Paul Green’s widow breaks silence to praise Billy Slater’s ‘courage’

Amanda Green said while the episode had taken an emotional toll, she praised the Origin coach after he mistakenly linked her husband’s death to coaching pressures and not CTE.

Billy Slater referenced Paul Green’s death in an emotional press conference on Tuesday. Picture: Getty Images

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Amanda Green has praised Queensland coach Billy Slater for his courage to apologise to her, after he mistakenly linked her husband’s death to coaching pressures and not the brain disease Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy.

Slater, at an Origin eve press conference, suggested Paul Green, the former Maroons coach, had taken his own life because of the stress, when in fact he was suffering a “severe” case of CTE caused by his rugby league playing career.

In a statement exclusively released to The Australian, Ms Green praised the Maroons coach’s leadership on the issue after he, just hours before State of Origin game two, called her and then fronted a snap press conference to address his mistake.

Amanda and Paul Green. Picture: Supplied

Ms Green said, while the last 48 hours had been emotional and challenging, she is hoping more “awareness and understanding around CTE” will come from it.

“To begin with, I would like to say how very courageous it was of Billy to call me, completely unprompted, yesterday. It shows a lot about his true character and what a fine role model he is for young men. I commend and admire him for that,” Ms Green said.

“This statement is not about rehashing the events of yesterday. However, in saying that, yesterday’s commentary did highlight to me just how far we still must go in raising awareness and understanding around CTE.

“Paul was diagnosed with Stage 3 CTE. Severe CTE. He was living with a very advanced brain disease.

“CTE is a degenerative brain disease found in athletes, military veterans and others with a history of repetitive brain trauma. CTE is caused in part by repeated traumatic brain injuries.

“I now have a responsibility to use my voice to help others, to help those who have lost loved ones, those who are currently struggling themselves or those who are supporting a loved one going through this horrendous disease. For me, I could not live with myself if I didn’t fight for my children and their sports-loving mates.”

She appealed for the major sporting codes to do more to educate people about the disease, while also moving to better protect young athletes and calling for more support for the Australian Sports Brain Bank.

“We all have a responsibility to the next generation of young athletes to continue to support research and understanding of this disease for their future brain health,” she said.

“Why aren’t we talking about this disease more? We are a sport-loving nation who encourage our children to play sport from a young age. We are also a nation that has become increasingly brave enough to talk about the mental-health problems we face. However, we also need to be a nation that in these conversations are also talking about a disease we now know is affecting the brain health of our past, current and future athletes.”

Most recently the Tuck family spoke about the loss of former AFL footballer Shane Tuck, whose brain was “ravaged” with CTE and who took his own life; a disease experts say was caused by his 173-game AFL career. “It’s a real sickness of the brain, it’s totally different to mental illness,” Fay Tuck told The Weekend Australian.

Ms Green supported the Tucks’ stance, and said she would like more conversations to be had around the brain injury’s direct link to suicide.

“When we lose our ex-sportsmen though suicide, we talk about mental health and how we can do more, but it is imperative that we start including CTE in these conversations,” Ms Green said. “Because we now know that in a number of these cases CTE is the very disease taking their lives – not mental health.”

“I am not for one minute taking away the seriousness of mental health. It’s a genuine societal issue. However, CTE is a distinct brain disease with a known cause.

“I am part of a support group who have lost loved ones to CTE. The majority of those in the group have lost loved ones through suicide and all have been diagnosed with CTE after death. This disease is real and it is scary, and it breaks my heart that our support group is growing all the time. We all have our own story of what our loved ones and our families have been through because of this disease, however one thing we all have in common is that our loved ones played a contact sport. The sports vary from AFL, rugby union, rugby league, boxing or lacrosse, just to name a few.”

Ms Green, who is now an ambassador for the Australian Sports Brain Bank, said while the past 48 hours had taken an emotional toll, she would like this moment to be an opportunity to create more awareness around CTE.

“So please, let’s start having the conversation,” she said. “Let’s support the amazing research Professor Michael Buckland at the Australian Sports Brain Bank is doing and together, hopefully, we can help support someone who is currently struggling and at the same time protect the brain health of our next generation.”