Football is favorite American pastime of fast-paced excitement, athleticism and physical and mental skill.

But when people are watching exhilarating, edge-of-your-seat touchdowns, hard tackles and fast plays, it's easy to forget that it's also a game of extreme danger and risk.

Few people who understand the downside of the NFL better than Garrett Webster, son of Pro Football Hall of Fame member Mike Webster. Webster was known as "Iron Mike," and he was part of the legendary Pittsburgh Steelers team of the 1970s.

After Webster retired from the NFL, he suffered from multiple ailments during a time when he should have been celebrating the successes of his career and enjoying downtime with family. Some of his more severe medical problems included amnesia, dementia and depression.

In his time of need, he turned to his teenage son, Garrett, who was forced to reverse roles with his father.

"Some days he was fine, some days he was depressed, some days he was scatterbrained," said Webster of his late father's condition. "Some days I would have to make sure he ate, and some days he was a normal father. It was hard to watch him go through it."

Mike Webster died in 2002 at the age of 50, and an autopsy revealed that he had suffered from the neurodegenerative disease chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE.

His disease was the result of multiple concussions suffered during his NFL glory days. In the years following his death, it was discovered that he wasn't the only one.

Terry Long, a teammate of Webster's, died at the age of 45 after drinking antifreeze. Justin Strzelczyk, a Pittsburgh offensive lineman, claimed to hear voices prior to crashing his car into a chemical truck at age 35. During both autopsies, doctors found both players suffered from CTE.

Dr. Bennet Omalu, who conducted Webster's autopsy, thought it was time to make the NFL aware of the devastating and physically debilitating effects of concussions. Omalu, who is a forensic neuropathologist and the chief medical examiner in San Joaquin County, Calif., published his findings about the detrimental physical effects of head injuries in the NFL in a medical journal.

And while the NFL was a whole new world to him, it wasn't to his colleague, Dr. Julian Bailes, head of neurosurgery at West Virginia University. Bailes was the former team doctor for the Steelers.

In 2007, Bailes took Omalu's research to Chicago and presented it at the NFL's first concussion conference, where it was met with fear and concern.

Together, Bailes, Omalu and Wheeling attorney Bob Fitzsimmons, who had filed Webster's claim for disability with the NFL prior to his death, decided it was time for action, and they vowed to research CTE further by studying the brains of former NFL stars, boxers, military veterans and professional wrestlers.

And with that charge to action, the Brian Injury Research Institute was born.

They formed an affiliation with the West Virginia University Blanchette Rockefeller Neurosciences Institute and began performing research on traumatic brain injury and CTE with the hope of developing proper protocol for detection and treatment of the disease and of furthering research on the subject.

They've been fortunate to further their cause by receiving brains from more than 20 former athletes and veterans.

As one of the biggest advocates of CTE research, Garrett Webster was hired by the Institute as its player liaison administrator once they formally got off the ground in 2009.

Webster said as a family member of a victim of CTE, his biggest hope for the Institute is providing support and understanding for those who care about the people who suffer from the disease.

"Some people, they need somebody to talk to and to understand what they're going through. With cancer or AIDS, you're on a downward slope. With a brain injury, it's not as black and white," said Webster.

"Usually I can find some kind of relation with them. It's very rewarding. I didn't have someone to talk to who understood what I was going through."

And Webster couldn't imagine a better place than Morgantown to conduct the research that's very near and dear to his heart.

"Being in Morgantown, where everyone is nice and helpful, makes it feel like a family atmosphere. Everyone is just wonderful; they all feel like we're doing something to help people," said Webster.

In addition to advancing CTE research, Webster also feels that conducting the research at West Virginia University sends a great message to the world about WVU's medical capabilities.

"It's a wonderful thing for WVU. It really shows that it's a second-to-none university doing wonderful things with global impact. Brain injuries affect a lot of people, and we're working to impact and solve the injury," Webster said.