Scott Vermillion (December 23, 1976 – December 25, 2020) was an American professional

soccer Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is ...

player from

Olathe, Kansas Olathe ( ) is the county seat of Johnson County, Kansas, United States. It is the fourth-most populous city in both the Kansas City metropolitan area and the state of Kansas, with a 2020 population of 141,290. History 19th century Olathe was ...

, who played for the

Kansas City Wizards Sporting Kansas City, often shortened to Sporting KC, is an American men's professional soccer club based in the Kansas City metropolitan area. The administrative offices are located in Downtown Kansas City, Missouri, and the team clubhouse and ...

and

Colorado Rapids The Colorado Rapids are an American professional soccer club based in the Denver metropolitan area. The Rapids compete in Major League Soccer (MLS) as a member of the Western Conference. Founded in 1995, as part of the Anschutz Corporation, la ...

. He entered the league in 1998 as a member of

Generation Adidas Generation Adidas is a joint venture between Major League Soccer and U.S. Soccer aimed at raising the level of young professional soccer talent in the United States. The program, sponsored by Adidas, offers professional-ready players in the U.S. ...

, then known as Project 40. He was a Third Team All American in his junior year at the University of Virginia before joining Project 40. In his final season at UVA the team finished as runner up to

UCLA The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California St ...

in the 1997 NCAA Division I Men's Soccer Tournament. He died on December 25, 2020, at the age of 44 from acute alcohol and prescription drug poisoning. In 2022,

Boston University Boston University (BU) is a private research university in Boston, Massachusetts. The university is nonsectarian, but has a historical affiliation with the United Methodist Church. It was founded in 1839 by Methodists with its original campu ...

examined his brain and found that he suffered from

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 ...

(CTE). Vermillion was the first soccer player to have been diagnosed with CTE posthumously.

References

1976 births 2020 deaths Sportspeople from Olathe, Kansas Sporting Kansas City players Colorado Rapids players Association football defenders Soccer players from Kansas American soccer players Sportspeople with chronic traumatic encephalopathy {{US-footy-defender-stub