Chronic means long term. Traumatic means associated with trauma. Encephalopathy means a bad brain.

I meet with retired football players. Some are well-dressed, some are well-spoken, but when you talk to them personally, they will admit to you that they are having problems. But they are managing their problems. They have impaired memory, they're having mood problems. They are being treated by their psychiatrists.

As a physician, I'm somewhat an advocate of patients. How come, before Mike Webster, no NFL player was told or knew that there was an intrinsic risk of brain damage from playing football?

I am a spiritual person. I'm a Catholic. I treat my patients, the dead patients, as live patients. I believe there is life after death. And I talk to my patients. I talk to them, not loudly but quietly in my heart when I look at them. Before I do an autopsy, I must have a visual contact with the face.

A true athlete is someone who doesn't just stop training when they stop competing. It's a way of life, and they keep in shape just to keep up that standard.

Some people go off to an ashram or they, you know, have a midlife crisis and buy a sports car. For me, I do 'Hedwig,' and I see it's a midlife crisis maybe, and I see what's next. And it's a good trampoline, maybe, into the next part of my life.

I think every athlete wants to get sponsored. If you do really well in your sport, then I think sponsorship can help you get rewarded in that sense: doing what you can for your sponsor. It's just another achievement in life.

The only thing I've ever wanted to do is play professional football, and be a professional quarterback, so now that it's here and it's getting close, it's just kind of making all that pain and suffering and waiting and working hard worth it.