Patrick O’Neill has had two careers that rarely overlap. The New England Patriots drafted him as a punter, and he later became an orthopedic surgeon. Now 55, he is suing the NCAA failing to protect him, following getting diagnosed with Parkinson’s.
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Along with his wife, Robin Wulling, he filed a complaint in Manhattan Supreme Court on November 2. According to the New York Post, O’Neill says he was pushed to play through head injuries without ever being told how risky they were.
“The NCAA failed to protect Patrick O’Neill’s health and safety, because it failed to make the game of football as safe as possible, and because it failed to keep Patrick O’Neill informed so he could make reasonable decisions about whether to play college football and how to play it safely,” his lawsuit claims.
It helps to know who is making the claim. At Syracuse, O’Neill punted and kicked, won the 1992 Big East Special Team Player of the Year award, and finished with a career average of 41.1, second best in school history. He also recorded a 72-yard punt against Maryland, the second longest the school has seen.
Off the field, he was an Academic All-American and a University Scholar, Syracuse’s highest honor, and he earned a degree in Bioengineering.
The Patriots took him in the fifth round of the NFL draft, and he was named the league’s All-Rookie punter in his first season. Medicine came next.
He enrolled in Johns Hopkins University in 1998, and completed his five-year surgical residency at the University of Maryland Shock Trauma Center and the Union Memorial Hospital, per the Saratoga Herald-Tribune. His NFL career barely lasted a handful of years. The longevity of his career had him thinking about making the pivot.
“… I had to ask, how much do I love this? And then you say, what else do I want to do with my life?” O’Neill told the Herald-Tribune. “Even if I did play for 15 years, looking back, would I say, that was what I wanted to do with my life?… At that point, I knew I wanted to go to medical school. It turned out that I didn’t love football that much.”
O’Neill was not into football as a kid, but he played soccer. Naturally, his skills had people recommending the intensely physical sport to him, and he began playing gridiron football. O’Neill actually wanted to go to an Ivy League school.
His kicking skills were so good that he also caught the eye of legendary head coach Bill Parcell.
Unfortunately, O’Neill has been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, which affects motor neuron function. This marks yet another instance of football being linked to neurodegenerative diseases, creating alarm about the connection. A Harvard study found that at least 1 in 4 former NFL players who died between 2016 and 2021 had chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE).
“This brain disease has forced Patrick O’Neill to suffer great loss, including in his ability to practice as an orthopedic surgeon,” the lawsuit states.
O’Neill alleges the NCAA ignored doctors’ recommendations to bar players from contact sports after three moderate concussions.
“Without competent medical professionals properly versed in repetitive head trauma on the sidelines, Patrick O’Neill repeatedly sustained trauma to his head in games and/or practice in NCAA football.
“Despite the trauma, Patrick O’Neill was never removed from the field for examination, rest, and treatment.”
The lawsuit makes plain that O’Neill believes his Parkinson’s grew out of his playing days. However, very rarely do players succeed against the NCAA.
How have previous lawsuits against the NCAA fared in this matter?
O’Neill is far from the first former player to take the NCAA to court over head injuries. The Associated Press reported in 2019 that there were more than 300 lawsuits from former football players against the NCAA, who suffered issues including headaches and depression. Early-onset Parkinson’s or Alzheimer’s were also noted in some cases.
However, a settlement was reached in 2014. The NCAA was to provide $70 million for concussion testing and diagnosis of current and former NCAA players to settle several claims.
A 2022 trial went differently. Attorneys asked for compensation of $55 million to the widow of former USC linebacker Matthew Gee, who suffered permanent brain damage and died at 49. But the jury found the NCAA not liable. That outcome shows that tying concussions to later disease does not automatically establish legal causation.
Gabe Feldman, director of Tulane University’s sports law program, says as much:
“They’re difficult because in many of the cases the plaintiff is clearly suffering and the plaintiff has clearly suffered harm,” he told AP. “But the challenge is proving that the NCAA, the member institution or the conference, or some combination caused that harm and had some legal duty to the plaintiff and breached that duty. Each factor of the analysis could be difficult for the plaintiff to prove. Perhaps the most difficult is the causation piece.”
That is the test O’Neill’s suit now faces.