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Kevin Turner: Finding the Positive Amidst Hardship (VIDEO)

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Kevin Turner has had to focus on the positive since leaving the National Football League. A former star fullback for the Alabama Crimson Tide, Turner played eight seasons in the NFL for the New England Patriots and Philadelphia Eagles throughout the 1990s. In May 2010, he was diagnosed with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), also referred to as Lou Gehrig’s disease. Watch Turner talk about the importance of focusing on the positive when obstacles get in your way:

Kevin Turner

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“In this world, we’re all going to go through hardships and turmoil,” Turner said. “I think the key to getting through that is really looking – and sometimes you have to look really hard – but trying to find the positive. When you can focus on that rather than the bad, what you’re going through, your obstacle … it gives you something to shoot for.”

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Turner is now involved in research that links chronic traumatic encephalopathy (“CTE” i.e. repeated brain trauma) in athletes to ALS, and through The Kevin Turner Foundation, he is raising awareness about these issues.

The Kevin Turner Foundation was created to bring attention to ALS and the need for a cure, raise awareness about the seriousness of brainy trauma in athletes at every level of competition and its possible connection to ALS, and to financially support efforts to study, treat, prevent and ultimately cure this disease.