Mike Adamle's struggle and his crusade: 'I can feel the decline every single day'

Mike Adamle was holding court.

In the kitchen of his Evanston, Ill., home, he was waving his arms, telling jokes like a late-night host, reciting an old football poem he wrote, "The Ballad of Special Teams," and rattling off phrases in Spanish, Russian and Korean.

Adamle, 68, a retired NBC5 sports anchor and former Bears running back, doesn't seem like someone who's exhibiting the symptoms of chronic traumatic encephalopathy, the crippling brain disease that has affected many football players.

But the Mike Adamle who can command a room is just the surface.

Adamle's neurologist, Michael Smith of Rush University Medical Center, said Adamle has post traumatic epilepsy, which is "caused by sort of a bruising of the brain, and that happens with concussions."

"He has had behavioral changes, he has had mood changes, he has judgment changes. He has had cognitive and memory changes. All that's consistent