Former Georgetown football player Ryan O’Donoghue told his wife that he was “too sick to recover” in a letter before he died by suicide at age 46 in 2025.
Ryan’s widow, Tara, reflected on the end of her late husband’s life after researchers at Boston University diagnosed him with stage III chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE).
“He knew that there was a demon lurking that he couldn’t shake and that the dream we had been building was crashing with confusion around us,” Tara told the Colorado Sun in a story published Friday, May 15.
CTE is a degenerative brain disease that can only be diagnosed posthumously. It is more common among former football players and linked to repeated trauma to the head.
Ryan played for the Hoyas from 1998 to 2001 and was twice named an Academic All-American. The former defensive back was named to the All-MAAC Football Second Team as a junior and led Georgetown in tackles (89) as a senior.
As Ryan spent the last years of his life caring for his daughter, Marley Joy, now 4, he also looked after his mother, who was suffering from dementia. He often told friends that he felt he was developing the same symptoms.
“We have an answer,” Tara said. “This has helped me soften into such compassion. It’s made me miss him even more. And I did not think that was possible.”
Ryan’s condition affected his sleep, mobility, speech and decision making – and soon, depression crept in as well.
“I can see how a multitude of factors impacted Ryan’s inability to regulate, leading to a mental breakdown,” Tara wrote on her business, Lov Yoga’s, website. “Still, something seemed incomplete with his story. Ryan’s early symptoms of insomnia, depression, and anxiety, chronic pain, vision and memory impairments, plus a past of many TBIs and concussions, led me to donate his brain to science at Boston University’s CTE department.”
She added that while Ryan was alive, they raised the possibility of CTE to doctors, who “shrugged it off,” chalking up his symptoms to depression.
“Our medical care was uninspired, with the only solution given being various cocktails of prescription meds that led to a chemical imbalance, on top of the imbalances caused by CTE,” Tara wrote.
Even as Ryan’s condition deteriorated, Tara said she remembers him as a “fun and very present partner, father and friend.”
“Underneath Ryan’s tough player bravado was a sensitive heart filled with music theory and history,” she added.
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