A wrongful death lawsuit filed against the NCAA by the widow of former University of Southern California football player Matthew Gee was set to head to trial in a Los Angeles court Friday. Of the hundreds of wrongful death and personal injury lawsuits brought by college football players against the NCAA in the past decade, Gee’s is only the second to go to trial. It could be the first to reach a jury.
A 2018 trial in Texas led to a settlement after several days of testimony by witnesses for the widow of Greg Ploetz, who played defense for Texas in the late 1960s. In 2016, the NCAA agreed to settle a class-action concussion lawsuit. The settlement included:
- $70 million to monitor former college athlete’s medical conditions;
- $5 million toward medical research; and
- Payments of up to $5,000 toward individual players claiming injuries.
Gee died in 2018 at age 49 from permanent brain damage caused by countless blows to the head he took while playing linebacker at USC in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The lawsuit alleges the hits to the head led to chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE.
“For years [the NCAA] has kept players like Matthew Gee and the public in the dark about an epidemic that was slowly killing college athletes,” the lawsuit said. “The NCAA knew of the harmful effects … on athletes for decades, they ignored these facts and failed to institute any meaningful methods of warning and/or protecting the athletes.”