White was a prominent branch on the coaching trees of Bill Walsh and Dick Vermeil, two other Northern California natives. But his ties to Bay Area football stretch to the early 1950s when White was a multi-sport star at Acalanes High. He went to Cal, where he played receiver and in 1957 was voted team captain.
Immediately after graduation, White joined a Cal coaching staff that would later include Walsh. After six seasons at Cal, White went to arch rival Stanford to join a staff that included Vermeil. In 1972, White was offered the head coaching job at both schools, and returned to his alma mater. The Cal Athletics Hall of Famer was the national Coach of the Year in 1975 with the Bears.
“Mike was special,” Burl Toler Jr., a linebacker who played at Cal under White from 1974-77, said in a release issued by the Cal athletic department. “He treated us like men and with a lot of respect. Mike was a very gifted and smart coach who loved Cal and loved being a coach, and he surrounded himself with a lot of like minds who instilled in us a will to succeed.”
First as an assistant and then as head coach, White was credited with developing some of Cal’s greatest quarterbacks – Craig Morton, Steve Bartkowski and Joe Roth. The Bears went 35-30-1 in six seasons under White, including two eight-win seasons. In 1975, Cal led the nation in offense and tied UCLA for the Pac-8 regular season title. The Bears were ranked 14th in the final AP poll, but didn’t participate in a bowl – the Bruins got the Rose Bowl bid by winning the head-to-head matchup.
White was fired at Cal following the 1977 season, but landed on the 49ers coaching staff and was the offensive line coach on Walsh’s first 49ers team.
In 1980, White was named the head coach at Illinois. He led the Fighting Illini from 1980-87 and finally got a chance to play in the Rose Bowl in 1984. White’s Illinois teams played in three bowls in all, including the 1982 Liberty Bowl against Alabama in Bear Bryant’s final game as a coach.
White resigned following the 1987 season amid an NCAA investigation for recruiting violations. White returned to coaching in 1990, joining Art Shell’s Los Angeles Raiders staff as the quarterbacks coach.
White succeeded Shell as the Raiders’ head coach in 1995. White’s two-year stint with the Raiders was remembered mostly for being the first back in Oakland after 12 years in L.A., a 8–2 start followed by six straight losses to the end the 1995 season, and, after going 7-9 in 1996, he was fired by Al Davis on Christmas Eve.
The next season White joined Vermeil, who was lured out of retirement by the St. Louis Rams, and three seasons later retired after helping the Rams beat Tennessee in Super Bowl XXXIV. But when Vermeil was hired by the Chiefs, White served as Kansas City’s director of football administration from 2001 to 2005.
White also is credited, along with former Dallas Cowboys presided Tex Schramm, with the NFL begin to get a foothold in Europe by helping establish the World League in 1989.
After retirement, White returned to Ca l and worked for the California Alumni Association for many summers as the Director of Camp Blue at the Lair of the Golden Bear, according to the Cal release. In 2013, he was awarded with UC Berkeley’s Glenn T. Seaborg Award, presented annually in honor of Cal’s nationally renowned scientist to a former Cal football player for his career accomplishments who represents “the honored Cal principles and traditions of excellence in academics, athletics, leadership and attitude.”
]]>The TikTok Awards aim to celebrate a new era of creativity. The fan-voted awards will highlight creators in various categories, such as creator of the year, video of the year, breakthrough artist of the year, storyteller of the year, and the rising star of the year, which is sponsored by e.l.f. Cosmetics, a title sponsor of the inaugural TikTok Awards.
The show will begin live on TikTok, on their official account @TikTok, at 6 p.m. PT and will be hosted by La La Anthony. Award presenters include Paris Hilton, Bethenny Frankel, Trixie Mattel, and Jordan Chiles. It will also be streamed live and available on demand the next day on Tubi, the official streaming partner of the TikTok Awards 2025.
In addition to the traditional award ceremony, the show will also be hosting a red carpet livestream beginning at 5 p.m. PT.
Here’s a look at the 2025 TikTok Awards categories and nominees:
Creator of the Year
Video of the Year
Rising Star of the Year (sponsored by e.l.f. Cosmetics)
Breakthrough Artist of the Year
Storyteller of the Year
Muse of the Year
TikTok for Good Award
My Show is On Award [Film & TV]
MVP of the Year [Sports]
Okay Slay Award [Fashion/Beauty]
I Was Today Years Old Award [Learning] (sponsored by H&R Block)
Immediately Added To Cart Award (presented by TikTok Shop)
CapCut Creator of the Year
TikTok LIVE Creator of the Year
]]>Officials on Tuesday argued the mid-October encounter did not amount to a “critical incident,” a key threshold that would require the agency to release officer body-camera video. The OPD’s response to this news organization’s public records request for the footage came at the 45-day deadline enshrined in a state law to boost police accountability.
“At this time, the City has determined that the incident does not meet the definition of a ‘critical incident,'” read an unsigned statement from OPD, which cited AB 748, the law signed in 2019 to increase public access to such footage. “Therefore, the mandatory disclosure provisions applicable to critical incidents do not apply.”
The refusal to release the footage drew an immediate rebuke from First Amendment and police accountability advocates, who questioned the police department’s lack of transparency in the case, while acknowledging the department might not have to release the videos.
AB 748 defines “critical incidents” as instances when officers fire their guns, or when “the use of force by a peace officer or custodial officer against a person resulted in death or in great bodily injury.”
“Transparency is the oxygen of accountability,” David Loy, legal director of the First Amendment Coalition, said. “The public has an overwhelming interest in how the government does their job, especially how police officers do their job. Even if they’re not legally required to release it, there’s no reason I believe they should not release the video.”
Few facts have been publicly released six weeks after Martin’s death.
Shortly after 4 a.m. on Oct. 18, multiple people called 911 as Martin banged on his neighbors’ front doors and wandered through the backyards of houses on the 11000 block of Ettrick Street. The former running back for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Oakland Raiders had been staying in a longtime family home on the block, which rests in the Oakland hills near the Oakland Zoo.
Police initially received a call about a person breaking into an occupied home on Ettrick Street. They “simultaneously” received notice that a person believed to be a burglar was having “a medical emergency,” according to a statement OPD released at the time.
A “brief struggle” with Martin ensued when officers tried to detain him, police said. Martin then became unresponsive after being taken into custody, according to police. Police have not described the nature of Martin’s “struggle” with an unknown number of officers who haven’t been identified, whether he said anything to them and the length of time he spent in custody before becoming unconscious.
The Alameda County Coroner’s Office has not completed Martin’s autopsy. Such reports can often take weeks or months to complete while authorities complete toxicology tests.
Martin’s brain is expected to be preserved and examined by neurologists for evidence of chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE. Several families of deceased NFL players have taken the same steps to determine if repeated hits to their loved ones’ heads caused a disease that can only be determined after death, but has been found in hundreds of former NFL players in recent years and, at times, linked to severe mental illness.
Martin’s family — who have spent the week preparing for Martin’s memorial service, scheduled for Thursday — declined to comment. It is unclear if his family was allowed to view the body-camera footage.
Born in Oakland, Martin grew up playing football and was a star at St. Mary’s in Stockton, before spending four years at Boise State, where he left in 2011 as the third-leading rusher in program history. His 2012 rookie season in Tampa Bay was his most productive as a pro. The back nicknamed “Muscle Hamster” for his eagerness to take on physically taxing assignments rushed for 1,454 yards and 11 touchdowns that season, earning his first of two career Pro Bowl appearances.
His NFL career was marred by injuries and off-field challenges. In 2016, Martin was suspended four games for violating the NFL’s substance abuse policy after testing positive for a banned substance. He later sought treatment and publicly expressed regret, vowing to rebuild his health and reputation.
He quietly retired after the 2018 season and had lived a private life until the fall encounter with Oakland police.
His death came as OPD — which has been under federal court-ordered monitoring for two decades — has faced renewed scrutiny over its transparency.
Just days before Martin’s death, the police department began encrypting its radio channels — a decision that proved deeply controversial, given how those radio feeds had been open for decades while providing a key window into crime across the city. Because of the switch, the public could not listen in or review the 911 calls, and the police’s response.
When OPD joined other East Bay agencies in silencing the radio feeds, Oakland City Administrator Jestin Johnson vowed to make his city’s police conversations easily available to the public. In a late-August statement, Johnson stressed that “we also need to maintain transparency and accountability to the public” amid the push for encryption, while adding that “we are committed to making sure when there are requests for this information that the department is responsive.”
He also promised to “prioritize requests from news media to ensure timely release of those records to reporters covering Oakland.”
But the city has refused to release the recordings.
Civil rights attorney Jim Chanin, a lead attorney in the landmark Riders case of the early 2000s that forced the OPD into federal oversight, said he saw no reason to withhold release of the body-camera footage, regardless of whether it fell under the purview of AB 748.
“I have the point of view that when in doubt, release it,” Chanin said. “And that’s my point of view in this case.”
If officers acted within the bounds of department policy, then the videos could help show that, said Loy, of the First Amendment Coalition.
“That’s precisely what people have the right to decide for themselves,” he said.
Jakob Rodgers is a senior breaking news reporter. Call, text or send him an encrypted message via Signal at 510-390-2351, or email him at jrodgers@bayareanewsgroup.com.
]]>The suspected aggressor, a 23-year-old man, was charged with felony battery causing serious bodily injury. He was arrested but later released from jail without bail, after Alameda County Judge Michael Risher ordered him to attend mental health counseling, court records show.
The two men were co-workers at a UPS station at the airport. Their argument on Sunday, Oct. 12 over the two teams grew heated and eventually the 23-year-old man punched his co-worker in the face, causing the victim to fall and hit his head. The gash required stitches and the victim told police he essentially remembered arguing about football, then waking up in a hospital, according to court records.
The suspect was identified by multiple co-workers. The charging documents suggest he has no criminal history. Public police reports on the fight don’t say which man favored the 49ers and which was a fan of the Raiders.
On the day of the fight, the Raiders moved to 2-5 after defeating the Tennessee Titans and the 49ers slipped to 4-3 after losing to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
]]>Former NFL star Antonio Brown was returning Tuesday to Miami to face an attempted murder charge stemming from a May shooting, with his lawyer filing a not guilty plea on his behalf.
Jail records in Essex County, New Jersey, show Brown was released late Tuesday morning for the transfer to Florida. The former All-Pro wide receiver had waived extradition to Florida from New Jersey, where he was brought following his arrest in Dubai.
Brown’s lawyer, Mark Eiglarsh, said in an email that he has already filed a written not guilty plea to the attempted murder charge. Brown could be in a Miami courtroom as early as Wednesday morning for a bond hearing, Eiglarsh said.
According to an arrest warrant, Brown is accused of grabbing a handgun from a security staffer after a celebrity boxing match on May 16 and firing two shots at a man he had gotten into a fistfight with earlier. The victim, Zul-Qarnain Kwame Nantambu, told investigators that one of the bullets grazed his neck.
Eiglarsh said Brown was simply protecting himself from a person he had problems with before.
“The actions he was forced to take were solely in self-defense against the alleged victim’s violent behavior. Brown was attacked that night and acted within his legal right to protect himself,” Eiglarsh said.
Brown was not immediately arrested that night because initially police did not identify Nantambu as a victim. It wasn’t until May 21 that Nantambu gave a full statement about the incident to police and identified Brown as the shooter, the affidavit says.
Based on his social media posts, Brown had been living in Dubai for several months. In a social media post after the altercation, Brown said he was defending himself because he was “jumped by multiple individuals who tried to steal my jewelry and cause physical harm to me.”
A second-degree attempted murder charge in Florida carries a maximum 15-year prison sentence and up to a $10,000 fine in the event of a conviction.
Brown, who spent 12 years in the NFL, was an All-Pro wide receiver who last played in 2021 for Tampa Bay but spent most of his career with Pittsburgh. He was traded to the Raiders in 2019 but never played for the team as he was released before the season opener after a tumultuous training camp. For his career, Brown had 928 receptions for more than 12,000 yards and scored 88 total touchdowns counting returns and one pass. He was a seven-time Pro Bowl selection.
Brown has dealt with several legal problems over the years. He previously had been accused of battery of a moving truck driver, several domestic violence charges, failure to pay child support and other incidents.
During a 2021 game with Tampa Bay against the New York Jets, Brown took off his jersey, shoulder pads and gloves and ran off the field, leading to his release by the Buccaneers and effectively ending his football career.
]]>Former NFL star Antonio Brown has been arrested on an attempted murder charge stemming from a shooting after a celebrity boxing event in Miami, police confirmed Thursday.
Brown, 37, was taken into custody by U.S. Marshals in Dubai, said Miami police spokesman Mike Vega. He was flown to Essex County, New Jersey, where he is being held pending extradition to Miami, Vega said.
It was unclear why Brown was taken to New Jersey first or how long he had been in Dubai, although he has posted several times on social media over the past few months from there.
According to an arrest warrant detailing the May 16 shooting, Brown is accused of grabbing a handgun from a security staffer after the boxing match and firing two shots at a man he had gotten into a fistfight with earlier. The victim, Zul-Qarnain Kwame Nantambu, told investigators one of the bullets grazed his neck.
It was unclear from court documents whether Brown has an attorney. It also was not immediately known when Brown might be returned to Miami.
A second-degree attempted murder charge carries a maximum 15-year prison sentence and up to a $10,000 fine in event of a conviction.
Brown, who spent 12 years in the NFL, was an All-Pro wide receiver who last played in 2021 for Tampa Bay but spent most of his career with Pittsburgh. Brown was traded to the Oakland Raiders in 2019, but was released before the start of the season following several off-the-field incidents.
For his career, Brown had 928 receptions for more than 12,000 yards and 83 touchdowns.
Brown has dealt with several legal problems over the years. He previously had been accused of battery of a moving truck driver, several domestic violence charges, failure to pay child support and other incidents. During a 2021 game with Tampa Bay against the New York Jets, Brown took off his jersey, shoulder pads and gloves and ran off the field, leading to his release by the Buccaneers and effectively ending his football career.
]]>Indeed, the storied NFL franchise’s “First Lady” kept a residence on Mountain Avenue up until her death Friday at 93. It was the culmination of a life linked intrinsically to the East Bay and football alike, the kind that her son, Mark Davis, described Sunday as “wrapped in a cloak of immortality.”
“I love you mom; you will be missed,” said Mark, who shared a “controlling interest” in the now-Las Vegas Raiders with Carol, a stake inherited from the family patriarch, Al Davis, one of the iconic figures in the history of American sports.
Carol Davis was a constant presence in the owners’ suite at games; she gave the team’s star players and executives a hug “hello,” they remembered, and would demonstrate a watchful eye about everything happening in the organization — even, for instance, a team employee’s divorce that Davis would not be expected to know about.
Her passing was the latest notable death among memorable Raiders figures from the team’s history. George Atkinson, the last member of the team’s beloved defense in the 1970s known for its unprecedented physicality, died Monday at 78.
Al Davis, a swashbuckling head coach with an unmistakable Brooklyn accent, simply “adored” his wife, the legendary Raiders quarterback and head coach Tom Flores remembered. Al and Carol ran in a tight inner circle of team officials and Bay Area businessmen, even amid the Raiders’ 13-year stint in Los Angeles.
Al Davis ended his long streak of joining the Raiders on road trips to work out of the Oakland hospital while Carol recovered from a massive heart attack and stroke in 1979 that kept her in a coma for 23 days. Carol miraculously recovered, earning a reputation for toughness that the Raiders themselves rallied behind on the football turf, winning the Super Bowl the very next season.
“She was a very intelligent and very dedicated woman,” recalled former Raiders executive John Herrera, an Oakland native who began working for the franchise as a teen in the 1960’s and finally departed in 2012. “She was a very interesting person to be around — and she kept up with everything that was going on, not just in sports but in the world.”
Through it all, Carol Davis remained committed to the idea of the Raiders as a model of teamwork, the kind of ideal that made the football team a storied fixture of NFL history, but an ambition that slumped in the 21st century before the team limped to a sleek new stadium in Las Vegas.
“She was a strong behind-the-scenes figure,” said Ignacio De La Fuente, the former Oakland City Council president who in 1995 recruited the Raiders back for their second stint in Oakland. “My perception was that she would keep Al realistic about things in our negotiations.”
Born Carol Sagal in New York City, she had been a buyer for retail stores even after Al finished military service and before his start as a pro football coach. The couple married in a Brooklyn synagogue but quickly formed roots in the East Bay once Al began with the Raiders ahead of the 1963 season.
During the team’s most storied years — an AFL championship in 1967 and a pair of Super Bowl victories in 1976 and 1980 — Carol stayed mostly behind the scenes, those who knew her recalled, though she always demonstrated an awareness of what was happening on the field.
“There were so many instances where she would say something that would cause me to giggle, at times where I should not have been,” said Amy Trask, a former longtime Raiders executive and the first woman to serve as an NFL team’s CEO.
“They tended to be at Raiders business dinners,” Trask added about these occasions, “and usually involved a wise, keen observation about someone in attendance.”
Carol read newspapers every morning, always offering fresh insight about the country’s politics or society at large, friends remembered — a fitting description of a woman who led a team that broke new ground in diverse hiring.
Flores, the league’s first Mexican-American quarterback and head coach, recalled the warmth that Carol showed the team’s players, despite her and Al’s penchant for keeping their business private.
“To them, people were Raiders — it didn’t matter which color you were, what ethnic group you belonged to,” recalled Flores, who is 88 and lives in Palm Springs. “She was just very proud of you when you finished your journey.”
Al’s passing in 2011, seen as a pivotal moment in the franchise’s history, had Carol lined up in the succession plan as controlling owner. Trask, though, found herself notifying the league that Carol’s son, Mark, would take over operations instead, the outcome of discussions between mother and son that altered how the torch would be passed.
Trask departed from the franchise not long afterward, and the Raiders — fed up after stalled talks with Oakland for a new stadium — departed for Vegas.
Carol, though, stuck around in the house in Piedmont that Herrera had helped the family secure.
“I never tried to impose any of my beliefs on Carol — it wouldn’t have done any good either way,” Herrera said. “She was very strong in her opinions and she did exactly what she thought was right.”
Still, until her passing last Friday, those who knew her remembered her the way they do the Oakland Raiders: a football team with tall aspirations and a swagger.
“As the originals, we all had the same dream, but we didn’t know how to get there,” Flores said. “Al and Carol had that dream — and they knew how to do it. They brought us where we wanted to go.”
]]>No cause of death was announced, but Atkinson revealed to the Bay Area News Group in 2016 that he was suffering from the effects of CTE. He made the decision then to pledge his brain to Boston’s Concussion Legacy Foundation for CTE research.
Atkinson’s crowning achievement during a sometimes controversial 11-year NFL career included helping the Raiders win the first of their three Super Bowls, when they defeated the Minnesota Vikings 32-14 at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena in 1977.
Like many former beloved Raiders players, Atkinson found a home with the organization after his playing days. He remained close friends with Raiders owner Mark Davis and Atkinson also served on the Raiders’ announcing team for years.
“The Raiders Family is deeply saddened by the passing of George Atkinson, a life-long Raider whose physical style of play helped define an era of football,” the Raiders said in a statement. “George’s contributions as a friend and mentor to everyone in the Raiders organization continued long after his playing career, and his genuine personality and wonderful sense of humor will be dearly missed by everyone who knew him.”
Atkinson’s later years, however, were also filled with unspeakable tragedy as both of his twin sons, George III and Josh, died 11 months apart. Both had been high school stars at Livermore’s Granada High before playing at Notre Dame. Josh died on Christmas Day in 2018 at 26 years old, and George III, who followed in his father’s footsteps as an Oakland Raider in 2014, died in November 2019 at 27. Both took their own lives.
Their father, George Atkinson, spent his entire career playing an aggressive, menacing style of football that belied his smallish 6-foot, 180-pound frame. Although a contradiction in terms, he played safety with the Raiders along with Jack Tatum, a no-nonsense, maniacal tackler who was nicknamed “The Assassin.”
“Football is a collision sport. If you don’t have a certain mentality you will get run out of the game,” Atkinson once told this news organization. “
Atkinson and Tatum teamed with Raiders cornerbacks Willie Brown and Skip Thomas, aka “Dr. Death,” to form a fearsome foursome that caused nightmares for opposing receivers.
“There was nothing like them,” said Hall of Fame quarterback Fran Tarkenton of the Raiders’ “Soul Patrol.” “In 1979, the NFL created the five-yard chuck rule because of Atkinson, Tatum, Brown, Thomas and the Raiders. Wide Receivers could not get off the line of scrimmage against them. Atkinson and Tatum and the rest of the gang were so physical and strong that I’d have to wait and hope my guys could get open before I got killed.”
Tarkenton and his Minnesota Vikings, of course, felt the Raiders’ wrath one January afternoon in Pasadena when Oakland trounced them in Super Bowl XI.
Although undersized and somewhat overlooked, Atkinson turned out to be quite a bargain for the Raiders after being drafted in the seventh round out of Morris Brown College (Ga.) in 1968. He was the American Football League’s co-Defensive Rookie of the Year and went on to make two All-Star game appearances while helping Oakland to five straight AFC Championship game appearances.
At times, Atkinson’s toughness led to ugly incidents on the field, such as the two times he knocked out Pittsburgh Steelers Hall of Fame receiver Lynn Swann, including in the 1976 season opener, by clubbing him on the back of the neck with his forearm.
Coach Chuck Noll of the Steelers said Atkinson was part of pro football’s “criminal element.” For his part, Atkinson made no apologies for his behavior on the field.
“I just played the game the way I thought it was meant to be played,” Atkinson said.
Atkinson relished the role of an intimidator as he was the biggest trash talker of the Raiders’ vaunted defensive backfield. In addition to his hits against Swann, Atkinson wasn’t afraid to challenge much bigger opponents, including the time he broke the nose of the New England Patriots’ 6-foot-6, 245-pound tight end Russ Francis with a vicious forearm hit during a game.
Another Hall of Fame wide receiver, former Miami Dolphins great Paul Warfield, said receivers exercised extreme caution against Oakland’s “Soul Patrol.”
“When you went over the middle against Oakland and didn’t account for Tatum and Atkinson, you would not be in the game long without being carried off the field.”
If you or someone you know is struggling with feelings of depression or suicidal thoughts, the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline offers free, round-the-clock support, information and resources for help. Call or text the lifeline at 988, or see the 988lifeline.org website, where chat is available.
Carol Davis married the late Al Davis in 1954 and took over the team with their son when Al died in 2011. Mark Davis lit the Al Davis Memorial Torch as Las Vegas’ Allegiant Stadium in her honor on Sunday, the Raiders said in a statement.
“Her strength and resilience, although not seen by the masses, were always on display to those who were fortunate to be in her presence. She was a strong woman who exuded a compassionate and loving side,” the team’s statement says, later adding, “If Al was the heart of the Raiders, Carol was the soul.”
Carol Davis was known for her toughness and confidence. Hall of Fame center Jim Otto once remarked that “Al Davis is a tough son of a gun. So is Mrs. Davis.” A 2009 column by this newspaper quipped that Al never met a Raider as tough as her.
“She’s an amazing lady, with stamina and grace,” Davis said of his wife in 2009. “She’s very intelligent and she’s matter of fact – she knows where she’s going and what she wants. She’s that kind of lady.”
In 1979, Carol Davis spent 23 days in a coma after suffering a heart attack and a stroke, but survived, went through rehabilitation and returned to a normal life. The following season, the Raiders won the Super Bowl.
A private memorial service is to be held in Oakland, the Raiders announced Sunday.
Check back for updates
]]>Martin’s brain is being preserved for tests to determine whether he suffered from chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE, authorities confirmed to this news organization on Tuesday. The condition, which can cause erratic behavior and severe mental illness, is associated with repeated head trauma and has been found in hundreds of former NFL players in recent years.
The former All-Pro running back died Saturday morning after being confronted by police inside an Oakland hills home, near his family’s residence. Authorities said a “brief struggle” ensued after police found Martin in the house, and he became unresponsive while in police custody.
Martin, 36, later died at a hospital. Oakland police have not released details about officers’ interaction with Martin.
The examination of his brain is separate from the Alameda County Coroner’s Bureau’s autopsy. An initial examination of Martin’s body was completed Tuesday, but a final autopsy report is not expected for several weeks. Authorities are awaiting results of routine toxicology tests that typically accompany physical exams.
Testing for CTE can take several weeks, perhaps even more than a month. The process is highly complex, involving preservation of the brain and then detailed work under a microscope examining the brain for telltale signs of the condition, said Dr. John Crary, who leads the Neuropathology Brain Bank and Research CoRE at Mt. Sinai’s Icahn School of Medicine in New York.
The disease can cause significant changes in behavior, feelings and body movement. Diagnosing it can be difficult, experts say. While some tests can provide hints that someone has the condition, CTE can only be definitively diagnosed after a person dies and researchers can physically examine that person’s brain, Crary said.
“If we want to talk about cures, the cures lie in these brains,” said Crary.
A message sent by this news organization to Athletes First, which represented Martin when he was drafted into the NFL in 2012 and has spoken on his family’s behalf this week, was not immediately returned.
The neurodegenerative disease has roiled professional contact sports — in particular the NFL — over the past two decades, as hundreds of professional athletes have been diagnosed with the condition. It became subject of a movie in 2015 starting Will Smith, who portrayed the San Joaquin County chief medical examiner who discovered the first case of CTE in a former Pittsburgh Steelers player, Mike Webster, more than 20 years ago.
Other former NFL stars diagnosed with the condition include former San Diego Chargers linebacker Junior Seau, who died by suicide in 2012. Also diagnosed was former New England Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez, who died by suicide in 2017 while serving a prison sentence for murder, and former Denver Broncos wide receiver Demaryius Thomas, who died in 2021 from complications of a seizure disorder.
Martin starred as one of the NFL’s top running backs a decade ago, in a career that was also marred by injuries and off-field challenges.
The Stockton-St. Mary’s High School product starred at Boise State University before the Tampa Bay Buccaneers selected him in the first round of the 2012 NFL draft. Martin’s impact was immediate: He earned the first of his two Pro Bowl appearances during his rookie season, as well as an All-Pro honor three years later.
A fan favorite nicknamed “Muscle Hamster,” he employed a powerful-yet-nimble running style that helped him top 1,000 rushing yards multiple times during his career. During a breakout performance in 2012, he logged 251 yards and four touchdowns in a win over the Raiders at the Coliseum in 2012.
Yet he also endured struggles off the field. In 2016, Martin was suspended four games for violating the NFL’s substance abuse policy after testing positive for a banned substance. He later sought treatment and publicly expressed regret, vowing to rebuild his health and reputation.
He retired quietly after the 2018 season, after a single year spent playing for the Oakland Raiders. More recently, he was staying with relatives at a longtime family home in the Oakland hills.
On Saturday morning, police received several calls of someone banging on doors, wandering through backyards and ultimately burglarizing a home on Ettrick Street, near Martin’s family home not far from the Oakland Zoo.
In a statement issued Monday evening, Martin’s family said his parents “were actively seeking medical assistance for him and had contacted local authorities for support” before his pre-dawn Saturday encounter with police. They added that Martin “battled mental health challenges that profoundly impacted his personal and professional life,” and that he fled his home that night after “feeling overwhelmed and disoriented.”
“Ultimately, mental illness proved to be the one opponent from which Doug could not run,” said the family’s statement, which was released by Athletes First.
Jakob Rodgers is a senior breaking news reporter. Call, text or send him an encrypted message via Signal at 510-390-2351, or email him at jrodgers@bayareanewsgroup.com.
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