Lumsden to donate his brain to research

Ontario's sports minister played in CFL in 1970s, '80s

- ROB FERGUSON

Why do some people suffer repeated concussions with no lingering ill effects while others face early dementia, or struggle with basic brain functions, mental health or substance abuse?

Ontario Sport Minister Neil Lumsden, a star CFL fullback and running back in the 1970s and 1980s who was named to the league's Hall of Fame in 2014, says he will donate his brain to research into traumatic brain injuries to help find answers.

"Just not today," he quipped Wednesday, putting a light touch on a serious subject that is increasingly becoming a focus in the medical community amid what Concussion Legacy Foundation Canada executive director Tim Fleiszer called a "brain-injury crisis."

It goes far beyond athletes to victims of intimate partner violence and car crashes, soldiers and first responders injured in the line of duty, schoolchildren and anyone who takes a hard blow to the head.