The containers are stacked on top of one another, identified by seemingly indecipherable coding. Each is filled with dozens of small, square containers, which hold various portions of brains. It’s eerie, peering inside those freezers. Most of the brains are housed in large freezers, set at minus 80 degrees Celsius. These brains are just for display, but nearby a hundred or so others are waiting to be examined for various neurodegenerative diseases on this morning in early August at Boston’s VA-BU-CLF Brain Bank, tucked discreetly behind the Veterans Affairs Hospital. There will be a brain dissection in a few hours. A faded-yellow liquid, the color aging books turn, surrounds each brain, almost seeming to make them float. Why Women’s Soccer Players Are Worried About Their Brains (9.10.19):įour clear jars sit atop a wooden shelf, each containing a human brain. He had been too devastated to put them together at first, but Courtney nudged him to do it. “He never knew how many people loved him, how many people needed him.” Giant poster boards bearing James’ face were sprinkled throughout the church. “He never knew how many lives he touched,” Lillie says. Row by row, they packed the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in Mission Viejo, California, full of grief, full of love. His elementary and middle school teachers, his football teammates and coaches, his neighbors and other members of the community all came. James’ buddies were there some wore bright yellow sneakers and ties-an homage to James’ love of SpongeBob SquarePants. His parents, Greg and Courtney, and his sisters, Julia and Lillie, were in attendance, each one imbued with a sorrow that crashed like waves. More than a thousand people came to James Ransom’s funeral. ( READ FULL STORY HERE).ĭid One Hit Lead to a 13-year-old’s Suicide? (9.12.18): “I get more nervous going to watch Alex play in a high school game than playing in the Eastern Conference Finals,” Giannis says, his head tilting, tracking the flight of Alex’s next jumper on this June afternoon. Always is when he watches 17-year-old Alex Antetokounmpo, his youngest brother, the one he nurtures, protects and mentors, almost like a father would. A slimmer version of himself. The boy starts toward the hoop from the three-point line and softly lays the ball in. Probably because he knows Giannis is watching. He yearns to impress Giannis, and Giannis in turn sees in him a younger version of himself. A white band that says “God is here” dangles from the boy’s wrist, seeming to further lengthen his 7’2″ wingspan. The boy’s legs turn into scissors as he slices a basketball between them. Giannis Antetokounmpo leans against a table at the Bucks practice facility in downtown Milwaukee and watches a boy dribble. The Rise of the Next Antetokounmpo (7.18.19): Dipping his shoulders left, then right, he rushes toward the two security guards and crosses over both men. But a few seconds later, I watch fans abandon LaMelo for the man from whom he gets his smile. It’s his time. Sixteen-year-old LaMelo Ball clutches an imaginary rock. The boy, sporting a pair of black headphones and a Big Baller Brand sweatsuit, grins while Bruno Mars and Cardi B’s “Finesse (Remix)” blasts in the background. He’s locked in his own world as he spots two stone-faced security guards looking on from just outside the locker room. A group of Lithuanian teens, who arrived 60 minutes before tipoff, scurry over to get a closer look, but the boy ignores them. The boy with the floppy blond curls rushes into Prienai Arena. He can sense it, see it out of the corner of his eye. This is the other side of the Pacific, but it’s the same ocean. And there’s something else familiar, something else after him. He is sure that if he dips his feet in, lets the water swirl around his toes, he’ll be swallowed up. Tiger sharks, great white sharks, bull sharks. He doesn’t like to think about what’s out there. It’s not just that he’s far from home, from all he knows. Some might find it idyllic, relaxing, here on the beach in the sleepy, saltwater-scented beach town of Wollongong, Australia. Not LaMelo. As he stares out at the Pacific Ocean, his feet sink into sand so dense it might as well be tar. The glittering, blue-green waves have no beginning, no end. His white ankle socks have turned a dirty shade of gray from his beach sprints this October afternoon. LaMelo Ball tries to catch his breath, placing his hands on his hips as if holding on to them is all that is preventing him from falling down.
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