Football and soccer are well established as

Jim Joyce was himself a football player. He got concussions of his own and also remembers laughing at befuddled teammates when they got, in the vernacular, "dinged." It was all a joke then, all part of being a tough guy on the gridiron.

Joyce's University of Maryland teammate, a stalwart,Bengals football jerseys sensible guy named Tom McHale, made the NFL, but by the age of 45, diminished by depression and drugs, he had died of an overdose.

McHale's widow, Lisa, spoke hauntingly to a group of retired players recently about his tragic last years — he not knowing that his failures as a man were not really his, but were caused by the neurological distress that was surely the product of so many head hits on the football field.

Now Joyce, McHale's old friend, who is the chairman of Aethlon Medical, a research firm in San Diego, is conducting an investigation to discover whether there might be common biomarkers that could lead to identifying those with a predisposition to CTE.

Joyce suggests that if a test could be developed, it might help some parents steer their children away from sports like American football and soccer, where concussions are, sadly, just a part of the game.

Nationally known artist and Bengals jerseys native C.F. Payne has been commissioned by Gold Star Chili to design and install panoramic murals in its chili parlors across the region.

C.F. Payne's work will depict Gold Star employees and customers in various scenarios experiencing the signature Cincinnati-style chili: Kids having their first cheese coneys, teenagers on a first date or families enjoying dinner together. Besides the mural, several of these illustrations will be hung throughout the restaurants.

Payne has illustrated for publications like Time, Sports Illustrated, Readers Digest and The New York Times Book Review. Gold Star plans to collaborate with him over the next four years. Soon, he will create a series of paintings in tribute to new Cincinnati Bengals jerseys fans, pieces that will be promoted and sold during football season with the purchase of Gold Star food items.