Doug Pensinger / Getty Images

Colorado tight end Nick Kasa was asked about his romantic interests during interviews at the recent NFL Scouting Combine.

University of Colorado tight end Nick Kasa is trying to get drafted so he can play for an NFL team. But does he “like girls?" It is surely nobody’s business but his own.

That is why he deserves a lot of credit for wondering earlier this week why representatives of NFL teams asked about his romantic interests during interviews at the recent NFL Scouting Combine.

The Combine is an annual jamboree for college athletes trying to make it into the NFL. After teams gather information on a player from game tapes, medical records and background checks, it's a one-shot opportunity for wanna-be draftees to show what they're made of, with a battery of physical, psychological, and personal tests. How they fare at the Combine often determines whether and how early they get selected in the draft -- and whether they get the contracts and signing bonuses that can reach into the tens of millions of dollars.

While players' romantic reputations have been widely discussed in years past -- including the basketball stars Magic Johnson and Kobe Bryant and football stars such as Tim Tebow -- there hasn't been such public attention paid to their sexual orientations.

The story about Kasa being asked about his preference for pink or blue was quickly followed by a lot of Internet buzz, mostly heated speculation about whether Notre Dame star linebacker Manti Te'o might be gay. Te'o has been the focal point of headlines for many weeks about his involvement in a hoax that included a fake girlfriend. It is such a bizarre story that no amount of speculation or innuendo about his private life has been kept off-limits. That goes for the media, the web and NFL teams.

Two execs confirm teams want to know about Te'o's sexuality

It may be hard to believe, but there is currently no federal law that protects people from being questioned about their sexual orientation when seeking a job. Any protections that do exist can be found in state laws, collective bargaining agreements and individual company policies. In Indiana, where the Combine takes place, sexual orientation is not a protected status for private employers. Only 16 states prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity. While the growing public acceptance of same-sex marriage indicates that further protections are likely to be established, there may yet be a wrangle over what to do if information obtained in states where questions about gender preference are legal is later used to discriminate against a potential employee.

The NFL is launching an investigation to determine whether Teo, Kasa, or any other players were asked a question about their sexual orientation. Representatives of several teams have gone on record to say that they did not and never would ask such a question.

But if a team official did ask an athlete ‘who do you love?’, let's hope that it wasn't out of a misplaced fear that drafting a player who likes girls, boys or both could become a distraction to the team – either in the locker room, in the press, or in the public sphere. After dealing with criminal acts such rape, spousal abuse, drug addiction and repeat drunk driving in various professional sports leagues over the years, having a gay athlete on a squad should be the least of any manager or coach’s worries.

As the NFL seems intent on doing, all professional sports should make it clear: No probing of any athletes' sexual orientation will be allowed.  Any use of such information, however acquired, should result in a severe penalty for the team that does it. Period.

But even if things are resolved in this instance, there are still larger questions to tackle. In particular, would enough of our society truly support a sports star who is openly gay? Would it make a difference if the player was a projected first-round pick like Te'o or a likely late-round pick like Kasa? Would teams find it easier to manage issues that arise around an athlete who is openly gay than one who isn't?

Since homosexuality is still considered relevant to employment eligibility in some states where teams play, these questions point to the need for the NFL and all sports organizations to back change in federal law.

Sports has – admittedly, often grudgingly -- led the way for society regarding race, gender, and disability. However, compared to companies such as Google and Citibank now urging changes through the U.S. Supreme Court, sports leagues and teams have lagged when it comes to helping change outdated perceptions about sexual orientation.

But sports can and should do what is right by making it clear that sexual preference has no role to play in who gets to play.

Related:

Video: Can NFL teams hold sexual orientation against players?

League will investigate questioning of Nick Kasa at Combine

Clint Eastwood to Supreme Court: Drop Calif. ban on same-sex marriage

Arthur L. Caplan, Ph.D., is the head of the Division of Medical Ethics at NYU Langone Medical Center. Arthur R. Miller, CBE, is a leading scholar in the field of American civil procedure and a University Professor at New York University and Chairman of The NYU Sports & Society Program. Lee H. Igel, Ph.D., is an associate professor in the Tisch Center at NYU.

Like anyone else who is getting a little older, former NFL player Wayne Clark sometimes forgets someone’s name. But unlike most people, Clark has an extra reason to worry -- as a retired  football player, he’s had more than his fair share of knocks and is now nervously watching report after report linking concussions with a brain condition known as chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE).

“Recalling names, which I recall used to be pretty easy for me, and now I go through stages where I think ‘Why can’t I remember that’?  I always wondered are these age-related or are they concussion-related?” Clark, 65, says.

A new study using brain scans might be able to answer that question. The technique may allow scientists to peer into the brains of the living and spot signs of the abnormally tangled clumps of a protein called "tau" that can cause such symptoms as memory loss, impulse control, mood volatility and, eventually, dementia in people with CTE.

Researchers from the University of California, Los Angeles, used the new technique to scan the brains of five former NFL players 45 and older, along with five healthy men of the same age, according to a preliminary report published Tuesday in the American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry.

The hope is that studies like this will enable scientists to better understand CTE, says Dr. Gary Small, director of the UCLA Longevity Center, who led the study.

“Then maybe we will be able to detect it sooner and possibly come up with a preventive treatment rather than trying to repair what is damaged,” Small says.

A study of five people doesn’t say much about what might be found in a larger population. But Small and his colleagues are encouraged by what they've seen.

Each of the football players in the study had a history of one or more diagnosed concussions and several had cognitive and/or mood symptoms. The players represented a wide range of positions: linebacker, quarterback, guard, center, and defensive lineman.

At the outset, the players were asked to fill out questionnaires designed to detect signs of cognitive decline and mood symptoms.

To look for signs of CTE, Small and his colleagues injected each study volunteer with a newly developed radio tracer that locks on to the tau protein and shows up in bright colors ranging from red to yellow on PET scans.

The scans from the healthy non-players showed no signs of tau build-up, but the images from the players showed a range that correlated with the number of hits they’d sustained during their football careers.

UCLA

Brain scans of living former NFL players show evidence of the damage linked to a brain-destroying condition called CTE, researchers said on Tuesday.

Though the researchers had asked 19 players initially to participate in the study, only five were willing, Small says. And only one was willing to have his name released to the public. That was Clark, a former quarterback for the San Diego Chargers.

Clark, who had sustained only one concussion while playing football, didn’t have much evidence of tau build-up. But he did have some.

“And when I first saw the scan I thought, whoa, that looks pretty extensive,” Clark says in an video interview on UCLA's website.

“Wayne’s scans show the abnormal protein deposits, just like the other football players in the study,” Small says. “Now he's in his mid-60s and he has very minor memory complaints, which could be part of normal aging, but they also could be related to his concussion. When we do further studies, we’ll be able to find out if there’s a solid connection between the two.”

Clark hopes the research will help doctors eventually identify which players might be at risk of developing permanent brain damage. “My hope is that this study will help diagnose the condition before a player dies and is autopsied,” Clark says. "If we can diagnose it when a player is alive, then we can learn how best to intervene and how to improve equipment and rules and practice habits to we can make the game safer.”

It’s not just NFL players. Brain injuries are common among war veterans, victims of accidents and younger athletes.

The researchers don’t completely understand the relationship between tau deposits and jolts to the head. Clark’s scan suggests that one hit might possibly lead to some accumulation of the abnormal protein -- just not enough to lead to symptoms.

“We don’t know how many hits it takes,” says Dr. Joseph Maroon, a professor of neurosurgery at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, and team neurosurgeon for the Pittsburgh Steelers. He was not involved in this study. “We don’t know if one severe hit can lead to this progression. Some players can get thousands of hits and never develop CTE. There are millions of football players in high school, college, and pro level who have taken multiple blows to the head and not developed CTE.”

Another unresolved question is whether multiple “sub-concussive” hits, such as those sustained by linemen on every play, can lead to CTE.

Perhaps the biggest question scientists hope to solve with this type of research is what percentage of concussed players end up with CTE.

Many believe that there is a genetic component that can make a person more susceptible and that those with resilient genetics can take a number of jolts to the brain without developing the disease.

Though most of the former NFL players’ brains autopsied up to this point have shown signs of CTE, those brains have come from players who tended to have pronounced symptoms of the disease before their deaths.

Two years ago when former football star Dave Duerson committed suicide, he left a note explaining that he’d decided to shoot himself in the chest, rather than the head, so scientists might examine his brain to see if the concussions he’d suffered in his 11-year NFL career as a hard-hitting safety for the Chicago Bears, the New York Giants and the Phoenix Cardinals could explain the symptoms that were making his life a misery.

Thus far, Boston University’s Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy has found evidence of CTE in the autopsied brains of 33 former NFL players, including that of Duerson, according to a report published in December in an early online version of the journal Brain.

Some hope that the new research is just the beginning.

“This is a step forward and it emphasizes the importance of what PET scanning might hold as we go forward in trying to diagnose the condition [in living players],” says Maroon.

Maroon and others say they believe that CTE is the result of a normal inflammatory response to brain injury that runs amok. The theory is that the inflammation switch gets turned on and stays on in people with a certain genetic predisposition, Maroon says.

“One might conjecture that it’s like starting a small brush fire in a dry forest,” Maroon said. “If the predisposition is there and the fire is lit, then it may continue inexorably.”

Maroon hopes that new radio tracers will be found that highlight the early signs of inflammation before tau has even begun to accumulate. Then there might be a chance to find therapies that stop CTE from developing, he says. 

See more NBC Health news: 

• Contact sports leave pattern of brain injuries, study finds
• US launches study into youth sports concussions

Ed Zurga / AP file

Kansas City Chiefs inside linebacker Jovan Belcher, shown in a September game, two months before the 25-year-old killed his girlfriend and committed suicide.

Four months after the NFL sought to curb domestic violence in its ranks by launching a crisis hotline, a bolstered mental-health program and fresh encouragement for troubled players to seek help, that fortified safety net could not prevent the murder-suicide Saturday involving Jovan Belcher. The Kansas City Chiefs linebacker, 25, shot his girlfriend Kasandra Perkins, 22, at their home, then drove to Arrowhead Stadium and killed himself in front of two coaches and the team's general manager.

After the high-profile suicide of retired NFL superstar Junior Seau, 43, last May — two years after Seau drove his car off a cliff following his assault on a girlfriend — NFL commissioner Roger Goodell installed the 24-hour hotline for players and a reinforced mental-health initiative on July 26. That same week, following a spate of NFL-related domestic attacks — at least six other family violence cases in the NFL have been reported since 2010 — Goodell met with the player’s union to discuss possible solutions. 

Yet even as the league was taking steps to help mentally troubled players and their families, the Kansas City Chiefs were aware of Belcher's problems, Kansas City police spokeswoman Sgt. Marisa Barnes told NBC News.

And Police Sgt. Richard Sharp told the Kansas City Star that team officials "were bending over backwards" to help the couple.

The Belcher murder-suicide is the type of nightmarish incident the league has been working harder to prevent, said Robert Gulliver, the NFL’s executive vice president of human resources/chief diversity officer. 

“One of the biggest things that we are trying to do here (in the NFL) is to change the culture, where people realize that it’s OK to seek out help for mental health issues,” Gulliver told NBC News. “We were very deliberate in ... making the point that mental health is part of total wellness, that it’s OK to seek out help for mental health issues because that’s part of your overall well-being."

In addition to help from the team's counselors, Belcher and his girlfriend Perkins, who was mother of his 3-month-old daughter and shared his home, would have had access to the hotline and the league's mental health program. 

At the end of July, the NFL emailed information on its new crisis line and on the league's available mental-health help to the home of every NFL player, Aiello said, adding: "The information is sent with the idea that the player's wife also sees it. If a player's girlfriend sees it, it would be the same thing."

What's more, all 32 NFL teams employ a player development director to help encourage use of the programs, Aiello said.

In addition, the NFL Players Association — the labor union for players — staffs its own 24-hour, toll-free hotline for players to use "if they need any support whatsoever," said George Atallah, NFLPA spokesman. "If a player has an alcohol-addiction problem (for example), he calls in and we route that call to a facility near them, and (facility members) then come pick him up and give him the assistance he needs. That goes for any depression issues and mental health issues." The NFLPA also offers counseling services to players, and it employs a group of retired players "to get a pulse of what’s going on in the locker rooms, handle situations confidentially, and provide support when necessary."

As part of what the NFL calls its “new comprehensive health program” — formally dubbed NFL Total Wellness — Goodell and the league worked with former U.S. Surgeon General David Satcher last summer to strengthen its mental health tools and assistance. The new program encourages players and their families to seek support for behavioral issues, provides health and safety information and offers confidential, free advice via telephone and the Internet. That aid is available to all players and “all members of the NFL family” who find themselves “in times of need,” the NFL says. The same experts who operate the "NFL Life Line" run a similar emergency system for members of the U.S. military.

However, even with best intentions, the NFL remains essentially an elite club in which players have long been trained to hide physical pain — if not injuries — to keep their jobs. That environment could keep players from truly opening up about possible symptoms of depression, anxiety or other mental-health woes.

Gulliver declined to say how many players have phoned the hotline and tapped into the league’s enhanced mental-health program via the web since its launch.

"We don’t publicize the actual usage or percentage numbers," Gulliver said.

As the program has become more widely known by players, however, Satcher said: "The usage of it is increasing."

Gulliver wouldn't comment whether Belcher, his family, friends or any Chiefs players called the crisis line ahead of the murder- suicide, or tried to contact the league’s new mental health services professionals about Belcher.

“That, too, is information that we do not publicize. There are lots of privacy laws that we make sure we uphold. The program is actually administered by the third-party provider so it’s not information that comes into the NFL office. We wanted this to be independent and completely confidential for the members for the NFL family," Gulliver said. 

He added: "Our hearts really hurt for the tragedy that has played out in Kansas City. And we absolutely want to make sure that we provide resources so that people realize there is another way that they can get the help that they need."

Seau’s suicide last May served as the ultimate spark for the new hotline and the league's extra mental-health measures.

“It really did prompt us to step back and say: What more could we be providing for our players and for the NFL family?” Gulliver said. 

But even with a beefed-up program available to players and their spouses, it's difficult to predict this kind of tragedy, Satcher said, adding: "I don’t know that anybody could." 

The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention lists warning signs that someone may be considering suicide due to depression:

• Relentlessly low mood; pessimism; hopelessness; desperation; anxiety or inner tension
• Withdrawal; sleep problems
• Increased alcohol and/or other drug use
• Recent impulsiveness and taking unnecessary risks; threatening suicide or expressing a strong wish to die
• Making a plan; giving away prized possessions
• Sudden or impulsive purchase of a firearm; obtaining other means of killing oneself such as poisons or medications
• Unexpected rage or anger.

Anyone can call the National Suicide Prevention Hotline at 1-800-273-8255.

During the planning meetings for the NFL’s revamped mental-health platform, Satcher said he and league leaders discussed the hot-button issue of chronic concussions sustained by NFL players — and the behavioral instability those injuries are known to carry.

“The brain is a delicate organ and, therefore, head-to-head contact can no longer be viewed as acceptable. The hits start early - in junior high and high school," said Satcher, head of the Satcher Health Leadership Institute at the Morehouse School of Medicine in Atlanta. 

Satcher called the NFL's around-the-clock telephone “lifeline” and the other added mental-health backstops “a major advance” for the league.

Since 2010, these high-profile domestic violence cases have involved NFL players:

• Chad Johnson was released by the Miami Dolphins during the team’s 2012 training camp after the receiver was arrested in early August for allegedly striking his wife in the head.
• Erik Walden, a Green Bay Packers linebacker, was jailed during Thanksgiving 2011, originally charged with a felony after he allegedly assaulted his girlfriend. Later, he received a deferred judgement and agreed to do community service work.
• Dez Bryant, a receiver for the Dallas Cowboys, was arrested in July after allegedly shoving his mother. He was charged with a misdemeanor.
• Seau, a linebacker who spent most of his career with the San Diego Chargers, allegedly assaulted his girlfriend in 2010, two years before he shot himself to death.
• Chris Cook, a cornerback for the Minnesota Vikings, was arrested in October 2011 for domestic violence after he allegedly choked his girlfriend. He was acquitted at trial.
• Brandon Marshall, a wide receiver for the Chicago Bears, has a history of domestic crimes dating back to 2004. In March, he was accused by a 24-year-old woman of punching her in the eye. Marshall’s attorney said Marshall’s wife was the woman injured and that Marshall was a victim in the assault.

The National Suicide Prevention Hotline number is 1-800-273-8255.

Related:

• Details in Belcher murder-suicide emerge as families grieve
• Contact sports leave pattern of brain injuries, study finds

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