Queensland rugby league legend Wally Lewis has revealed he is facing his toughest opponent yet – a dementia diagnosis, brought on by years of head knocks across his storied football career.
In an interview with 60 Minutes aired on Sunday night, “the King” revealed he was most likely suffering from the effects of a neurodegenerative condition known as CTE (chronic traumatic encephalopathy).
Wally Lewis (right) celebrating Queensland’s Origin win earlier this month. “The King” has revealed his is battling dementia brought on by repeated head injuries during his career.Credit: Brendon Thorne/Getty Images
The condition forced him to step away from his sports presenting role at 9News Queensland in January.
“For a lot of sports guys, I think most of us take on this belief that we’ve got to prove how tough we are, how rugged, and if we put our hands up and seek sympathy, then we’re going to be seen as the real cowards of the game,” Lewis told 60 Minutes.
“But we’ve got to take it on and admit that the problems are there.”
For Lewis, who underwent brain surgery in 2007 following an epilepsy diagnosis, it was problems with short-term memory – a forgotten birthday here, a repeated story there – that sounded the alarm.
“I remember Wally picked me up, he talked to me about something and we were driving along and about three minutes later he said – it was as if he’d never told me – told me the same story,” Lewis’s partner, Lynda Adams, told the program.
“I said ‘OK’ and then, about three or five minutes later, [he] told me the same story.”
Lewis, 63, said it was an embarrassing moment.
“You feel your face go red and you think, well, there’s just another one,” he said.
Lewis recounted how he struggled with a cognitive test – the same type former US president Donald Trump once bragged about passing – which brought home how serious it was.
“One of my first meetings with the doctor when she asked me just to repeat simple things, and I think she gave me five things and it might have been something like bus, dog, truck, camera, chair,” he said.
One of many big hits during Wally Lewis’s career.Credit: Archive
“She said ‘remember those’ and went over them two or three times and then said to me, ‘how are you feeling? Everything OK? You don’t feel nervous?’
“A minute later she said, ‘what are the things I asked you to remember?’ and I got two of them. Then sometime later after that she said, do you remember what they were? And I think I said bus and she looked up and yeah.
“Pride’s a wonderful thing, but there wasn’t a lot of it around then.”
As the only conclusive test for CTE was through post-mortem brain tissue analysis, Lewis would never know for certain if he was afflicted with the condition.
But his neurologist, Dr Rowena Mobbs, said she was about as certain as she could be that it was CTE brought on by years of repetitive head trauma through tens of thousands of tackles.
“You could interpret it as guesswork, but it’s educated guesswork by a specialist in dementia,” she told 60 Minutes.
“It does look like CTE. There’s plenty of evidence pointing towards that – I’m 90 per cent certain this is the case.”
Mobbs admitted to being a little starstruck when Lewis walked through the door.
“It’s devastating,” she said.
“I cried that night on my way home from work. It’s hard to see these players go through it. They’re people I’ve admired and, and loved growing up, so the last thing I want to do is diagnose them with dementia.”
But even with the tremendous toll on his latter-day health, Lewis said he would not change a thing about his 14-year professional rugby league career.
“I loved the game that I played,” he said.
“I felt privileged to have played it to have been given that chance.
“When you go out there and you’re wearing the representative jerseys, particularly the one for Australia, you feel 10-foot tall and bulletproof.
“Well, you might think you are but actually you’re not.”
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