ORANGEBURG, S.C. — The NCAA owes a former college football player and his wife $18 million, a South Carolina jury decided while finding college sports’ major governing body negligent in failing to warn the player about the long-term effects of concussions.
After a civil trial that wrapped up late last week, Orangeburg County jurors awarded $10 million to 68-year-old Robert Geathers, who played at South Carolina State from 1977 to 1980 as a defensive end. His wife, Debra, was awarded $8 million, according to a court document.
A physician diagnosed Robert Geathers with dementia several years ago, The Times and Democrat newspaper in Orangeburg reported. Now he has trouble with day-to-day tasks such as dressing himself and helping making meals.
Other physicians who testified at the trial said Geathers displays symptoms of chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a degenerative brain disease found in former football players who received repeated blows to their heads while playing. CTE can be diagnosed only posthumously.
The couple’s attorneys argued to jurors that blows Geathers took during practices and games for the historically Black school in Orangeburg caused trauma that didn’t show up until decades later, the newspaper reported.
Geathers attorney Bakari Sellers alleged the NCAA knew about concussion risks since the 1930s and when Robert Geathers’ college career ended but didn’t tell coaches or players about those risks until later.
“All of the information they knew, they withheld,” Sellers told jurors, adding that “their job was to keep the boys safe.”
The verdict can be appealed. NCAA spokesperson Greg Johnson said Saturday in an email that the organization disagreed with the verdict and that it “was prepared to pursue our rights on post-trial motions and on appeal, if necessary.”
Johnson said the “NCAA has prevailed in every other jury trial around the country on these issues” and that the South Carolina State team standards “followed the knowledge that existed at the time, and college football did not cause Mr. Geathers’ lifelong health problems.”
NCAA trial attorney Andy Fletcher said at the trial that Robert Geathers has several health conditions that influence dementia-like symptoms and that the NCAA’s football rules committee is composed of representatives of member schools that could propose rules.
“There’s going to be head hits. That’s inherent to the game. You can’t take head hits out of football,” Fletcher said in closing arguments.
According to the newspaper, the jury determined the NCAA “unreasonably increased the risk of harm of head impacts to Robert Geathers over and above the risks inherent to playing football.” And it also determined the NCAA “voluntarily assumed duties to protect the health and safety of Robert Geathers” and that the NCAA “negligently breached their duties” to him.
After the trial, Sellers said the result provided justice: “I felt good to hug Debra Geathers. She gets to go home and tell her husband some good news.”
Robert Geathers was a third-round draft pick by the Buffalo Bills in 1981. His brother Jumpy Geathers and three sons — Robert Jr., Clifton and Kwame — were all NFL defensive linemen.
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