Former Giants offensive lineman Jim Cordle lost his friend and former teammate, Tyler Sash, who was found to have Stage 2 CTE after overdosing in 2015
If former New York Giants offensive lineman Jim Cordle was looking for a reason to turn his back on football, he would have a menu of options.
Most notably the Boston University study that was released Thursday, which claims that it’s repeated exposure to sub-concussive collisions and not isolated concussions that cause chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE). That’s troubling news for someone like Cordle, who spent the better part of 18 years enduring thousands of minor collisions along the line of scrimmage that could potentially lead to the disease, which was previously proven to cause aggression, dementia and suicidal thoughts.
Testing mice, the Boston University research team showed that repeated blows to the head trigger the wasting disease within 20 minutes, whether the mice suffered a concussion or not.

Former Giants safety Tyler Sash was found to have Stage 2 CTE after overdosing in 2015
So while contact sports like football and boxing are focused on concussion symptoms and the victims of violent head trauma, the real danger is CTE, which is virtually undetectable in the living.
Having volunteered with Alzheimer patients at a nursing home as a high schooler, Cordle was already keenly aware of the difficulties faced by those with deteriorating cognitive ability.
And as if those warnings weren’t enough, Cordle was a friend and teammate of former Giants defensive back Tyler Sash, who was found to have Stage 2 CTE after he died of a drug overdose in 2015 at the age of 27.
But despite the mounting evidence against football, Cordle has no regrets.
‘If I could do it again, I would still do it,’ said Cordle, a former Ohio State player who now serves as the offensive line coach at Division II Urbana University in Ohio.
That’s not to say that Cordle is dismissive of the disease or the dangers of football. Like many football programs, Urbana limits the amount of padded practices in an effort to reduce the number of hits players endure over the course of a season.
And while that may not be the cure for CTE, it’s the kind of measure that Cordle will take in the face of so much uncertainty.
For someone who has spent so much of his life in football, it’s not easy for Cordle to simply walk away from the game because of a disease that’s so incredibly hard to detect.
Sash, for instance, didn’t necessarily exhibit the signs of someone battling CTE – or at least not during his time with Cordle on the Giants in 2011 and 2012.
‘I couldn’t see it,’ Cordle said. ‘That’s the hard part of it… As the years went by, it’s not like I was around him a lot. The symptoms probably got worse as he went.’

Former Giants offensive lineman Jim Cordle (No. 63) lost his friend and former teammate, Tyler Sash, who was found to have Stage 2 CTE after overdosing in 2015
For Cordle, the facts present him with more questions than answers.
‘Why was his so bad at such a young age?’ Cordle asked of Sash, who was a star safety at Big Ten rival Iowa when he played for the Buckeyes. ‘That’s what would be nice to know. Because I don’t think his football career was that much different than a lot of players who go through the Big Ten and the NFL. I don’t think Iowa was bashing their heads into the wall every day.
‘The ultimate question you come back to is “What about all the guys who played and don’t have any symptoms?”‘
To Cordle, the discrepancy between his post-football experience and Sash’s gives him hope for the game.
Although he never officially reported a concussion, Cordle claims to have had three over his professional and amateur football careers. But despite those injuries and the myriad of sub-concussive hits he took, Cordle says he hasn’t suffered any ill-effects from football, or at least not in a neurological sense. (He did say he’d report concussions if he were still playing)
‘I played like 18 years – since fourth grade,’ he said. ‘I got some pretty bad long-term damage now. I can get by day to day but it hurts to get on the floor with the kids and stuff like that.’
Many current and former players like quarterbacks Drew Brees, Brett Farve and Kurt Warner have publicly expressed their reluctance to let their children play the game while longtime NBC NFL announcer Bob Costas said in November that football ‘destroys people’s brains.’
Meanwhile, American boys and their families are starting to show some trepidation about picking up the game.
Participation in 11-player football dropped by 25,901 at the high school level between 2016 and 2017 while other, presumably safer sports like soccer (9,912), outdoor track and field (9,003), and cross country (8,580) added participants, according to the National Federation of State High School Associations.
Cordle is encouraged by the NFL’s efforts to keep concussed players off the field and credited the Giants team doctors for being on the lookout for any potential head injuries. He also believes the NFL Players’ Association has done its part by offering testing to at-risk players.
Such efforts might not be enough to ensure that full-contact sports will ever be safe, but that won’t stop Cordle, his players, or even his sons, who are now just three-years and 10-months old apiece.
‘It’s the greatest sport in the world,’ Cordle said of football. ‘I would love for my sons to play and I think there’s a lot of things we can do to keep everybody healthy and keep advancing the medicine and technology of it.’
Like Cordle, former boxer-turned-promoter Dmitriy Salita is also looking for ways to make his sport safer, even while acknowledging that danger cannot be eliminated in the ring.
‘It’s not a game,’ Salita said of boxing. ‘That’s why we always say you don’t play boxing. These kind of studies just confirm this. It’s a very serious sport and a very serious job that needs to be done responsibly.’
To Salita, being responsible means making sure that fighters are not exposed to unnecessary risks, like when amateur spars with a seasoned pro. But according to the 35-year-old Brooklyn product, the best bet to avoid neurological problems in retirement is to leave at the right time.
‘100 percent,’ Salita said.
Neither Cordle nor Salita claim to have all the answers, but both are hopeful that the risks can be mitigated by limiting competitors’ exposure and living a healthy lifestyle with the right exercise, eating, and sleeping habits.
The problem, of course, is that if the Boston University study is accurate, then even those efforts might not be enough to prevent the proliferation of CTE.

Dmitriy Salita has retired from boxing and now serves as a promoter. He believes the best way for a fighter to avoid neurological damage is to be responsible and retire at the right time