Gay Culverhouse | Helmets Don’t Work and Never Will

Dr. Gay Culverhouse was the highest ranking woman in the National Football League for 10 years. As the president of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, she had an insider’s view of the NFL and the devastating effect of sports-related head injuries on the countless players the League claimed to care about. In 2009, Culverhouse testified before the House Judiciary Committee on the Legal Issues Relating to Football Head Injuries, and offered a blistering assessment of the NFL’s treatment of its former players. With a passion to save brains no matter whom she angered, she subsequently formed the Gay Culverhouse Players’ Outreach Program, Inc., whose mission is to help retired NFL players access the benefits to which they are entitled.

Gay Culverhouse

Gay Culverhouse was a sought-out expert in the field of concussion and head injury prevention. She had a master's degree in mental retardation, and a doctorate in special education from Columbia University, and was on the faculty of the medical school at the University of South Florida.

She served as President of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, President of Notre Dame College of Ohio, and Executive Director of The Cooke Center for Learning and Development. Culverhouse was also the author of Throwaway Players: The concussion crisis from Pee Wee football to the NFL.

An advocate for many non-profits, Culverhouse served on twenty-four nonprofit boards in and around Tampa Bay, as well as on the boards of The Cleveland Clinic Foundation, All Childrens's Hospital, Women's Hospital, and the Moffitt Cancer and Research Center

Gay Culverhouse died in 2020. Read her New York Times obituary here.