Haunting Frank Wycheck interview resurfaces after family reveals late NFL star's CTE diagnosis
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Frank Wycheck knew he was losing a battle with a degenerative brain disease years before the Tennessee Titans' famed H-back was killed in a fall at his Chattanooga home in 2023. As revealed in a resurfaced interview with ESPN from 2017, Wycheck told reporter Paul Kuharsky he was fearful about becoming another statistic in football's struggle with chronic traumatic encephalopathy – the condition linked to many suicides within the sport.
![[Wycheck helped to develop the hybrid tight end role that came to be known as the 'H-back']](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2025/01/10/02/93943633-14269243-image-a-16_1736477346582.jpg)
'I worry about, I'm scared about the time if I actually get to that point where these guys [who have committed suicide] have snapped,' said Wycheck, who was posthumously diagnosed with CTE, his family revealed this week. 'What has made them snap? And that is what I am scared of, that there is something that is going to come over me that is going to make me snap.
![[Wycheck retired from playing in the NFL after an 11-year career for the Titans in 2001]](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2025/01/10/02/93918953-14269243-Wycheck_retired_from_playing_in_the_NFL_after_an_11_year_career_-a-15_1736477124866.jpg)
'I don't think I am going to do it, but those guys you would never think in a million years would. And that's the scary part about it. There is no one that can tell you really anything. It's just, the damage is done.'. His adult daughters have now announced Wycheck was, indeed, suffering from the degenerative brain disease.
'After my father's retirement from professional football, our family faced challenges in understanding the physical and mental changes he was experiencing,' Deanna Wycheck said in a statement. The family of the late Tennessee Titans player Frank Wycheck have announced he had CTE.
Wycheck helped to develop the hybrid tight end role that came to be known as the 'H-back'. 'We initially believed it was simply an inability to adjust to 'normal' life after the intensity of being a professional athlete. We witnessed our father becoming increasingly isolated and experiencing drastic mood swings. He became more impulsive, and often inconsistent and undependable.
