Soccer icon Brandi Chastain agrees to donate brain for concussion research

Brandi Chastain, whose iconic celebration at the 1999 Women’s World Cup became a lasting symbol of power and success in women’s sports, announced Thursday morning that she has decided to donate her brain after death to the Concussion Legacy Foundation to be studied by the renowned Boston University CTE program.

“I’m not going to be needing it at the end of my life, No. 1,” Chastain said in a phone interview with USA TODAY Sports, “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?’ "

Chastain, 47, said she suffered two concussions while playing in college at California and Santa Clara but experienced no side effects and came right back into the game both times. She never shied away from heading the ball in her 40 years playing the game, and occasionally “saw stars,” adding that she “did what we all used to do and shook it off.” She said she suffers from no symptoms from those concussions and has experienced no signs of degenerative brain disease.

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“I never had an official diagnosis of a concussion in my career,” she said, “but as you grow older, you sometimes say, gosh, am I losing my memory or did I used to forget when I went into a room what I went in there for? Could this be the start of something?”

Chastain is one of the rare women to offer her brain for research. Of the 307 brains already studied by the BU School of Medicine and the Department of Veterans Affairs collaborative brain bank, only seven have been women, and none has been diagnosed with Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy, a degenerative brain disease that is believed to be linked to concussions.

In addition to Chastain, Olympic swimming standout Jenny Thompson and Cindy Parlow Cone, a U.S. women’s national soccer teammate of Chastain’s, have also donated their brains to BU. So far, CTE has not been able to be diagnosed in a living person.

NFL stars have dominated the concussion conversation: the brains of Ken Stabler and Dave Duerson, among others, were examined at BU and diagnosed with CTE. But the risks of concussions and long-term brain injuries exist in many sports, including girls’ and women’s soccer.

“A question I have is, do men’s and women’s brains look and respond differently?” Chastain said. “I’m a recovering two-time ACL reconstruction athlete. Why are ACL injuries more common in girls and women than boys and men? Could that also be true with concussions? And if true, what can we do differently?”

Ann McKee, the director of the BU CTE Program, said this is a vital area of study.

“We currently know so little about how gender influences outcome after trauma,” she said. “Her pledge marks an important step to expand our knowledge in this critical area.”

That Chastain would make this kind of decision is hardly surprising. Now coaching various youth soccer teams in the Bay Area, she is a vocal advocate for the Safer Soccer initiative, which seeks to prevent players under the age of 14 from heading the ball.

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“It’s important to protect the next generation, and the next generation thereafter,” she said. “We’re so far away from where we were when I was a kid in terms of our naivete about these issues.”

For millions of sports fans, Chastain is known simply as the woman who ripped off her jersey in celebration after her penalty kick won the 1999 Women’s World Cup for the United States. That memorable image graced the covers of Newsweek, Time and Sports Illustrated the following week, and she and her teammates later were named SI’s Sportswomen of the Year. It’s impossible to overestimate how important that moment was in the progression of women’s sports in the Title IX era.

Now, however, Chastain is hoping to be known for something else.

“Because so many young people are playing soccer, boys and girls alike," she said, "for me, a great legacy would be that when people think of me and the U.S. women’s national team, I’d hope they would say that she left soccer in a better place than when she started. So this decision would hopefully be at the top of the list, while the penalty kick from '99 would fall in there somewhere, but not as the most important thing.”