Tom McHale

Former NFL player Tom McHale was one of the earliest brain donations received at the Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy (CSTE) Brain Bank, now known as the UNITE Brain Bank at the Boston University CTE Center. Beyond football, Mr. McHale was a restauranteur, a family man, and a good friend that many in his life said left them better for knowing him.

Mr. McHale was the second former NFL player to be diagnosed with CTE by Dr. Ann McKee at Boston University. Now, his widow Lisa McHale is the Director of Legacy Family Relations for the BU CTE Center and the Concussion Legacy Foundation. We thank the McHale family for their generous donation and commitment to our research.

Read Mr. McHale’s story below.

“I’m a better person for having known him.”

That’s what a friend of Tom McHale recently said to Tom’s wife, Lisa McHale. It’s clear this is a sentiment shared by many.

On February 25^th, which would have been Tom’s 60^th birthday, Lisa and her family held a 5K remembrance walk in support of the Concussion Legacy Foundation’s “Race to End CTE.” 2023 marks the 15^th anniversary of Tom’s passing and the outpouring of support from friends, family, neighbors, and former teammates shows the impact he had on his loved ones and the magnitude of his legacy.

To many, Tom McHale was an NFL lineman who played for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Philadelphia Eagles, and Miami Dolphins during his nine-year career.

Those closest to him knew him as a determined and goal-oriented person who was sure of what he wanted and confident in his ability to achieve it. He had a personality that left a lasting impression on those he met. His family, especially his wife and three sons, meant the world to him. He maintained enviably close relationships with friends he had known as far back as elementary school. Margy, his younger sister by just 15 months, was an especially close friend and confidant throughout life, and they checked in with one another frequently.

He began playing football when he was eight years old and continued for 26 years. He played through high school, a postgraduate year at Wyoming Seminary, and two seasons at the University of Maryland before transferring to Cornell University.

Tom’s love of football was only one of his passions. He loved tennis and cooking, and knew from a young age that he wanted to be a restauranteur. At the University of Maryland, he was a starter on a full football scholarship but made the decision to give up his scholarship and transfer to Cornell University to get a degree that better aligned with his goals.

Lisa reflected on how much she admired Tom’s healthy perspective on the sport he loved so much. “Though Tom dreamed of a career in the NFL, he seemed very much aware that a football career is finite, and that he would be smart to prepare himself for life after football.” So, having maxed out his college eligibility, he signed a free agent contract with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in 1987, and completed the final credits he needed for his Cornell Hotel School degree, while still playing in the NFL. Then, after nine seasons, he decided to leave the NFL, anxious to pursue his life-long dream of running and operating restaurants.

Lisa says it’s difficult to pinpoint when changes began, but recalls being extremely alarmed when Tom confided in her one night that he was feeling hopelessly depressed and was no longer enjoying running the restaurants, a complete departure from the perpetually optimistic and charismatic husband she had grown to rely on. It became more and more evident that he couldn’t seem to formulate a plan for what he wanted to do next, or how he would support his family. He began having more and more trouble sleeping at night and achieving less and less of substance during the day. He was putting on weight. He appeared to lose interest in connecting with friends, in cooking, and other hobbies he’d regularly enjoyed and he developed entirely new deleterious cravings for nicotine and sweets, which Lisa thought particularly odd.

The realization that he was rarely in contact even with Margy made Lisa take notice. “With time, what was becoming more and more concerning is that he was losing the ability to find joy, to enjoy things that he always had,” she said. “He’d love listening to music, and even the kids would notice, he’d pull up at the end of the day and the music was not on in the car and it was just bizarre.”

“When Tom admitted to being dependent on, and abusing, doctor-prescribed pain medications,” Lisa recalled, “I was actually relieved. Crazy as that sounds. Because addiction, drug abuse, could explain what happened to the husband I had known. And that gave me hope that I would have him back.” However, she found that, even with treatment, in the absence of drug use, the Tom she knew never returned. “And that’s when I got scared. Very, very scared.”

Lisa recalls that fifteen years ago, she and Tom hadn’t heard of CTE and didn’t have the benefit of the information and resources that are available today. At the time, they weren’t aware of anyone else going through the same thing Tom was experiencing. Lisa noted that to people outside of the family, individuals suffering from CTE “can seem very much themselves for short periods of time, but if you live with them day in and day out, you can’t mistake that this is a very, very different person from the person that I had known.”

After Tom’s passing, Lisa received a phone call asking if she would consider donating his brain to CTE research, which she calls “a gift and a blessing” because it ultimately led to her receiving definitive answers about the changes she saw in Tom.

After receiving Tom’s CTE diagnosis, Lisa found herself on a new career path helping families like hers to understand what their loved ones are going through. For 13 years, Lisa has worked as the Director of Legacy Family Relations at the Concussion Legacy Foundation and, in March of 2023, officially joined the Boston University CTE Center team as well. In her career, she has helped over 1,300 families and says it has been “an honor and a privilege to support the research for the last 13 years.”

When talking about the importance of CTE research, Lisa emphasizes that “being aware that our brains weren’t built to withstand the kind of repetitive hits that happen in certain sports like football, and so I think that’s what people need to understand. Pay attention to that. Understand that, and educate yourselves about that, because it’s so important to protect our children, and there’s so much that can be done to do that.”

There have been a lot of advancements in CTE research in recent years and Lisa stresses, “with knowledge, with making better decisions, we can prevent this disease.”

Through her roles at CLF and the BU CTE Center, she continues to share Tom’s legacy and uses her family’s experience to spread awareness of CTE and help those who are also struggling. “I know that Tom would very, very, very much want people to take from the example and tragedy of his life to pay attention to an issue that was previously just not known, and that so much can be done to mitigate these risks. And I just know that he would be so pleased to be part of that message.”

“I think that had he known about these risks, he would have made other life choices,” Lisa said. “Most wouldn’t. But I know Tom would.”

Mr. McHale’s diagnosis was made by Dr. Ann McKee at the BU CTE Center. If you would like to support the BU CTE Center and help fund the research that makes these diagnoses possible, you can donate here.

If you or a loved one are interested in brain donation, please view our Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) and brain donation brochures for more information.

This story was written by Amanda V. Cabral at the BU CTE Center. If you are interested in having a donor story written for your loved one, please reach out to her at avcabral@bu.edu.