Kevin Turner’s Parents Still Watch Football. But Differently.
The TV belongs to Myra and Raymond Turner, the parents of Kevin Turner, a former Alabama fullback who played eight seasons in the N.F.L.
It’s just all so hard to explain.” I traveled to Alabama to hear an explanation
and try to understand it — and maybe even understand why they allow their two teenage grandsons to play football after Kevin, the boys’ father, suffered for six long years with a brain disease that research has linked to head trauma in football.
His bronze grave marker — which will be finished any day now — will have his name, Paul Kevin Turner,
and two etchings of him in a football uniform — one from his days at Alabama, the other from when he was with the Eagles.
As Myra Turner watched the Dallas Cowboys play the Packers last weekend, she saw a TV camera stop on the former Cowboys running back Emmitt Smith, who was celebrating
and grabbing his seatmate, Tony Dorsett, another Cowboys alumnus.
Raymond said that Their dad told them to think long and hard before playing football because of what it could possibly do to their brains,
Turner said that I know a lot of people are going to say, ‘How do you watch football knowing football had taken your son’s own life?’
Raymond said that I’m a guy, so I love football — the hitting, the running, the scoring, the girls,
Neither is ignoring the risk of C.T.E., but Raymond said, “It’s probably too late for those guys in the N.F.L.” Get the big sports news, highlights
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