Former Melbourne and Geelong player Sam Blease fears for his health after concussions
Former Melbourne and Geelong player Sam Blease has joined the growing number of ex-players to reveal his health battles after a string of concussions and has hit back at Sam Newman for his comments.
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As Sam Blease read the Herald Sun’s headlines about Polly Farmer’s CTE plight, it made him ponder his quality of life in decades to come.
The articulate and deep-thinking 29-year-old has to admit he doesn’t know what the answer will be and it scares him.
The former Melbourne and Geelong player, taken at pick 17 in the 2008 national draft, had 8-10 concussions over the course of his 34 senior games.
The last one left him rocked, with symptoms and depression so severe it ended his career.
He has done the research and donated his brain to the Australian brain bank, adamant he has no regrets about pulling the pin when he sees the plight of players like Farmer.
Good mate Jack Fitzpatrick also retired because of concussion after head knocks at Melbourne and Hawthorn and they spoke on Thursday morning about an issue that effects them to this day.
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“I reflect back on one I had in 2011 at the Adelaide Oval. I went back onto the ground afterwards and was meant to play at half forward and went to half back. Little things like that are things you talk about. Have we done the right thing by not playing any more? We have saved ourselves as opposed to players back then given how it was treated?,” Blease said.
“I remember after my last one, it was the worst place I had been in through my sporting life.
“The anxiety and how I was feeling at Geelong that night after that concussion.
“I played out the game and had delayed concussion and I was in such a bad way. I didn’t even know what was going on. The anxiety I had after that last one was a real concern to me.
“Headaches, depression, and anxiety people don’t see and you hear different people say you are soft or weak but as I said to Jack, people are so naive to it all.”
The neurodegenerative disease CTE can only be diagnosed after death which means Blease will have to live with the uncertainty.
“That is the scary thing, the unknown. It’s what Jack and I were talking about. You don’t really know the outcome of it. Are we going to be OK? But you can’t answer that question. It is something we think about and you want to be able to do things in later years, whether it’s kids or family and just living a normal life,” he said.
Blease says Sam Newman’s provocative comments questioning good mate Farmer’s CTE diagnosis are counterproductive given his own scans from the Florey Institute do not show damage because it is only discovered post-mortem.
“I like Sam and 95 per cent of the things he says, but I am not sure if that’s productive for the message we are trying to send. We aren’t saying don’t play footy, but there needs to be a better understanding and those comments are just dangerous. It’s only a matter of time before we have an Aaron Hernandez situation in the AFL.”
Hernandez was a New England Patriots star tight end who was diagnosed with CTE after committing suicide after being found guilty of first-degree murder.
Blease is now getting his footy fix as a general manager of an AFL side in Queensland, is opening a Victorian cafe and has an emerging real estate development business.
Still that anxiety lingers at times and he can only believe it is linked to his concussions.
“The anxiety stuff, whether it’s a human thing or a by-product of that concussion I can’t quantify. I know for a fact that in the two or three years afterwards, reflecting on that time with a housemate, he noticed more than anyone else how I had changed in such a short period of time, with everyday life and memory and mood swings. People move on and you are stuck with dealing with what you are dealing with. That was definitely the darkest period of my time with concussion,” Blease said.
“I reckon I had eight or 10 over seven or eight years and I recovered well from all but one of them but for two or three years I really struggled with side effects and I have been so fortunate to have good family support and great people around me.”
MORE NEWS:
Graham ‘Polly’ Farmer first Aussie rules player diagnosed with CTE
Experts call for change as football world reacts to Graham ‘Polly’ Farmer CTE shock
Try the concussion test taken by AFL players on game day
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Originally published as Former Melbourne and Geelong player Sam Blease fears for his health after concussions
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