Former NFL fullback Kevin Turner died Thursday at the age of 46 after a six-year fight with ALS.
Turner played for the New England Patriots and Philadelphia Eagles in the NFL and was a star at Alabama in college.
Turner believed that there is a strong link between CTE (the degenerative brain disease found in many former football players) and ALS.
“Football had something to do with it,” Turner said in 2011 (via ESPN.com). ” I don’t know to what extent and I may not ever know. But there are too many people I know that have ALS and played football in similar positions. They seem to be linebackers, fullbacks, strong safeties. Those are big collision guys.”