Jason Hairston (July 17, 1971 – September 4, 2018) was an American businessman and

American football American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team with ...

player who played in the

National Football League The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the ...

(NFL). He was the founder and CEO of Kuiu, a hunting gear company. Hairston grew up in

Southern California Southern California (commonly shortened to SoCal) is a geographic and Cultural area, cultural region that generally comprises the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. It includes the Los Angeles metropolitan area, the second most po ...

. In high school, he was an All-Orange County defender at Foothill High School. He attended the

University of California, Davis The University of California, Davis (UC Davis, UCD, or Davis) is a public land-grant research university near Davis, California. Named a Public Ivy, it is the northernmost of the ten campuses of the University of California system. The institut ...

and, in 1993, was named a starting linebacker for

UC Davis Aggies football The UC Davis Aggies football team represents the University of California, Davis in NCAA Division I Football Championship Subdivision (FCS). The football program's first season took place in 1915, and has fielded a team each year since with the ex ...

. In his junior season, he broke his neck during a Division II playoff game, damaging his C5 and C6 vertebrae. In 1995, he was signed as an unrestricted free agent to the

San Francisco 49ers The San Francisco 49ers (also written as the San Francisco Forty-Niners) are a professional American football team based in the San Francisco Bay Area. The 49ers compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the league's National ...

. After a year with the team, he transferred to the

Denver Broncos The Denver Broncos are a professional American football franchise based in Denver. The Broncos compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's American Football Conference (AFC) West division. The team is headquart ...

before retiring in 1996. Hairston was then a commercial real estate agent and founded the hunting gear company Sitka in 2005. He sold the company to

Gore-Tex Gore-Tex is a waterproof, breathable fabric membrane and registered trademark of W. L. Gore & Associates. Invented in 1969, Gore-Tex can repel liquid water while allowing water vapor to pass through and is designed to be a lightweight, waterpr ...

in 2009. In 2010, he founded Kuiu, which had expected sales of $50 million in 2016. Hairston was friends with

Donald Trump Jr. Donald John Trump Jr. (born December 31, 1977) is an American political activist, businessman, author, and former television presenter. He is the eldest child of Donald Trump, 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021, and his firs ...

and in March 2017 accepted a position as liaison to the

United States Department of the Interior The United States Department of the Interior (DOI) is one of the executive departments of the U.S. federal government headquartered at the Main Interior Building, located at 1849 C Street NW in Washington, D.C. It is responsible for the mana ...

and hunting groups on conservation and public lands issues. He and his wife Kirstyn had two children. He was found dead at his home in

Dixon, California Dixon is a city in northern Solano County, California, Solano County, California, United States, located from the state capital, Sacramento, California, Sacramento. It has a Mediterranean climate, hot-summer mediterranean climate on the Köppen ...

, on September 4, 2018, later announced to be from suicide. Postmortem investigations of his brain by the

neuropathologist Neuropathology is the study of disease of nervous system tissue, usually in the form of either small surgical biopsies or whole-body autopsies. Neuropathologists usually work in a department of anatomic pathology, but work closely with the clinic ...

Bennett Omalu revealed that he had

Chronic traumatic encephalopathy Chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) is a neurodegenerative disease linked to repeated trauma to the head. The encephalopathy symptoms can include behavioral problems, mood problems, and problems with thinking. The disease often gets worse o ...

. He was one of at least 345 NFL players to be diagnosed after death with this disease, which is caused by repeated hits to the head.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hairston, Jason 1971 births 2018 deaths 21st-century American businesspeople American hunters American football linebackers Players of American football with chronic traumatic encephalopathy Denver Broncos players San Francisco 49ers players UC Davis Aggies football players American company founders Suicides in California 2018 suicides