Brandi Chastain, who cemented her spot in U.S. sports history when she celebrated the U.S. women’s soccer team’s victory in the 1999 World Cup, said today that she will donate her brain to CTE research.
Chastain, 47, will donate her brain to the after her death to the VA-BU-CLF Brain Bank, which is run by the Department of Veteran Affairs and Boston University School of Medicine. She made the announcement with the Concussion Legacy Foundation.
“It is really about: How I can help impact soccer beyond scoring a goal in 1999 in the World Cup final,” Chastain told The Associated Press. “Can I do something more to leave soccer in a better place than it was when I began this wonderful journey with this game?”
Her brain will help researchers studying chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a degenerative brain condition caused by taking blows to the head. Researchers are trying to find ways to diagnose the condition before death.
Although football has been the top sport in the CTE discussion, but players in other sports could also suffer brain injuries. Chatain told USA Today that she suffered two concussions during her career and went right back into a game.
“I never had an official diagnosis of a concussion in my career, but as you grow older, you sometimes say, gosh, am I losing my memory or did I used to forget when I went into a room what I went in there for?” Chastain said. “Could this be the start of something?”
For soccer players, the danger comes when heading the ball. As CNN points out, a 2013 study showed that players heading the ball can sometimes suffer from brain abnormalities that are similar to what doctors see in patients who suffer concussions.
Chastain is best remembered for taking off her shirt in celebration after the winning penalty kick that clinched the 1999 World Cup for the U.S. Women’s Soccer Team, but now she can be remembered for helping out researchers.