Nick Lowden was 23 years old when he died from an incurable brain disease directly linked to the repeated head trauma he sustained playing Australian Rules football.
On the surface, life appeared promising for the young semi-professional footballer. He was building a career in the Victorian Football League and later in South Australia’s competition, attending university, and surrounded by a loving family and friends. He had tasted success with Norwood, winning the 2022 SA Premiership. But behind that public achievement, Nick was locked in a desperate battle with his mental health. He tried medication; he tried psychologists. His mother, Kerry, later told the ABC that he was confused as to why nothing could relieve his pain. “He trained hard, he ate well, he wasn’t a drinker, didn’t do drugs, he was totally focused on being the best he could physically and mentally be,” she said. “That was really distressing to watch him trying so hard, but he was fighting a beast that he couldn’t beat.”
The year after his premiership win, Nick’s mental health was in crisis once more. His parents, Kerry and Tony, grew deeply concerned after he expressed feelings that he could not go on. Their alarm peaked as they drove home from a trip while Nick was recovering from an injury. “When we were driving back, I remember just feeling this feeling of dread because the last couple of days he cut contact and Tony was trying to ring him,” Kerry said. When they arrived home, Kerry burst through the front door. She called out for Nick and then she found him. He had taken his life. “I was screaming out the front and the neighbours came out and I just screamed at them: ‘Get an ambulance, get the police.’ He was gone and we’ll never unsee that.”
Chronic traumatic encephalopathy: the hidden killer
After Nick’s death, the coroner’s office approached the Lowdens and asked whether they would consider donating their son’s brain for research. They agreed, believing they might help scientists understand a “depressed brain”. The tests that followed brought a devastating revelation: Nick had been suffering from chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a progressive, degenerative brain disease caused by repeated hits to the head.
The disease develops when an abnormal protein builds up in the brain’s nerve cells, causing them to malfunction and eventually die. This process can begin years or even decades after the initial head trauma. Common symptoms include problems with mood, memory and impulse control. In advanced stages it can lead to dementia. Crucially, CTE cannot be diagnosed while a person is alive; it can only be confirmed through post-mortem examination of brain tissue.
The Australian Sports Brain Bank, established in 2018, has been at the forefront of this research in Australia. It relies on donated brains to study the disease and has found CTE in a significant proportion of donated tissue from contact sports participants. In its early case series, CTE was the most frequent neuropathology identified. The disease has been found in a number of former AFL and AFLW players, including Danny Frowley, Shane Tuck and Heather Anderson (the world’s first confirmed case of CTE in a female athlete). Several of those diagnosed have died by suicide. The ASBB’s research suggests CTE may itself be a suicide risk factor, with a higher proportion of CTE donors in its study having taken their own lives.
What makes Nick’s case particularly striking is his age. He is among the youngest Australian Rules footballers to be diagnosed with the disease. The ASBB has identified CTE in other younger individuals, including those under 35, and in recent professionals who played under modern concussion guidelines. This underscores that the problem is not confined to the highest levels of the game or to older players; it is a risk throughout contact sports at every stage. Researchers are still investigating why some people with similar head trauma develop CTE while others do not, with potential genetic and environmental factors under examination.
The injury that changed everything
Nick’s family points to a single moment as the trigger for his decline. In 2017, when he was just 17 years old, he leapt for a mark during a game. “It looks like he’s had his legs taken out from underneath him,” his father Tony said. “And then he’s just come down, hit his head on the ground and you could tell he was out for a couple of seconds.” Nick was rendered unconscious on the field. Against the AFL’s own concussion protocols at the time, he was sent back out to play. After the game, he was already showing signs of memory loss.
From that point, his mental health began to deteriorate rapidly. He experienced severe mood swings, memory problems, depression and sensitivity to light. The contrast between his public achievements and private torment became stark: a talented, humble player who often passed the ball to less experienced teammates was fighting a condition inside his own brain that no one could see and no therapy could touch. His parents believe the concussion protocols were not properly followed that day, and they have expressed frustration that information about the risks of CTE is not sufficiently communicated to parents and players. They feel the AFL should take greater responsibility for education around head trauma. The AFL, for its part, says it prioritises player safety and has introduced rule changes and mandatory recovery periods — including a minimum 12-day return-to-play protocol for AFL and AFLW introduced in 2021 — but the Lowdens argue there remains a gap in information dissemination.
After that moment, Nick’s mental health started to rapidly decline.
