Family of Pittsburg State Football Player Sues NCAA, MIAA for Negligence

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The Mid-America Intercollegiate Athletics Association (MIAA) and the NCAA were hit with a proposed class action in early June by the family of deceased Pittsburg State University linebacker Zack Langston, 26, whose 2014 suicide the lawsuit alleges is connected to the brain trauma he suffered during his football career. Langston, the case says, shot himself in the chest “specifically so that his brain would be preserved to examine the damage caused by football.”

A post-mortem examination revealed Langston suffered from late-stage Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE), a degenerative brain disorder found in many football players that can only be diagnosed after death. The 34-page complaint alleges the defendants for decades knew about the long-term risks associated with concussions and concussion-related injuries from football, yet recklessly concealed this information to “protect the very profitable business of ‘amateur’ college football.” What’s more, the lawsuit argues the defendants failed in their duty to protect student athletes until the NCAA made changes to its concussion treatment protocols in 2010.

“Despite knowing for decades of a vast body of scientific research describing the dangers of [traumatic brain injuries], [the defendants] failed to implement adequate procedures to protect Zack Langston and other Pittsburg State football players from the long-term dangers associated with them,” the lawsuit alleges. “They did so knowingly and for profit.”

The classes proposed by the suit include student athletes who played football for Pittsburg State University between 1952 and 2010, and between 1989 and 2010, as well as their families, spouses and child dependents.