March 4 – US soccer icon Brandi Chastain, whose penalty won the women’s World Cup against China in 1999, has agreed to donate her brain for research into concussion.
Chastain, whose iconic celebration when she ripped off her jersey at the Rose Bowl became a lasting symbol of gender equality, announced her donation to the Massachusetts-based Concussion Legacy Foundation on Thursday.
“It is really about: How I can help impact soccer beyond scoring a goal in 1999 in the World Cup final. Can I do something more to leave soccer in a better place than it was when I began this wonderful journey with this game?” she said.
Concussion has become a major talking point throughout the sport on both sides of Atlantic. Chastain, who played for the US national team from 1988-2004 and won two World Cups, says that awareness is growing but has backed moves among youth coaches to eliminate headers for players under 14.
“I’ve been involved in sports for a long time, only up until recently, have people been talking about concussions, and then concussions specifically related to soccer. It’s been mostly a football problem or a football issue. But it’s not.”
“I never had an official diagnosis of a concussion in my career,” she continued, “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 hopes to inspire other female athletes to pledge their brains to science. “I’m not going to be needing it at the end of my life, No. 1,” she told 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?’ “
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