He never knows what tomorrow holds

CEDAR RAPIDS — Kevin Brooks doesn't remember the first goal he scored for the Cedar Rapids RoughRiders.

It came in his third game with the club, during the 2001-02 season. He was playing good, sound fundamental hockey during a shift, stationed along the boards to try and keep a puck in the opponent's zone.

That puck ended up hitting him in the head.

'I didn't get knocked out, apparently,' Brooks said. 'I did end up scoring to put us up 1-0. I'll never forget this. I came to in the second period, turned to (teammate) Danny O'Brien on the bench and said 'We're ahead. Who scored?' He told me 'You did. You scored.' I just told him 'No, I didn't.' We laughed about that story all the time.'

Concussions aren't a laughing matter anymore for anyone, as medical professionals continue to learn and understand more about their long-term effects on the brain.

Brooks provides a cautionary example for all athletes, yet he ultimately hopes also a hopeful one.

He's 35 years old, married and has three young children. He still is part of hockey, the game he loves, recently getting a job running Dubuque's high-school program.

His would seem to be a perfect life, though it isn't. Far from it.

Repeated concussions, undiagnosed and officially diagnosed, have left him with mental illness he and his family struggle with daily. He has suffered from mini-strokes as an adult, anxiety, depression, bipolar disorder, PseudoBulbar Affect (uncontrolled and unexplained crying or laughing) and even thoughts of suicide at his lowest point.

This has been a battle waged privately for so long, but now he wants to tell his story in the hopes it helps others.

'I just started thinking about if there is one kid or family that reads this and realizes it's OK to admit to some of the stuff that might be going on,' he said. 'We are nothing without our brains. I never thought that. I always thought that I was nothing without my sport. That's just the way I always felt. And you never think that it's going to happen to you. Unfortunately, that's not true.'

Brooks figures he has had '13 or 14' documented concussions in his life, the first when he was just 5 years old. He was sitting on a bench after an adult league game his father, Kevin Sr., had played, slipped and fell backward, hitting the back of his head on the cement floor.

He was knocked out and rushed to a hospital.

The concussions continued as he grew up, coming easier after the first one. That's always the case.

Never the biggest or most talented guy, Brooks had no fear and never backed down from anyone, whether that was on the ice or the football field. He played both sports at Lawrence Academy prep school in Massachusetts, a coveted hockey prospect that Riders Coach Mark Carlson enticed to come to Cedar Rapids.

After two seasons here, he went to Providence College for a year, then Division III Curry College in Massachusetts. A particularly nasty collision with an opponent during a game in 2004 ended his career.

'I got told that December that I could never play again. Ever. I was done with hockey,' he said. 'I sustained a really bad concussion, my helmet popped off, a kid came down on top of me and cross-checked my head on the ice. To this day, I don't remember it. I was out for like two minutes. They went and got an ambulance. It was bad.'

Believe it or not, he still played games late that season, lied to doctors about how he felt because he couldn't stand having his career end the way it was ending. He informed everyone at the team's postseason banquet that winter he was done.

It took him months before he could make himself go to any rink. A part of his soul had been removed.

'You know, I wish I would have known then what I know now,' he said. 'That's not saying I would have played any differently. If I had, I never would have played in the USHL, I would never have played in college. I didn't have the skill of (San Jose Sharks star and former USHLer) Joe Pavelski. I had to go out and outwork Joe Pavelski just to play. If that meant sacrificing my body, or dropping the gloves, whatever it may have been, so be it. I don't think I would have ever changed that. But I know I would have sat out that extra week and things like that.'

Completing school wasn't really an option since he was losing short-term memory and couldn't study well enough for tests. Brooks and his wife, Kathy, a Kennedy graduate he met in his playing days here, eventually returned to and settled in Cedar Rapids, where he was offered the hockey director's job at the Cedar Rapids Ice Arena.

He also has helped as an assistant with the RoughRiders, coached the Cedar Rapids Lady RoughRiders high school team and a University of Iowa club team. Few have his passion for hockey, the desire to teach the game to youths.

He is ecstatic for his new opportunity in Dubuque, even if it is a 50-minute commute from his house one way. He's from Boston, so long commutes are no big deal.

'I think him being back to work at this point and really engaging in what he loves, which is working with young people, working in hockey, is a huge motivator for him,' Kathy Brooks said. 'It really gives him purpose, gives him passion. It's one of those things where you really see the impact of what you do on a daily basis ... To see kids develop, to get feedback from family members, to see kids move on to another (level) is incredibly rewarding for him and I know drives him a lot.'

Kathy Brooks works for Systems Unlimited, Inc., a non-profit organization serving those with disabilities and other challenges. She regularly deals with people with mental illness in her job.

It's the same thing at home. Some days are good for the Brookses and some very good. Others are not so good.

Probably the most difficult thing is they never know which it will be ahead of time.

'It's really hard because it personally affects you financially and mentally and emotionally to pick up the slack when that person is struggling,' Kathy said. 'There's the household work and the care of the kids. It's exhausting just in a different way for a family member, and certainly exhausting for that person going through it. To see someone struggle and know that, unlike cancer or something like that, there's not a cure. You just learn to live with it, to manage it and make the best of things. You realize that it's a lifelong journey.'

This journey has included one Christmas where Kevin fell off a step stool while trying to put a star on a Christmas tree because he got dizzy. You will never see him stand at center ice during a hockey practice because everyone skating by him from each direction could set off a spell.

He was playing soccer in the backyard recently with his 7-year-old son, Landon, did a handstand and was laid up for 24 hours because of it. This was never part of the original plan.

'You can be clicking on all cylinders in your life. Where you think you couldn't ask for anything better than what you've got,' he said. 'Then there are the times where I can't get out of bed for a week because of the depression. Unfortunately, it's not going to be better. That's the tough part. To live with that every day, knowing your memory is not going to get better, your balance is not going to get better. I mean, I don't know when I'm going to have my next dizzy spell ... That's tough. It's tough.'

Brooks has taken missteps in his life that he blames on his condition. There have been battles with alcohol and drugs, for instance, as he sought to self medicate.

Some personal bridges have been burned over the years because of his actions. He's remorseful for that.

'My wife asked me if I was really ready to do this story,' he said. 'She reminded me that haters are going to hate, and that there are going to be people who are going to say this or that. There have been some patches in my life where I was not myself, and I've done stuff that I'm not proud of. But you know what, there are people who are 100-percent healthy who have done that.'

'It's a unique place for me to be in because I probably understand better than a lot of family members do kind of why something happens and kind of the explanation behind what I'm seeing,' Kathy said. 'I know that it's not a person's deliberate choice to hurt people around them, or to be struggling with initiative at certain times and being unable to follow through with certain things.'

To answer the big question, yes, Brooks fears Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE), the progressive degenerative brain condition that has led several well-known football and hockey players to take their own lives. It comes from repeated concussions and blows to the head and can only be diagnosed after a person's death.

Therapy and the right combination and dosage of medication have him on a good path right now, and he is hopeful medical technology will continue to advance and help him and others. He said he knows for a fact that former teammates, including with the RoughRiders, suffer from many of the maladies he does, as they have reached out to him to thank him for having the courage to come forward and talk about his fight.

He stressed repeatedly that he blames no one but himself for his condition. It was his choice to play.

'We're in a society right now where everything is about your kid. This and that,' Brooks said. 'I really hope that we get to change that point of view, and we start to remember that it's not about your kid's sports career, it's about your kid's life.'

He wants his story to be educational and uplifting.

'I want to give people hope,' he said. 'You can have a family, you can be a role model. So many people are going to be shocked because so many kids know me as Brooksey the fighter. The captain, the ultimate RoughRider. But I want kids struggling and their parents to know there is hope. Is my life perfect? No. But I'm alive, and I feel like I'm making a difference every day.'

His wife agrees, adding she hopes the stigma of mental illness doesn't prevent others from coming forward for help.

'I don't know that everybody realizes they know someone or work with someone or has somebody in their family that struggles with mental health. The reality is it is so predominant,' she said. 'People don't have the courage ... it's taken a long time to get to this place to where Kevin felt comfortable with this. People are really stereotyped in a negative way about what this looks like.

'But the truth is everybody is going through something or knows somebody who is going through something similar. It could happen to any of us at any time, honestly. We all need to be more empathetic to others and certainly be willing to express praise and recognition for things like that. We need to figure out a way to rally around people and support them.'

l Comments: (319) 398-8259; jeff.johnson@thegazette.com