By Larry Smith - IlliniGuys Co-Founder & Co-Host/Executive Producer, IlliniGuys

November 10, 2025

HOUSTON - Craig Swoope remembers the rush of emotions as he flew around making tackles on the historic Gies Memorial Stadium turf as if it happened yesterday.

"I felt like I was on top of the world. I had so much going on for me. A lot of great things was happening. It was a good time in my life", he reflects today. "I felt invincible."

Swoope arrived on the Illinois campus from Fort Pierce's Westwood High School in Florida in the fall of 1982; a chiseled 6-foot-1, 205 pound teenager determined to make his mark on an Illini program looking to rise from the depths of decades of mediocrity.

"They hadn't been to a bowl game in about 20 years. They hadn't had an All-American since Dick Butkus in '64, the year I was born. I felt great; I felt like I was part of a tradition we started, a tradition of winning again."

It was Swoope himself who continued the tradition of hard-hitting defenders, just as Butkus had done. He led the team in interceptions as a true freshman to earn the first of four All-Big Ten selections and help land the team in their first bowl game since a trip to the Rose Bowl on New Year's Day 1964.

A year later, the sophomore safety again made like Butkus; a Big Ten championship and Rose Bowl berth as well as an All-American pick. He was fast and powerful and one of the hardest hitters in the game. He has the rare distinction of being a modern-day Illini football player who never experienced a losing season in four years on campus. A highly-decorated and successful college career landed him in the NFL, where he stepped onto the field as a 22-year old defender for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in his home state. He was an instant star, earning All-Rookie honors and laying the groundwork for what looked to be a long NFL career.

He was invincible...

40 years later, the emotions and the adjectives are different. Uncertainty. Concern. Even fear.

"I first noticed something around 2012, about a year after my mother passed," Craig tells me. "I'm like 'man, something ain't right'...I was having an issue with headaches. It was depression. It was sad, I was feeling bad about it, because we're always taught to fight on and no pain, no gain."

Eventually, things got bad enough that he reached out to the NFL for help. That call led to a trip to the Eisenhower Center, a treatment facility in Ann Arbor, Michigan. A short drive from Michigan Stadium, Swoope went to seek what he never found at that hallowed venue during his playing career: a victory.

"They was treating NFL players and guys from the military dealing with PTSD from the war."

The diagnosis was deep depression and Swoope's quest to feel normal again led to back surgeries and a double hip replacement in the years that followed and a bag full of medication...at his peak, he says he was taking as many as 12 different prescription pills a day.

"Some for pain, some dealing with the concussion, dealing with anxiety and the depression, (but) it never did really solve the issue, because I was still dealing with it."

More time passed. More headaches. More fits of anger. He returned to Champaign-Urbana in 2021 after the COVID pandemic, hoping for a new start. Seeing old friends and meeting new ones and getting the chance to share some laughs helped, but only for a while.

"(My wife) would have to tell me, because sometimes I would be in denial. I wouldn't realize it, that I'm screaming and I'm loud, screaming and yelling and the anger. I felt so bad, because I really didn't mean to, but she would tell me these things. That's not right, you know, because she don't deserve that."

It's a place he never could have imagined he would land. Looking back, it was in his second year in the NFL when the game's violence began to take its toll.

The injuries. And the things a young athlete on top of his game would do to stay on the field and prove he's still invincible. A gladiator mentality. Play the game, no matter what.

"I remember I went to have shots in my ankle to play in the game. Then I had to get them pretty much just to practice. The pain, the tolerance I had...I remember one of the worst injuries I had was I dislocated my elbow. I was on injured reserve for four weeks and I came back. I still had my starting job because, back then, if you got hurt and you're a starter, you go back to your starting job. The first game back, they had wrapped my arm, my elbow up, but on the outside, it was more like a cast. I was telling guys that every time I made a tackle, somebody would hit it or they would fall on me. You could hear me on the bottom of the pile screaming because it was still painful.

"I had to play because I didn't want to lose my starting job. That was a way of taking care of my family. Just like I seen these guys lately dislocating ankles and knees and I just grimace and almost come to tears because I know the pain. And I know when you come back and you're playing, it's gonna be still painful. But you wanna get back out there, because if you're not out there, how can you ask for a new contract or try to ask for more money or get another contract or continue to play, even keep your job? That was pretty rough to deal with."

No living person can be definitively diagnosed with chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), which is a degenerative brain condition that develops after multiple head injuries. Boston University's CTE Center recently reported that, in 15 years of doing studies on post-mortem brain tissue from former football players, more than 90 percent of those examined resulted in a CTE diagnosis. At least two former NFL stars, Chicago Bears defensive back Dave Duerson and San Diego Chargers linebacker Junior Seau, committed suicide in a manner that preserved their brain to be studied. Both were later diagnosed with CTE.

Swoope says it has been determined that he has suffered some kind of brain trauma, though medical officials can't confirm when it happened or the degree of the damage.

Today, he is at a clinic in Houston for the second time in the past 12 months in his latest effort to overcome the depression, to quell the mood swings, to try to rediscover what normal feels like. Last month came the news that brought him to his knees and to tears; former Tampa Bay Buccaneers star running back Doug Martin, who Swoope had befriended in this same facility last fall, had died at the age of 36.

"It hurt me so bad, because I know Doug and from some of the things I've read and heard about, his family was reaching out, trying to get him some help because I guess he must have had another episode and was really dealing with something, because I know he was really struggling when I was in the facility with him before. I just hate to see that. Guys have families, they have brothers and sisters and mothers...they have to be wondering why the NFL is not doing more for these guys or doing more for us. It just hurts me to my core when they can sit up and say they don't disclose what they know about it and they know what it does.

"So, like with Doug Martin, they're trying to say 'well, he had some mental health issues' because they can't diagnose if it's CTE."

Next week, Craig will return home to his wife, looking forward to the upcoming holiday season equipped with some new coping tools. But adding to his pain is the frustration of feeling like the game - and the league - he loves so much isn't doing all they can do to help.

"They always speak about loyalty to the guys when you're playing for them. I'm like 'where is the loyalty when we get through playing football? Why don't they look out for our best interests? You know, why would they not tell us certain things? Why are they not willing to, you know, really help guys that they really needed?' They always talk this talk, but they don't walk the walk."

While the NFL has paid for his three trips to treatment facilities and they maintain a crisis hotline for ex-players in need, he says they haven't been as responsive in his attempt to reach a settlement on concussions suffered during his years in the league, a process that he says has hit the four-year mark with no progress.

"I just want them to be honest. I wish the NFL would be honest about what guys are going through and really care more. I want to give a hand to the (new Indianapolis Colts owners) Irsays. The father passed and then the son (Jim Irsay) passed. Now the daughters have got a program now where they're gonna help guys transition from football to their normal life. We didn't have that, so a lot of guys didn't know what to do."

Craig still watches the Illini every weekend, either at the stadium or on TV. Seeing their success on Saturdays has helped him get through this latest trip to Houston. I couldn't help but ask him...does he have any regrets? Would he tell that young kid from Florida's Treasure Coast to perhaps chase a different dream?

"Larry, I love the game so much that I'd probably do it again. Just like a doctor loves being a doctor, a lawyer loves being a lawyer. We love being football players. We love the excitement we bring to the fans to give them something to cheer about, to maybe ease their day or weekend, or what they're going through. But after that, I wish they had a little bit more compassion about what we're going through and dealing with. The same guys they cheer on Sundays, have a little bit more compassion for their life after football, because a lot of guys are dealing with a lot of issues. There's no way you can make this game safe when you got guys 250 pounds running into each other.

"My parents instilled in me to never give up. Keep fighting no matter what. You don't ever give up, you know? So, I'm just trying to get my voice out to anybody that will listen and pay attention and to try to speak for other guys that's dealing with this, some a lot worse off than I am. I'm just speaking up for them. Just keep fighting, keep living.

"I know how I was right after football. I wasn't like this and I know there's something going on. I love living. I love life and I just want to be the best version of myself and just keep trying to be positive, trying to do right."

One may see Craig Swoope today and think of him as someone who was once invincible. No longer the young, strapping football player who made opposing ball carriers think twice when he was on the other side.

But stop for a moment. Step back. Look at the bigger picture.

He damaged his body for the enjoyment of the crowd. He tortured himself for the love of the game. Today, he puts his ego aside to do whatever it takes to overcome those injuries and to love his family and help his brothers in need.

I don't think it's even a question. To make these admissions and to do so with such candor takes courage and humility. He appears to be a man to refuses to back down or let this defeat him.

In every sense of the word, Craig Swoope remains...invincible.