Philadelphia Eagles where he played as a safety. After playing in the NFL for multiple years, Water retired and began coaching college players. At the age of 44 Waters committed suicide. On November 20th 2006, Waters had died of a self inflicted gunshot wound to the head. He had donated his brain to science so they could continue doing research. While examining his brain doctors had diagnosed him with CTE. “...The condition of Waters' brain tissue was

what would be expected in an 85-year-old man, and there were characteristics of someone being in the early stages of Alzheimer's.”(2) Says forensic pathologist Dr.Bennet Omalu. This is part of what happens in CTE.
Now CTE is a progressive disease found in people who have suffered from severe brain trauma.

This is why most CTE cases are found in football players, because of the many blows they receive. They are not just found in football players though, there have been some reported cases of other athletes having CTE such as soccer players. Waters had received many many concussions throughout the years. Some say that he had stopped counting after receiving his fifthteenth concussion.

“ Andre was one of the nicest, most compassionate people you could ever meet. “ (1) This is just a few of the many things that described Andre Waters and the amazing things he did in life. Andre was severly depressed, some think that the CTE might have cause his deppresion leading to his suicide, and others don’t.

Some of his family member such as his niece had noticed things were wrong. She said that she always knew her uncle was depressed but he never sought medical help or medication for it. "I saw him suffer in silence and I saw him struggle to find peace and find rest and that was what I was praying for him to get."(3) They knew that Andre had been depressed for years because of all sorts of things that were happening in his life. There were custody battles going on,and he had later lost his job and had to move down to coaching division 2 players

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"The emotional toll could be an absolute train wreck going on inside a person, and you just don't see that.”(3) Andre was a person that always tried to help others and put them before himself. That is why know one had suspected he would ever do something like this because just days before his death he was talking on the phone with others about all their upcoming things and how he would be supporting them. All of the horrible things that were happening in his life is what cause his depression.
There are not many articles that go into detail or even talk about Andre’s symptoms at all. So we might not ever know whether or not his CTE is what caused his depression. Even though he was diagnosed with CTE most believe that football is not what killed him, it was everything else.

http://www.mypalmbeachpost.com/sports/football/andre-waters-loved-ones-denounce-portrayal-him-concussion-movie/d3WEVrHRAtPLhYVQzv83NL/
http://www.espn.com/nfl/news/story?id=2734941
http://www.sptimes.com/2006/12/11/Sports/The_mysterious_death_.shtml