Wenzel, here in 2010 with his wife, Eleanor Perfetto, moved into an assisted-living center in 2007. (New York Times)

Before a recent rash of former NFL players committed suicide and before more than 2,000 of them sued the league for not doing more to protect them from concussions, former Steelers and Chargers lineman Ralph Wenzel was suffering from dementia and his wife was trying to make a big change in the league’s culture.

Last Monday, however, the 69-year-old Wenzel died from dementia complications.

Wenzel played in Pittsburgh from 1966-70 and in San Diego from 1972-73, and when he was 52, he began having significant memory lapses, according to a release by the Sports Legacy Institute.

Wenzel’s wife, Eleanor Perfetto, has sat on the SLI board of directors since 2007, and according to an Institute’s release, Wenzel “has been her inspiration for becoming a leading advocate for retired National Football League players, as well as all athletes at risk for brain trauma and brain disease.”

Perfetto believes her husband’s dementia was caused by Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE), and she has donated his brain to Boston University.

More from the NY Times:

… Dr. Perfetto said that in more lucid times Mr. Wenzel had assessed his total number of on-field concussions as “more than I can count.” During one game, he was knocked unconscious for 5 or 10 seconds, stumbled to the wrong huddle, took a few plays off and then returned to the game.

Dr. Perfetto allowed subsequent profiles of Mr. Wenzel in the news media to raise public awareness of football’s risks. She confronted N.F.L. Commissioner Roger Goodell outside a 2008 meeting with retired players when he did not allow her to attend on Mr. Wenzel’s behalf. Most notably, she described his case before a House Judiciary Committee hearing on football head injuries in October 2009.

"Ralph was a wonderful man and a wonderful husband. Unfortunately our life together was cut short prematurely by what I believe are the consequences of the brain trauma he suffered playing football,” she said in the release. “While Ralph was healthy, his life was full of love and laughter. After his brain began to fail him, he suffered greatly, and watching his decline was difficult for everyone that cared about him. I hope one of legacies Ralph leaves will be to teach us to reform sports to spare another generation of great men from this suffering as well as sparing their wives and families."

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