News & Events
April 14, 2025
New
Derek Thomson Sheely Scholarship
Today, on Derek’s birthday, we announce the endowment of a new Derek Thomson Sheely Scholarship at The Pennsylvania State University. The scholarship will be given to full-time undergraduate students who are first generation college students and have a demonstrated financial need for funds to meet their necessary expenses.
Derek was a caring and compassionate natural leader. He was the captain of his high school and college football teams. As a high school senior, Derek’s teammates elected him the Jaguar Award winner for excellence on the field, in the classroom, and in the community. His college professor described Derek as a force on the football field and in the classroom who hid behind no one, and he added, “this tough, macho-looking guy stood up for the little guy, convincingly making the case for a better society that was compassionate and looked after the most vulnerable.”
Derek began his college career at Penn State University excelling in the summer semester and during his freshman year. Although he loved Penn State, he missed playing football, and in 2008 he transferred to Frostburg State University. On August 22, 2011, during football practice for his senior season, Derek suffered a traumatic brain injury and died one week later on August 28, 2011.
Since then, Derek’s story and his foundation have led the way in reshaping the national and global narrative on traumatic brain injuries in sports. Derek’s story has been told to numerous people via the media, conferences, thousands of concussion awareness kits, and countless one-on-one conversations – as parents, siblings, coaches, and teammates.
Derek was passionate about football, and he was also passionate about fairness, justice, and helping others. His life is filled with stories of him as a mentor, leader, and loyal friend with strong principles who sacrificed to improve himself and to help others. Therefore, in addition to increasing awareness of traumatic brain injuries in sports, The Derek Sheely Foundation also supports other nonprofits who deliver critical health, housing, and educational services to those in need across the country. In this way, Derek’s character of helping others lives on.
In this spirit, we have created the Derek Thomson Sheely Scholarship at Penn State University for first-generation students with financial need. Now, more than ever, we hope Derek’s assistance will help others in achieving their dreams.
March 7, 2025
March Spotlight: The Proffitt Brothers Foundation
Gregory B. Proffitt was a loving husband, devoted father, and loyal brother. A man of honor, duty, and service, he spent his life supporting others and giving back. To honor Greg’s memory, The Proffitt Brothers Foundation, the charitable arm of Spartan Medical, Inc., was established to honor Greg’s legacy by providing assistance and funding to nonprofits on the front lines that are making a positive difference in their communities. PBF embodies Greg’s legacy every day, as it works to “make what should matter, matter.”
PBF believes that Greg “was truly the best of us,” and so its promise is not only to vet each nonprofit, but also to ensure that donations received will be used in a responsible and transparent manner. PBF also contributes financial support as well as complementary services that add to the effectiveness of each nonprofit. The expert personnel at Spartan Medical apply their business acumen to the philanthropic sector via PBF, helping causes that support Wounded Warriors and Veterans as well as Civilian Research and Local Nonprofits.
PBF’s mission supports: K9s for Warriors, Warrior Events, Live Water Foundation, United States Air Force Academy Endowment Fund, Wreaths Across America, Operation Homefront, Society of Military Orthopaedic Surgeons, Project Healing Waters, Valhalla Sailing Project, For 3 Sisters, Big Brothers Big Sisters of Greater Pittsburgh, FAJR Scientific, James Hollister Wellness Foundation, and The Derek Sheely Foundation.
As a Marine, Greg Proffitt understood what to takes to sacrifice for the greater good. In his memory, The Derek Sheely Foundation is proud to support The Proffitt Brothers Foundation with a grant as it works to stand side-by-side with causes that strive to make a measurable difference every day.
To learn more about Greg Proffitt and The Proffitt Brothers Foundation, please click here.
February 6, 2025
February Spotlight: PINK Concussions
Decades ago, research identified significant sex differences in brain injury. However, due to overall male TBI numbers and the reproductive cycles of female lab animals affecting the outcomes of research, brain injury research focused solely on males with findings applied to females.
Women are therefore the invisible patients in the field of brain injury.
PINK Concussions is the first non-profit 501(c)(3) to focus on female brain injury including concussion and post-concussion syndrome from sport, domestic violence, accidents or military service. Founder and Executive Director Katherine Snedaker, LCSW, has experienced concussion as an athlete, parent, coach and licensed clinical social worker. She has been an advocate for female concussion since 2012, when she created PINK Concussions.
“Existing research on brain injury in female athletes has been too long overlooked by sport medical professionals,” Snedaker states. “PINK Concussions calls for the findings in research papers to be put into actionable change in clinical practice alongside funding ongoing research to improve care for women athletes at every level.”
The Derek Sheely Foundation is proud to support PINK Concussions with a grant and pleased to spotlight their critical efforts at educating patients, training medical professionals, facilitating research trials organizing medical/research summits, and offering ongoing support groups for women, young women, veterans, and caregivers/parents as well as medical professionals.
To learn more about PINK Concussions’ important work, please click here.
January 10, 2025
January Spotlight: Jeremiah Program
The Derek Sheely Foundation is proud to support Jeremiah Program’s Boston campus with a grant and pleased to spotlight their critical work of investing in a mother’s aspirations for her future alongside her children’s education, because a college education remains a very powerful lever for disrupting generational poverty. Just as Derek endeavored to ‘Lead the Way’ as a scholar and athlete, JP Boston’s unique two-generational approach Leads the Way in 2025 to disrupt the cycle of poverty. JP Boston will support 65 single moms as they matriculate, persist, and attain a college degree, and their young children will follow similar stepping stones out of poverty with valuable early childhood education and the support of a responsive community. Thanks to JP Boston, both mother and child can pursue their dreams of a future filled with agency, dignity, and hope.
Learn more about JP Boston’s efforts here.
January 1, 2025
40 for 40 Receives Record Donations
During the last 40 days of the year, we hold an annual fundraiser to honor Derek, who wore #40.
We’re pleased to announce that our 2024 40 for 40 campaign raised a record $81,480.00! These funds will further our endeavor to expand our mission of ensuring that Derek’s legacy of helping others will live on.
Many, many thanks to those who donated! Your support is deeply appreciated.
November 22, 2024
What Would Derek Do?
Derek was passionate about football, and he was also passionate about fairness, justice, and helping others. His life is filled with stories of him as a mentor and leader, but also as a loyal friend with strong principles who stood up to bullies to protect others.
Derek would have turned 35 in 2024, and as we ask ourselves, “What would Derek be doing today?” we know it would be helping others in some form.
Therefore, we’re happy to announce that in addition to increasing awareness of traumatic brain injuries in sports, The Derek Sheely Foundation is expanding our scope to help
others in need. Our plan is to use at least half of the annual donations to the Derek Sheely Foundation to support other nonprofits who deliver critical health, housing, and educational services to those in need across the country. In this way, Derek’s character of helping others will live on.
We will keep you informed of how much is donated to each charity and what critical services these donations are helping to achieve. Please let us know if you have a deserving charity you would like considered.
January 1, 2024
40 for 40
During the last 40 days of the year, we hold an annual fundraiser to honor Derek, who wore #40.
We’re pleased to announce that our 2023 campaign raised $11,225.00 toward our traumatic brain injury awareness efforts.
Many thanks to those who donated! Your support is deeply appreciated.
October 19, 2023
Community Connections
The Derek Sheely Foundation is honored to be a recipient of a generous grant from Walmart which will enable us to continue our work of increasing concussion awareness in the State College community. We’re grateful to have the tremendous support of Tammy Kessing and Jessica Scott (pictured here with Kristen and Ken) of the Benner Pike Walmart, and we look forward to working with them at future events in the community.
January 1, 2023
40 for 40
During the last 40 days of the year, we hold an annual fundraiser to honor Derek, who wore #40.
We’re pleased to announce that our 2022 campaign raised $12,330.00 toward our traumatic brain injury awareness efforts.
Many thanks to the 52 families who donated!
March 15, 2022
College Sports on the Brink of Disaster
Written by Dr. John LeBar and Allen Paul, College Sports on the Brink of Disaster is the first book on the history and importance of the scholar-athlete.
Newly published and updated, this book contains riveting profiles of scholar-athletes like Paul Robeson, a black All-American in football and America’s most popular entertainer in the 1930s; Byron “Whizzer” White, another football hero and much-praised justice of the U. S. Supreme Court; and Nancy Hogshead-Makar, who overcame a brutal assault to become the most decorated swimmer at the 1984 Olympics.
We’re honored to share that Chapter Six, ‘Moral Collapse,’ details Derek’s story.
Originally published in 2020 as Marching Toward Madness, this edition “presents comprehensive reforms to end cheating and corruption in college sports, to put academics first, and to end the peonage of non-white athletes once and for all.”
(Excerpted from the book’s Amazon page)
January 1, 2022
40 for 40
During the last 40 days of the year, we hold an annual fundraiser to honor Derek, who wore #40.
We’re pleased to announce that our 2021 campaign raised $12,109.00 toward our traumatic brain injury awareness efforts.
Many thanks for your generous support!
August 19, 2021
Concussions in Athletics
Concussions in Athletics: From Brain to Behavior by Dr. Semyon M. Slobounov and Dr. Wayne J. Sebastianelli is a valuable reference, and this recently published 2nd edition includes new chapters that target the influence of genetics on concussive injury, as well as an expansion on the knowledge of pediatric response to concussion and the influence of repetitive subconcussive impacts on athlete health.
We are truly honored that this important book is dedicated to Derek: “A bright, talented young man who gave his life to the sport he loved as the result of a concussion. May we continue, as providers and researchers dedicated to athlete and patient welfare, in our quest to eliminate such heartache.”
January 1, 2021
40 for 40
During the last 40 days of the year, we hold an annual fundraiser to honor Derek, who wore #40.
We’re pleased to announce that our 2020 campaign raised $12,281.00 toward our traumatic brain injury awareness efforts.
Many thanks for your generous support!
Black Lives Matter.
We are heartbroken as we think about these senseless deaths at the hands of police.
We are heartbroken as we recognize the unspeakable pain and say their names, known and unknown.
We are heartbroken as we contemplate the systemic problem of structural racism and white supremacy.
Silence is indifference.
And so in honor of all of those who have had their lives stolen, we will remember them and we will speak out and stand up for justice and change in this country.
March 9, 2020
Marching Toward Madness
Written by Dr. John LeBar and Allen Paul, Marching Toward Madness is the first book on the history and importance of the scholar-athlete.
Its riveting profiles include scholar-athletes like Paul Robeson, a black All-American in football and America’s most popular entertainer in the 1930s; Byron “Whizzer” White, another football hero and much-praised justice of the U. S. Supreme Court; and Nancy Hogshead-Makar, who overcame a brutal assault to become the most decorated swimmer at the 1984 Olympics.
We’re honored to share that Chapter Six, ‘Moral Collapse,’ details Derek’s story.
The book documents how postwar cheating scandals and the rise of nationally televised sports gradually eclipsed the ideal of the scholar-athlete. The authors argue that instead of paying their players, colleges must educate them first and end the peonage of those from disadvantaged backgrounds. By illuminating a realistic path to reform, this book presents a rare look at the games millions of Americans love.
(Excerpted from the authors’ website)
January 1, 2020
40 for 40
During the last 40 days of the year, we hold an annual fundraiser to honor Derek, who wore #40.
We’re pleased to announce that our 2019 campaign raised $9,660.00 toward our traumatic brain injury awareness efforts.
Many thanks for your generous support!
August 10, 2019
Northwest High School
Germantown, Maryland
Memorial Dedication & Virtual Race
This summer we installed a granite memorial just outside the stadium at Northwest High School to honor Derek and inspire others.
“I love the addition of this monument…to recognize the contribution and the loss of our brother, Derek Sheely. The Jags touch this rock before every home game to remember Derek and remind us what our program is about.”
— Head Coach Mike Neubeiser
June 18, 2019
The Pennsylvania State University
University Park, Pennsylvania
Penn State Sports Performance Summit
Researchers at Penn State are in the midst of a multi-year research study that seeks to examine the consequences of head acceleration events and their relationship to the disruption of normal brain development.
The investigators also seek to identify any critical threshold between subconcussive blows — impacts that fall below the concussion threshold but players may experience on a daily basis — with those of full-blown concussive injury in order to more accurately measure the effects of subconcussive injuries throughout an athletic season.
Semyon Slobounov, professor of kinesiology at Penn State, is leading the interdisciplinary effort which assesses student-athletes and collects data before, during, and after multiple football seasons.
Dr. Wayne Sebastianelli, director of athletic medicine at Penn State, along with Dr. Pete Seidenberg of Penn State Sports Medicine, are co-investigators of the study.
This research project is supported by the NCAA and US Department of Defense CARE Consortium (Concussion Assessment, Research and Education Consortium), which supports research to more accurately diagnose, treat, and prevent concussion among NCAA student-athletes, service men and women, and the broader public.
The study is also supported by The Derek Sheely Foundation, which was created to increase awareness and research of concussions and traumatic brain injuries, with a focus on youth sports.
April 18, 2019
George Washington University
Washington, D.C.
The
Derek Sheely Conference
In partnership with The Aspen Institute and George Washington University, The Derek Sheely Foundation and the NCAA Sports Science Institute held a conference to inform and engage coaches, athletic trainers, other sports medicine personnel, student-athletes, youth, and parents.
The Derek Sheely Conference: Reducing Catastrophic Risk for Student-Athletes was held in honor of Derek Sheely, who died from a traumatic brain injury sustained during football practice in 2011.
August 8, 2016
Germantown, Maryland
Statement from Ken and Kristen Sheely
August 8, 2016
Jon Solomon
CBS Sports
NCAA et al to Pay $1.2M in Landmark Settlement
The NCAA and other co-defendants will pay $1.2 million to a foundation created for Division III football player, Derek Sheely, according to settlement terms released Monday.
“We wanted acknowledgment of what happened,” Kristen Sheely said, fighting back tears. “We thought maybe at trial we’ll finally find out the truth of what happened … It’s five years (since Derek’s death) in a few weeks. We just couldn’t imagine another year, two or three fighting for the truth (possibly on appeal) and fighting for our son and having people fight against us.
“Maybe in time we will view this as a relief. I can’t say there’s relief now. That’s another word I don’t know what that means anymore — ‘relief’ and ‘peace’ and ‘comfort’, and things like that. We feel compelled to do something because this never should have happened. Derek was interrupted and we just can’t sit idly by and watch another child go through the same fate and their family suffer like we have.”
January 26, 2016
HBO Real Sports
Derek Sheely and the NCAA
August 27, 2015
Jon Solomon
CBS Sports
Life After
Most likely, you don’t know the name Derek Sheely. Like so many indistinguishable Division III players, Sheely played college football because he loved the game, and for the bond with his teammates.
Derek was the kid who intentionally wore a Steve Young jersey every day in Pee Wee practice in York, Pa., so coaches would remember him out of 100 children.
He was the child who came home from practice and immediately did sit-ups and push-ups before asking his dad to set up five chairs so he could practice running through the proper hole.
He was the diehard Penn State fan who signed a “contract” with his parents to take school seriously upon transferring from his dream university to play football at Frostburg State, because Ken and Kristen thought Derek was foolishly trying to relive his high school football days.
He was the Frostburg State senior co-captain with dreams of working for the CIA; who postponed his graduation date because he had one year of football eligibility left; who bussed tables to pay for school; who, as Ken and Kristen learned after his death, helped his best friend pay bills.
So no, you may not know Derek Sheely. But you probably know someone like him. And that should concern college football leaders. If football loses suburban families like the Sheelys, what does the sport’s future look like?
October 30, 2014
Sara Ganim
CNN
Unnecessary Roughness
In 2011, the NCAA failed to investigate what is arguably the worst-case scenario: when a player dies.
Derek Sheely, 22, collapsed on the practice field at Frostburg State in Maryland after complaining of a headache to his coaches. According to the family’s lawsuit, he had been subjected to 13 hours of contact practice within three and a half days.
He died six days later.
The NCAA, which has rules for everything from meals to autographs, has one rule when it comes to concussions: schools must have a plan. But the NCAA has no specific requirements about what must be in the plan.
“I think there’s a big gap in what they care about. It’s pretty obvious,” Derek’s father, Ken Sheely, told Sara Ganim. “They haven’t even been very subtle about what they care about. They will protect the safety of their pocketbook.”
The Sheelys have sued the NCAA and, individually, the coaches and trainer involved.
The defendants responded to the lawsuit saying they are not responsible for Sheely’s death and that football is a dangerous sport that always carries risk.
December 17, 2013
Matt Crossman
SBNation
Sharing Derek Sheely
…We talk about Derek for hours. Ken pounds his fist into his leg and Kristen cries and they both laugh. All the while stories about Derek tumble out of them. They start one and that reminds them of another, which reminds them of a third story, and by the time they finish the first one they’ve thought of yet another still.
We also talk about their bottomless and permanent grief over his death, their fury over the circumstances and their desire to make sure no parent has to endure what they are. Not what they have endured, but what they are still enduring, and what they will endure for the rest of their lives.
I have already talked to many of Derek’s friends, teammates and coaches. My notebook overruns with stories about him, some his parents know, some they don’t.
They ask what I’ve been told. I tell them a story about Derek staying up into the wee hours with his high school buddies at a hotel on the beach, unable to sleep, bouncing around the room, singing songs by an artist whose name I can’t recall. “It was probably Pastor Troy,” Kristen says.
She’s right.
I pull out my notebook and find a quote from one of Derek’s friends about Derek’s well-known ability to bullshit people. I read it to them: “You’d be like, ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah.’ And you’d go back to your room and think about it. Then you’d come back out and say, ‘What are you talking about?’ And he’d say, ‘Yeah, I was BS-ing you.'”
Ken says, “That was probably Dwayne.”
Right again.
As I get ready to leave, Ken and Kristen Sheely make a request I’ve never heard in all my time as a reporter. After my story is published, if I have leftover stories about their son, would I share them?
Stories are all they have left of Derek now. They want as many as they can get, even though hearing them burns open wounds.
November 11, 2013
Nathan Fenno
The Washington Times
Football Player Pressured Back on Field
The phone rang as they were driving. Ken and Kristen’s son, Derek, had collapsed during preseason football practice at Division III Frostburg State University in the hills of Western Maryland.
The parents had been beaming before the phone call. They were returning home from State College, Pa., after dropping off their daughter, Keyton, at Penn State University for her freshman year. Derek would graduate with a double major in history and political science in a few months. During the drive, the parents kicked around graduation gift ideas for the 22-year-old who dreamed of landing a job at the CIA. Definitely forgive the annual $3,000 loans they gave him to attend Frostburg State. Maybe a down payment for a car.
“The worst things we ever said to each other,” Ken says through a quivering voice, “[were], ‘Gosh, what a great life we have. Both of our kids are healthy, doing great in school and have the best of their lives ahead of them. Aren’t we lucky?’”
Derek never regained consciousness and died from “brain herniation, an acute subdural hematoma and massive vascular engorgement” six days later, on Aug. 28, at the University of Maryland Shock Trauma Center in Baltimore. The death certificate listed traumatic brain injury as the cause.
The family believed the death to be a tragic, inexplicable accident.
An anonymous email arrived March 22, 2012, that made Ken sick to his stomach. The subject line read: “Information Behind the Death of Derek Sheely.” Months passed before Kristen could stand to read the graphic two-page note from an author who identified himself as one of Derek’s teammates but stayed behind the pseudonym John Doe.
In August, the family sued the NCAA, Frostburg State coaches, and helmet maker Schutt Sports in Montgomery County Circuit Court. The lawsuit claimed that what happened during the August morning on Frostburg State’s football field wasn’t accidental. It claimed staffers missed opportunity after opportunity to treat Derek’s head injury over three days until, finally, one coach called him a “pussy” for complaining of a headache moments before the man whom teammates regarded as the toughest player on the team fell to the turf.
What actually happened, though, extends beyond the grim football tale recounted in the lawsuit’s 66 pages to a system that ended in death. The NCAA never investigated what happened. If Frostburg State reviewed the death, no documents exist.
“Every time he presented [symptoms], they put him back in,” Ken says.
July 28, 2012
Interview
ConcussionTV
Ken and Kristen Talk with ConcussionTV
February 8, 2012
Kevin Cowherd
The Baltimore Sun
The
Derek Sheely Foundation
Ken and Kristen Sheely have experienced a parent’s ultimate tragedy: the loss of a child. Now, through a fledgling non-profit organization, they hope to educate young athletes about brain trauma injuries and possibly spare other families from the pain and suffering the Germantown couple endured last year.
Derek Sheely was a 22-year-old honor student and a captain of Frostburg State’s football team who collapsed in late August after sustaining a blow to the head in practice. He died six days later of severe head trauma.
During the long, difficult months that followed, his grieving family started the Derek Sheely Foundation, dedicated to “increasing awareness and research of traumatic brain injuries.”
The Derek Sheely Foundation will sponsor a 4.0-mile fund-raising run – Derek wore uniform no. 40 – June 12 in Germantown.
January 10, 2025
January Spotlight: Jeremiah Program
The Derek Sheely Foundation is proud to support Jeremiah Program’s Boston campus with a grant and pleased to spotlight their critical work of investing in a mother’s aspirations for her future alongside her children’s education, because a college education remains a very powerful lever for disrupting generational poverty. Just as Derek endeavored to ‘Lead the Way’ as a scholar and athlete, JP Boston’s unique two-generational approach Leads the Way in 2025 to disrupt the cycle of poverty. JP Boston will support 65 single moms as they matriculate, persist, and attain a college degree, and their young children will follow similar stepping stones out of poverty with valuable early childhood education and the support of a responsive community. Thanks to JP Boston, both mother and child can pursue their dreams of a future filled with agency, dignity, and hope.
Learn more about JP Boston’s efforts here.