Why Nick Lowden's Story Should Change How We Fund CTE Research
A case study in why early diagnosis, prevention, and player support can no longer wait
At 23 years old, Nick Lowden asked his mother a question no young footballer should ever have to ask: "Why am I like this? What's wrong with me? What's wrong with my brain?"
Lowden was the youngest footballer ever diagnosed with chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) — a degenerative brain disease caused by repeated head trauma. His story, told recently on ABC's Four Corners, is not an outlier. It's a warning.
A Disease We Still Can't Catch in Time
CTE cannot currently be diagnosed in a living person. It is only confirmed through post-mortem examination of brain tissue — which means by the time we understand what's happening to someone, it's too late to help them.
This was true for Shane Tuck, the former Richmond AFL player who took his own life in 2020 after years of declining mental health, obsessive behaviours, and hearing voices. A coronial inquest into his death heard that his symptoms had begun nearly 14 years earlier. A post-mortem confirmed what his family had feared: Tuck had CTE.
It was also true for Danny Frawley and Polly Farmer, two of Australian football's most celebrated names, both later found to have had the disease.
And it was true for Nick Lowden — a player who started contact football at just six years old, and who may have developed CTE from cumulative, everyday knocks rather than any single diagnosable concussion.
The Problem Isn't Just Elite Sport
It's tempting to think of CTE as a problem for professional athletes — for household names, multimillion-dollar contracts, and retirement-age dementia. But nearly three-quarters of a million Australians play some form of football, from Auskick through to suburban and country leagues. As standards drop below the elite level, so does access to quality grounds, trained umpires, and — critically — medical support.
Lowden's own journey through the junior ranks and into a competitive state league illustrates exactly this gap. The risk doesn't stay contained at the top; it runs through the entire ecosystem of the game, all the way down to children just starting out.
Governing Bodies Are Playing Catch-Up
For much of the past decade, AFL concussion guidelines were shaped by research later criticised for poor governance and oversight. When asked directly about the league's CTE policy during the Four Corners investigation, the AFL's own General Manager of Health and Football Operations admitted the league still does not have one.
This isn't a criticism levelled from the outside. It's an admission from within. And it reflects a broader truth: sporting bodies, however well-intentioned, are not equipped — nor primarily resourced — to lead the scientific breakthroughs this disease requires. That work belongs to independent researchers, medical institutions, and the organisations willing to fund them.
What Actually Needs to Change
Leading neurologists are increasingly aligned on a few key points:
CTE is a disease of exposure. Like sun exposure and skin cancer, the way to prevent it is to reduce cumulative risk — not just manage injuries after they happen.
Age of first exposure matters. Delaying tackling and contact training in junior sport is one of the few levers with strong scientific consensus behind it.
Live diagnosis would be transformative. Right now, families, players, and doctors are operating blind. A reliable way to detect CTE in a living brain would allow early intervention, informed retirement decisions, and — for the first time — real treatment pathways instead of post-mortem answers.
None of this happens without sustained investment in independent research.
Why This Matters Now
Nick Lowden's case shifts the entire framing of this issue. This is no longer a conversation about ageing former champions managing memory loss in their sixties. It's a 23-year-old asking his mother why his brain doesn't work properly anymore.
That single fact should be enough to move CTE from a "future problem for elite sport" to an urgent public health issue affecting children, teenagers, and young adults playing the game right now, at every level, in every suburb and country town in Australia.
Our Commitment
This is precisely the gap organisations like ours exist to close — funding the research that leads to earlier diagnosis, supporting rehabilitation for those already affected, and ensuring no family has to wait for a coroner's report to understand what happened to someone they loved.
The science is progressing. The willingness among researchers is there. What's missing is the funding to move faster than the disease does.
Help Us Get There Faster
Stories like Nick Lowden's and Shane Tuck's shouldn't have to end in a coroner's report before anyone takes action. Right now, a live diagnosis for CTE doesn't exist — but the research to make it possible does, and it needs funding to move at the pace this issue demands.
Your donation directly supports:
Research into live diagnosis of CTE, so families and players don't have to wait for answers that come too late
Assessment and rehabilitation support for people already living with the effects of brain injury
Education and prevention programs that protect the next generation of players, from Auskick to the elite level
Every contribution — whether from an individual, a corporate partner, or a sporting club — brings us closer to a breakthrough that could change the future of contact sport for good.
