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WASHINGTON, Pa. — The click-click-click of a keyboard controlled by eye movement was the only sound for minutes at a time as Matthew Onyshko used an electronically-produced voice to testify Tuesday in his civil trial against the NCAA.
Onyshko, 38, of Pittsburgh, a former California University of Pennsylvania linebacker, claims trauma caused by his football-playing days from 1999 through 2003 caused his amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS, a neurological degenerative disease marked by paralysis and loss of speech.
Baseball great Lou Gehrig suffered from the affliction that has long borne his name, and Onyshko, who could have played college baseball instead of football, pointed out Gehrig had actually been a fullback at Columbia University in New York City.
Onyshko contends the NCAA failed to warn him of the dangers of football-induced concussions.
But an attorney for the organization tried to show Onyshko had reported only a single injury, that of a bruised thigh, while he was at Cal U.
Onyshko has been communicating through a device called "Eye Gaze" for the past three years and has been using a wheelchair for six, he told jurors.
"Did you ever know what a concussion was while you were playing at Cal U.?" said Eugene Egdorf, one of his attorneys.
"No," Onyshko replied.
Neither did he know the NCAA was conducting a concussion study at Cal U. during his time as a player there.
If he had it to do over, he would have pursued baseball in college rather than football, he indicated.
Onyshko said he believes he suffered "at least 20" concussions as a collegiate football player during which he blacked out, but was never taken off the field on a stretcher.
Egdorf asked him why he didn't report these episodes to a trainer.
"I didn't know they were an issue," he replied through his device.