Anti NFLPA/NFL Gene Upshaw Media bliz 84 pages 33 articles across the nation
Here now are 84 pages of 33 articles written in the last 3 weeks that confirm the information I have been sending you (congress, etc) the press and others for the past eight months about retired and disabled players issues. The writers who wrote these articles are not saying “Bernie Parrish says…”, they are expressing their own strong opinions about the legal, medical, and moral abuses being inflicted on the retired NFL players because NFL owners and management and the players union are treated as a privileged class, above the law, in fact anti-trust exempt without being granted that exemption by congress. They are granted a free pass by a portion of the media who allow them to answer almost every question with “Gee Whilligers…We just became aware of that problem, but we are working hard to study it and fix it. Would you like to buy a piece of this bridge it connects Brooklyn and…” Like they just became aware that football players suffer frequent concussions that cause other related problems and every other problem they are causing and covering up.
At the moment they are conducting a cover up campaign to hide a totally unqualified Dr. Elliot Pellman who was exposed by the NY Times. The NFL’s Dr. Pellman who was appointed by Tagliabue to head the NFL’s Mild Traumatic Brain Injury Committee (MTBI) hired Dr. William Barr. The NY Times revealed that Dr. Pellman is a rheumatologist with a degree from Universidad Autonoma de Guadalajara in Mexico not from SUNY Stony Brook as his resume claimed. Pellman has no credentials to head a committee on brain injuries.
Tagliabue was obviously looking for another NFL “yes” man, not some one with medical expertise on brain injuries, when he appointed Dr. Pellman the head of his NFL Mild Traumatic Brain Injury Committee in 1994. Forsaking his union membership’s health and safety Upshaw has covered for Pellman and Tagliabue/Goodell ever since. “I’m making too much money. I can’t rock the boat.” Gene Upshaw after the failure of an NFL Health insurance plan.
After a short period Dr. William Barr a real brain injury expert from NYU Medical School, refused to go along with the NFL’s act and blew the whistle on the self serving and dangerous information being published (13 studies since 1994) on concussions by the NFL under Dr. Pellman. Dr. Barr and Brain Injury attorney Michael V. Kaplen Chairman of Brain Injury Association of NY State, both dispute Dr. Pellman’s and the NFL’s contentions on concussions and brain injuries and recently spoke up in the media to try to bring about Congressional Hearings to protect NFL players and to try to prevent the dangerous NFL misinformation about concussions from trickling down to college, high school, and youth programs.
Unbelievably Dr. Pellman remains today the NFL’s expert on concussions and brain injuries in spite of his lack of training and credentials and the problems with his inaccurate resume being made public by the NY Times. Commissioner Tagliabue and his successor Roger Goodell and NFLPA Executive Director Gene Upshaw know all about Dr. Pellman’s credibility and lack of medical expertise problems and the threat he poses to the health of NFL, college, high school, and the youth football players of the nation and incredibly they have done nothing about it. Instead they have ordered Pellman not to talk to the media and are trying to hide him today.
There is an obvious reason that Upshaw’s NFLPA and the Player Retirement Plan spend over $5,000,000 a year on legal fees almost exclusively to defeat the best interests of retired and retired disabled players and only $23,400 on Dr. Thom Mayer to advise the NFLPA on player’s medical issues.
This is just one example of how the NFL and NFLPA operate in collusion and why the active and retired NFL players need help from Congress and the courts and perhaps law enforcement.
See article number 32 page 79, for the latest example of NFL’s abusive disability system built and operated by the Groom Law Group Tagliabue/Goodell and Gene Upshaw for the NFL owners.
1. Sunday, February 04, 2007
By JERRY IZENBERG
Newhouse News Service
MIAMI - Money.
Its color and its smell hang over Super Bowl City like a second skin.
This isn't a revenue stream. It's a positive revenue ocean. It starts with the $600 game ticket. It lives at every NFL-approved souvenir stand. It comes for its piece of the action even in NFL Player Association events. It is visible in the credit lines for an army of corporate sponsors.
If this game and this league ever get around to commissioning a battle flag, it will feature crossed Visa cards (another sponsor) rampant on a field of dollar signs.
All that money.
A former All-Pro safety named Willie Wood went through surgery eight times. Then he fell in his own home. Once Willie Wood had the reflexes of a safecracker in his body and the lightning of an antelope in his legs. And once, on the very day that started this whole super-duper-supercalifragilistic money machine called the Super Bowl, Willie stepped up and timed a Len Dawson pass perfectly, stole it and returned it 50 yards for the Packers to set up a game-breaking touchdown.
Now he is in assisted living and his medical benefits are running out.
With ancillary revenue, this Super Bowl may be the richest single-day sports event ever.
And Herb Adderley, who won Super Bowl rings with the Green Bay Packers and Dallas Cowboys, receives in his mailbox every month an NFL Players' Association pension that is the ultimate insult. He says he no longer wears his Super Bowl rings or the one he was awarded by the Pro Football Hall of Fame. He never expects to wear them again.
His NFL Players' Association pension comes to $126.85 a month.
Adderley says he signed an agreement with NFLPA to run from 2003-2005.
"In place of the compensation they promised me," he claims, "they sent me a Reebok catalog" telling him he could pick up $1,000 worth of merchandise.
"I thank God I didn't depend on my pension or NFL Players Inc. (an NFLPA-sanctioned corporation) to survive. If I had, I would be homeless and added to the list of my former teammates (and opponents of that era) for whom Jerry (Kramer) is trying to raise money."
Super Bowl XLI will be heard domestically on 500 radio stations.
Spanish-language radio will deliver it to more than 500,000 domestic Spanish speakers. The game will also be heard in 230 foreign countries. Additionally a dozen other countries will originate their own coverage.
And the Super-dollars have so many zeros they look like petrodollars.
Bill Forester, who played in four Pro Bowls and captained the Green Bay defense in the years just before the first Super Bowl, will not hear this broadcast in any language. It is problematic that he will even know which team won. He has Alzheimer's and Parkinson's and developed pneumonia and had been hospitalized. His 72-year-old wife desperately tries to keep the two of them together.
He is one of the non-favored pioneers whose pension doesn't make you laugh. It makes you cry.
The cutoff date set for them by the NFLPA for serious funding is a shame and a scandal. That's why Kramer, Mike Ditka, Harry Carson, Willie Davis and others are here supporting Kramer's brainchild, the Gridiron Greats Assistance Fund.
Kramer's Web site hosts a memorabilia auction, with all the proceeds going to players that time, the NFLPA and the NFL itself have treated as invisible men.
Kramer explained that "there are 9,000 retired NFL players, but only 144 of them are receiving long-term disability benefits." He spoke of Mike Webster, the Hall of Fame center who played for 16 years with the Steelers. Webster died physically and mentally ill in his battered van under a bridge.
But not until he had challenged the league for help. He contended that numerous concussions triggered serious brain damage. A board
comprising three NFLPA members and three representatives of the league voted 6-0 against him.
His family ultimately won a major legal suit.
He never lived to see it.
"I don't think the modern players stop to think about this and don't even know how little these guys made and how much some of them need help," Kramer said. It was then that Kramer suggested I call Conrad Dobler, who was an All-Pro and has been to hell and back since those days.
"There are guys suffering," Dobler said, "who are the same guys that made all this possible for today's players and today's Super Bowl. I went on strike three times for this union, and now it doesn't want to hear me or any of these guys.
"I remember during a negotiation with Buffalo how they took out the disability clause and I didn't even realize it. This is my history:
"My wife is paralyzed and in a wheelchair. At 44, I had my first knee replacement. An NFL medical adviser suggested it. But he never told me I could file for my physical troubles as line-of-duty injuries. So it went like this.
"I had a replacement for the other knee, too. Then I learned that the prosthesis in the first knee had broken. I have had eight operations and once I had to live with an IV in my arm for five months.
"But I will still tell you that football is a great game, and if I had to do it all over again I would. But I still believe the players of today have to think about us. We were the group that made this happen. Some of us really need help and nobody seems to care except those among us like Jerry Kramer and the others who understand."
I am reminded of the day that Vince Coleman, who is black, when asked about Jackie Robinson's impact on his life, said, "I don't know nothing about no Jackie Robinson."
You'd hope that the NFLPA's members would not let their bling outweigh the sense of a debt they owe their pioneers.
2. By Joe Posnanski
McClatchy Newspapers
Feb. 1, 2007
MIAMI - Anybody can look good at a news conference. There was Gene
Upshaw in a very nice suit clarifying exactly why the NFL Players
Association doesn't have enough money to take care of its penniless
and wounded legends. Next to him, Washington player Troy Vincent wore
an equally nice suit, and he explained politely that players today are
tired of these former players asking for money all the time.
It made me wonder just what a Darth Vader news conference would sound
like.
VADER: "So as you can see by these charts, it is only by crushing the
rebel alliance that we can all truly be free. Are there any
questions?"
REPORTER: "Is it true that you blew up an entire planet just for kicks
and have been known to choke people with your mind and ... ach ...
ach ...
VADER: "You appear to be turning blue."
REPORTER: "Ach!"
VADER: "Are there any other questions?"
There's a dirty little secret that has been coming out. Many of the
men who built the NFL are in agony. They walk with canes, they suffer
from dementia, they live in shelters, they cannot sleep because of the
pain. This should come as a surprise to absolutely no one; these
football men from the 1950s, `60s and `70s played in helmets without
cushions, they saw doctors who prescribed aspirin for concussions,
they collided on concrete fields. They played football in a time when
the disabled list was the unemployment line. They did all this for a
few thousand bucks a year.
So, no, it should be no surprise. But it still breaks the heart to
hear that Willie Wood, the Hall of Fame safety who made the Green Bay
Packers on a tryout, could not afford to move into an assisted-living
care center as he approached his 70th birthday. It bends the mind to
think in this billion-dollar NFL era that amazing players like Joe
"The Jet" Perry and Lem Barney get a scant few hundred dollars a month
from their NFL pensions.
Herb Adderley, one of the players who defined how to play cornerback,
suffers from terrible post-football injuries and gets $126.85 a month
from his pension, according to his former Packers teammate Jerry
Kramer.
Hall of Fame center Mike Webster died without a home. John Unitas
could barely move his golden right arm at the end of his life. The
incomparable Earl Campbell sometimes jolted up in bed with a panic-
attack pain in his chest so intense it made getting hit by Jack
Lambert seem like a shower massage.
There are dozens of stories like these, horrible stories, heart-
wrenching stories about great football players in pain: Mercury
Morris, Pete Pihos, John Mackey, Doug Atkins, Wilber Marshall, Conrad
Dobler, on and on. All of them suffer, many of them are helpless. No
surprise.
The surprise is this: The NFL and its players association let this
happen.
And the bigger surprise: They're unapologetic.
There on Thursday was Upshaw, the union's executive director and a
former great player himself, standing in front of the assembled Super
Bowl media and throwing out vague figures and hazy accomplishments and
lame excuses about why there's no money for these player who made the
league great. He went cold when a reporter asked him the only question
that mattered: How could the NFL let so many of the players who built
the league suffer now that the league is printing money?
"You never hear about the guys we help," he grunted.
This is certainly a difficult and complex issue. How do you help
everybody? How do you help these hurt people find comfort in this time
of wildly inflated health-insurance costs? And so on. There are no
easy answers. Football is a uniquely violent game. There are countless
complications and potential lawsuits and doctor issues and pension
problems, and anyway there is never enough money to satisfy everyone.
The trouble here is that the NFL is thriving like never before_and the
people in power don't even seem to care about the past. Upshaw
famously told The Charlotte Observer last year: "The bottom line is I
don't work for (these former players). They don't hire me, and they
can't fire me."
Mike Ditka sent a letter to all 32 NFL owners asking them to match the
$100,000 he had donated to help these struggling former players. Ditka
says he got two responses, and those checks were so small he sent them
back in disgust.
It's shameful. And it's sad. But this is the dark side of the most
powerful sports league in America.
Sometimes people ask: Why is it that there's not nearly the uproar
about performance-enhancing drugs in the NFL as there is in baseball?
I have a theory. I think it's because people don't really care much
about the health of NFL players. They are our gladiators. The bigger
they are, the stronger, the faster, the more willing to endure pain,
the better the show. And when the show ends, well, that's their
problem. The NFL would have done beautifully in Roman times, when it
was lions and Christians. Nobody sued for disability.
There are some people, though, who do care about those beat-up
warriors who thrilled America and built the NFL yard by yard, tackle
by tackle. If you go to www.jerrykramer.com , you can make a donation
to the Gridiron Greats Assistance Fund. This is money that will go
directly to players in need.
You can also bid on prize possessions - Hall of Famer Joe
DeLamielleure donated the bracelet that O.J. Simpson donated to his
offensive lineman after he became the first man to rush for 2,000
yards.
"That bracelet means the world to me," Joe D. said. "But at some
point, you have to decide what's really important in life. And to me
it's important to help all those players the NFL has forgotten."
In Thursday's sham of a news conference, Gene Upshaw said he was "not
opposed" to the Gridiron Greats Assistance Fund. That was nice of him.
But that wasn't even the most outrageous statement. Troy Vincent, the
union president, said he wished those retired players - instead of
always griping about money - would talk to the younger players about
what it means to play in NFL.
This was particularly galling. I've heard countless older players say
they would like nothing more than to talk to the younger players about
the past. They have not been invited. Many of today's players don't
listen to their coaches; they're certainly not going to pay attention
to some old guys with limps who played in the league back when you had
to take a second job just to pay the mortgage.
And still the news conference went on.
"The economics don't allow that to happen," Upshaw said when asked why
former players can't have pension packages similar to today's players.
"We can't please everybody," Vincent said.
"I don't think anybody is going bankrupt," joked general counsel
Richard Berthelsen when asked about the current agreement in the NFL.
Behind them was a banner with the players association slogan. It said,
simply: "Past. Present. Future.
3. By Emery Filmer
Stamford (Conn.) Advocate Staff Writer
February 4, 2007
Super Bowl Sunday has always been one of the greatest sports days of
the year. Some even want the Sunday, or the day after, to be a
national holiday. Today, though, it feels like it should be more a day
of mourning, or at least one of embarrassment for the league.
Think about all the negative NFL news we've heard in the last couple
of weeks . . .
Tank Johnson. Chris Henry and Chad Johnson and most of the other
Cincinnati Bengals. Andy Reid's sons. Ted Johnson and Bill Belichick.
Those sore losers in San Diego. The end of the Terrell Owens-Bill
Parcells saga. Gene Upshaw's heartless comments. The sad plight of the
old-timers. And on and on we could go.
All of the above have taken some of the luster away from today's game
between the Indianapolis Colts and Chicago Bears. None of them,
however, make us squirm as much as that last one.
The lack of retirement benefits for so many older NFL greats have left
many living in or near poverty. Many have physical handicaps related
to their playing days and can't pay their medical bills. Some have
pensions of barely more than $100 per month. The NFL Players
Association, which was not around in those days, obviously couldn't
care less about the men who helped build the foundation for the
greatest, most popular and richest sports league of them all.
The NFLPA has thus far refused to contribute more than token pocket
change to the older retired players. But don't just blame the players.
The owners, who made millions off these guys while paying them
peanuts, have also forgotten about them.
Both sides ought to be ashamed of themselves. It's time for them to
right this wrong.
Commissioner Roger Goodall has to get NFLPA president Gene Upshaw to
convince the players to contribute, say, one percent of their salaries
to the pre-1990 retired players pension/disabilities pool. The average
salary today is more than $2 million, so that would be $20,000 each,
times 1,600 players, or $32 million. The owners could then match it
(it's only $1 million per team) and you have $64 million.
Then take money collected by player fines and throw them in, too. A
player fined for whatever reason would also get bumped up to two
percent of his salary instead of one. The second time he's fined, it
goes up to three percent, etc.
Before long, the problem will be gone. Then it would be easy figuring
out which team guys like Leroy Kelly, Wilbur Marshall, Jerry Kramer,
Alan Page and other old-timers would call their favorite:
Why, the Cincinnati Bengals, of course.
4. By RICHARD JUSTICE
Houston Chronicle
Feb. 3, 2007
MIAMI - It must be Super Bowl week because where else would it seem
normal that a grown man shows up at a news conference in orange high
heels. Love the outfit, Prince.
Hey, there's Billy Joel, decked out in jeans and a black leather
jacket with a cap pulled low over his eyes. He walks with a slight
limp, seems a bit out of sorts.
"It's tough being an old rocker," he says.
You're preaching to the choir, Piano Man.
Joe Namath strolls through unnoticed. And Lynn Swann and Marcus Allen,
too.
Fat guys in Italian loafers line up to be photographed with a woman in
an R-rated Pocahontas outfit. Did I mention the woman in the bird
costume? It's getting weird out there, friends.
It's not the real world, but the Super Bowl never has been around the
real world. It's where we go to forget about death and taxes and all
that other stuff.
Many 'need help'
Nevertheless, the real world stuck its ugly head through the door
anyway. Old guys began showing up with canes and zipper scars telling
gruesome stories of broken bodies, of men unable to walk or work and
existing on small pensions and poor medical coverage.
They questioned whether the NFL cared. They criticized Gene Upshaw,
head of the National Football League Players Association. They said
that with all the NFL's wealth, the least it could do is help take
care of the men who'd help make it so popular.
"There are a lot of guys out there that are down, depressed and in
need of help," Hall of Famer Jerry Kramer said. "Some of them can't
get help, and many of them won't take help. But they need help."
The people who can help them don't seem inclined to. Upshaw said the
union already was doing its part. NFL commissioner Roger Goodell
sounded concerned but promised nothing.
"It's not good for the NFL to see that kind of image with our players
having the medical problems they have," he said. "I think we're going
to sit down and see how we can be creative and deal with that."
Benefits, pensions lacking
HBO's Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel this week told the story of
several former players, including Conrad Dobler, a three-time Pro
Bowler who played 10 seasons for the Cardinals and Bills. At 56, he's
reduced to a shuffle, spent 100 days in the hospital last year and had
seven operations. He told Real Sports he spends $150 a month on
Vicodin.
Disability insurance is part of his NFL benefits package, but NFL
doctors say he's not disabled.
"I mean, if you can stand, if you can breathe, you probably aren't
going to get disability," Dobler told Real Sports. "You basically got
to be strapped to a gurney with I guess your head taped to the top of
it before you'll get anything with that nature."
According to HBO, dozens of former players say their benefits won't
pay for knee or hip replacements or treatment for post-concussion
syndrome. Their pension is worth about $1,000 a month.
Professional athletes in every sport frequently struggle with life
once the cheering stops. Divorce, addiction and bankruptcy aren't
uncommon. NFL players have an additional risk: worn-out bodies.
Mike Ditka, a former player and coach, mentioned former Steelers All-
Pro center Mike Webster, who died homeless after years of addiction to
painkillers and alcohol. His family won a $1.5 million judgment
against the NFL for disability benefits and back pension.
Doug Atkins, Jim Ringo and John Mackey are among dozens of the former
players who have struggled since leaving the NFL. Another player - a
former Patriot - is said to be living on the street. Bill Forester,
suffering from Alzheimer's disease, has no health benefits.
So on Super Bowl week, the week the NFL celebrates itself, three Hall
of Famers pleaded for help. Ditka, Lem Barney and Kramer pleaded for
more benefits and larger pensions.
In what seems to be a symbolic gesture, they announced an auction at
jerrykramer.com for retired players in need.
Among the items for sale: Ditka's 1975 NFC Championship ring; Joe
DeLamielleure's gold bracelet, a gift to Buffalo offensive linemen
from O.J. Simpson; plays hand-drawn by Vince Lombardi and a football
autographed by Paul Hornung, Bart Starr and Jim Taylor.
"My suspicion is we'll raise more money from donations once people
hear about this than we will from the auction," Kramer said.
Ditka said he sent a letter to every NFL owner asking for $100,000 to
start a trust fund for former players.
"We only got a check for $5,000 from one and $10,000 from another," he
said. "We sent them back."
As for Upshaw, he counters angrily: "There are $16 million paid out
each year. We just spent $51 million this year to improve the benefits
for guys like me. What you don't hear about is the guys we help. There
was one of them in here earlier saying we don't do anything. We just
paid his mortgage for the last five months. So I know what we do. And
I'm proud of what we do."
What makes the issue so silly is there's money available to help the
players who legitimately need it.
"These guys played the game the way the game was supposed to be played
and didn't make a lot of money," Ditka said. "And yet every time they
go to ask for benefits, it's like they have to take on the creator. We
want to fix that."
It's not complicated. Current players simply don't understand the
problem, don't understand that it could happen to them.
Upshaw must lead, must force the issue.
Goodell must lead.
The money is there. To do anything else is unconscionable.
5. by Ashley Fox
Philadelphia Inquirer
Sat, Feb. 03, 2007
MIAMI - There is no question that Troy Vincent is one of the good guys
in the National Football League. He is president of the players'
association, is smart, savvy, a tough defensive back and a charming,
well-spoken advocate for player issues.
But when he sat next to Gene Upshaw, the executive director of the
players' association, on Thursday and defended the current players'
lack of sympathy for the ailing retired players, Vincent sounded cold
and heartless.
One of the big issues at the Super Bowl this week has been the help -
or lack thereof - afforded the men who played the game before proper
safety and high salaries became the norm. There are many men who are
suffering because they played professional football in an age when
aspirin was used to treat concussions and helmets had about as much
cushion as a piece of steel.
Some former players can barely walk. Others suffer from dementia. Some
are homeless. Others can't pay their bills. Many are too proud, or too
ashamed, to ask for help, and the help that is available is
inadequate.
Monthly pension payments, in many instances, wouldn't cover groceries
for a few days, much less medicine, doctors' bills or physical or
mental therapies.
The NFL is richer, more powerful and more popular than it has ever
been, and yet the forefathers of the game have been kicked outside the
periphery. It is an ugly reality.
On Thursday, Vincent said he was "at the pulse" of the issue between
retired and active players, and said it was "a major concern" of the
union's. But he bemoaned the retired players' tactics at improving
their situation. Vincent said that he hears about it from coaches on
the sidelines during games or when he runs into a former player at an
airport. It's always the same, Vincent said: The retired players want
more money, while the active players would like a little help -
advice, perspective, whatever you'd like to call it - from the men who
preceded them.
"The only thing we hear about is the economics," Vincent said. "We
can't please everybody."
But according to Jerry Kramer, the former Green Bay Packers offensive
lineman from 1958 to 1968, not many former players are pleased at all.
Herb Adderley, a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame, receives
just $126.85 per month from his NFL pension. Hall of Famer Willie Wood
is in an assisted-living facility, and without the help of Mike Ditka
and others, he couldn't afford the care.
Kramer started the Gridiron Greats Assistance Program to help players
in need and recruited Ditka to help raise money, an effort that
includes an ongoing memorabilia auction at jerrykramer.com.
"The thing that's been making my heart ache," Kramer said, "is some of
my teammates and warriors are having a hard time."
Said Ditka: "The guys today who play the game are not the makers of
the game. They are the keepers of the game."
The pension and disability issues facing the league are confusing and
not easily solved. Upshaw said it would take $800 million annually to
elevate the former players' pensions to the active players' level.
But Ditka isn't asking for that type of contribution. In fact, he sent
a letter to the 32 NFL team owners, asking for a $100,000 donation
from each. He said he got one check for $10,000, and one for $5,000.
Ditka sent each back in disgust.
"It just doesn't make a lot of sense," Ditka said. "If we can't help
them, then nobody will. ... It's embarrassing."
During his inaugural Super Bowl news conference on Friday, new NFL
commissioner Roger Goodell said he was "concerned any time you see one
of our former players, and the men that helped make this game great,
have the medical issues that they're having."
There isn't an easy solution.
"It's not good for the NFL to see that kind of an image with our
players having the medical problems they have, and I think we need to
address that," Goodell said. "I think we have to do it intelligently
and thoughtfully."
How to do it remains the big question. Donations? Increased pensions
or disability payments? Case-by-case assistance? There must be an
answer. It won't be easy, but something has to change.
Vincent is smart enough to know that.
"I've played 15 years, so I've helped build the game, too," he said.
"There's not much that we can do."
6. by Rick Maese
Baltimore Sun
February 3, 2007
THIS WEEK, THE CITY OF Miami expects a $400 million boost to the
economy. Forbes.com estimated the Super Bowl brand to be worth $379
million. The commercials alone cost $2.6 million a pop -- total
revenue of more than $150 million. And the gate tomorrow will bring in
more than $30 million.
Yep, sounds like money is flowing pretty freely around the NFL this
weekend, right? Don't answer that yet. First, it's important that we
all understand exactly what kind of graveyard this game and this sport
was built on top of.
You need to know about Wayne Hawkins. His name might sound familiar.
He played with the Raiders from 1960 to 1970, a five-time AFL All-
Star. He may tune in to the Super Bowl tomorrow, or he may not. Truth
is, he doesn't even know who's playing.
"The last two years, he's just a different person," says Sharon
Hawkins, his wife.
Vascular dementia has set in, and he's in the early stages of
Alzheimer's. Hawkins can't work the remote control or a cell phone. He
cries every night watching the evening news. His neurologist says it's
cumulative from the damage suffered on the football field. No surprise
there.
But what you need to know about Hawkins is that for his final three
years in the game, he played right guard for the Raiders, while Gene
Upshaw played left guard -- the same Gene Upshaw who today heads the
NFL Players Association.
You know all that talk we give to the bonds forged in the locker room,
how teammates go hand in hand into battle together, how when you fight
under the same colors, you've built a relationship for life? Forget
all that.
"Wayne doesn't respect Gene, of course," Sharon says. "None of the
guys do."
And now we've cut to the core of the problem. Who is at fault for the
substandard pension and health benefits given to the aging players who
built the NFL into what it is today?
I've spoken to several retired players over the years--a generation of
men who rely on canes and walkers, who live with pain, fake joints and
depression. Many agree on one thing: Upshaw, a man once their peer,
has abandoned them.
"It's a shabby way to treat people," Mike Ditka, the former player and
coach, said at a news conference this week in Miami. "I went back to
the Hall of Fame two years ago and when I heard the poppycock from
Upshaw, it was a joke. It's hypocrisy to listen to what he says."
It's simple for us to say that more needs to be done. Deciding who
exactly is responsible is a bit trickier.
"The frustration is misdirected," says Jean Fugett, who played in the
NFL from 1972 to 1979 and now serves as president of the retired
players steering committee, an advisory board to the union. "I think
the union has gone above and beyond. I think the current players have
gone above and beyond. But I don't think the owners have."
Fugett rightly points out that the NFL has washed its hands of the
retired players, making their ills and disabilities solely a problem
for the union.
I have a copy of a letter sent to Paul Tagliabue, former NFL
commissioner, in November 2005, requesting more attention to the needs
of retired players. The letter is signed by former Colts Ordell Braase
and Jim Mutscheller, former Bear Mike Pyle and former Eagle Pete
Retzlaff. Tagliabue never responded. Instead, a curt response came
from Upshaw two weeks later.
"You are not union members and we do not represent you," Upshaw wrote.
"[Y]ou, me, and all other players have absolutely no right to any
pension benefits other than what we currently have," the letter
continued. "... You have no rights here. What you have is an opinion."
For a man who once shared a locker room with these players, the lack
of sympathy is remarkable. But legally, he does speak some truth. He
is paid a $3 million salary to negotiate on behalf of current players,
not past ones.
"To the extent that the existing players want to remember the old
players, God bless them," Fugett says. "They have a duty to protect
themselves and to remain in business. The past players have gotten so
much more than my relatives who retired from General Motors or the
post office or any other place get. I don't know any other union who
does this."
But you can't really compare the NFL to other businesses or the NFLPA
to other unions. The economic growth in the NFL is astounding and the
negligence shown to the game's founding fathers shameful.
"Forget what's legally right.Why doesn't someone ask what's morally
right?" says Bruce Laird, a former Colt.
So who's right? Is it Upshaw's fault? The NFL's? The owners'? The
answer, of course, is D. All of the above. They all treat the aging
generation as a burden, like a son who doesn't have time, energy or
money to care properly for an aging parent.
"Anyone who says Gene Upshaw and the NFL Players Association don't
care about the retired players is not responsible," Upshaw said at his
news conference Thursday.
If that's the case, he needs to show it. It's Upshaw's responsibility
to impress upon the current players and the NFL that this is
everyone's problem.
"These guys today who play football are not the makers of the game,"
Ditka says. "They are the keepers of the game."
And players like Hawkins are the foundation of this game.
Hawkins didn't miss a single game for eight seasons, and today he
receives a monthly pension check for $150. There was one time, Week 9
of the 1963 season, when Hawkins was knocked completely unconscious.
He left the stadium in an ambulance, and they had to cut his uniform
off. He was unresponsive for 14 hours. And then he played the next
Sunday.
In 1964, he was knocked cold in three different games. Sure, it hurt
at the time, but the pain is more evident today.
A few weeks ago, Hawkins lost his AFL championship ring. He fell to
his knees in tears. His family filed a police report, and they've been
visiting area pawn shops. No luck, so far.
Hopefully soon, though.
"We just need some help," Sharon Hawkins says. "We can't do this
alone."
7. Johnson says Pats coach ignored LB's concussion
Associated Press
NEW YORK -- Former New England Patriots linebacker Ted Johnson said coach Bill Belichick subjected him to hard hits in practice while he was recovering from a concussion -- against the advice of the team's top trainer.
Johnson
Johnson, who helped the Patriots win three Super Bowl titles before retiring two years ago, told The New York Times that a collision with another player during that 2002 practice led to another concussion. And, after sustaining additional concussions over the next three seasons, he now forgets people's names, misses appointments and suffers from depression and an addiction to amphetamines.
"There's something wrong with me," Johnson, 34, told the Times in a story posted on its Web site Thursday night. "There's something wrong with my brain. And I know when it started."
The Boston Globe, which is owned by the Times, posted a similar story on its Web site.
Johnson, who played 10 years in the NFL, said he began to deteriorate in August 2002 with a concussion during an exhibition game against the New York Giants. He sustained another concussion four days later after Belichick prodded him to participate in a full-contact practice, even though he was supposed to be avoiding hits, Johnson said.
The next month, with their relationship already strained, Johnson confronted Belichick about the practice after the coach asked him to meet in his office.
"I told him, 'You played God with my health. You knew I shouldn't have been cleared to play,'" Johnson told the Globe.
Belichick told the Globe he got no cue from Johnson in practice that day that he was hesitant about participating in the full-contact drill.
"If Ted felt so strongly that he didn't feel he was ready to practice with us, he should have told me," Belichick said.
The Patriots did not allow Jim Whalen, still their head trainer, to comment for this story, according to the Globe.
Patriots spokesman Stacey James told The Associated Press on Thursday night that the team was aware of the report but was not prepared to comment.
In a story last month, the Times reported that brain damage caused on the football field ultimately led to the suicide of former NFL defensive back Andre Waters last November, according to a forensic pathologist who studied Waters' brain tissue.
"We have been focused on the issue of concussions for years," NFL spokesman Greg Aiello told the AP. "It remains one of our prime concerns as we continue to do everything possible to protect the health of our players."
NFL commissioner Roger Goodell is expected to answer questions about the issue at his annual state of the NFL news conference Friday.
Dr. Lee H. Schwamm, the neurologist at Massachusetts General Hospital who examined Johnson, wrote in a memo on Aug. 19, 2002, that Johnson sustained a second concussion in that practice, the Times reported.
Schwamm also wrote that, after speaking with Whalen, the trainer "was on the sidelines when he sustained the concussion during the game and assessed him frequently at the sideline" and that "he has kept Mr. Johnson out of contact since that time."
Johnson said he spoke with Belichick the next day about the incident, but only briefly, the Times said.
"He was vaguely acknowledging that he was aware of what happened," Johnson said, "and he wanted to just kind of let me know that he knew."
Johnson sat out the next two preseason games on the advice of his neurologist but played in the final one. Then, thinking he was still going to be left off the active roster for the season opener against Pittsburgh, he angrily left camp for two days before returning and meeting with Belichick.
"It's as clear as a bell, 'I had to see if you could play,'" Johnson recalled Belichick saying, according to the Times.
Moments later, Johnson said, Belichick admitted he had made a mistake by subjecting him to a full-contact drill.
"It was a real kind of admittance, but it was only him and I in the room," Johnson told the Times.
After returning to game action, the linebacker sustained more concussions of varying severity over the following three seasons, each of them exacerbating the next, according to his current neurologist, Dr. Robert Cantu.
Cantu told the Times he was certain that Johnson's problems "are related to his previous head injuries, as they are all rather classic postconcussion symptoms."
He added, "They are most likely permanent."
Cantu, the chief of neurosurgery and director of sports medicine at Emerson Hospital in Concord, Mass., also said Johnson shows signs of early Alzheimer's disease.
"The majority of those symptoms relentlessly progress over time," Cantu said. "It could be that at the time he's in his 50s, he could have severe Alzheimer's symptoms."
Johnson told the Globe he estimates he had at least six concussions in his last three seasons but reported only one because he already had a reputation as an injury-prone player and he didn't want to make it worse.
"Looking back, it was stupid not to tell anyone," Johnson said. "But I didn't know then that every time you have a concussion, you are four to six times more susceptible the next time. I had no idea the damage I was causing myself."
Gene Upshaw, executive director of the NFL Players Association, spoke in general terms about concussions at a news conference Thursday in Miami, where the Super Bowl will be played Sunday.
"If a coach or anyone else is saying, 'You don't have a concussion, you get back in there,' you don't have to go, and you shouldn't go," Upshaw said, not speaking about Johnson's case specifically. "You know how you feel. That's what we tried to do throughout the years, is take the coach out of the decision-making. It's the medical people that have to decide."
Upshaw told the AP that concussions are one of the issues the union is examining this year.
"We've seen a number of concussions in the NFL this year, and as a result of our studies, we've seen a change in the helmet. We're also studying the effects of that on concussions," Upshaw said.
Guys, glad Ratto wrote about it but he's a little late in my opinion.
here's my latest op/ed.
Your friend with the pen,
G. Moore
==============
8. Super Bowl weekend shouldn’t be the only time for this story to be told
By Gregory Moore, Blackathlete.net columnist
SAN ANTONIO – I’m glad to see and read that the plight of former NFL
players is being told this week but I have a problem with Ray Ratto,
Dan Wetzel and others, including many of my own friends in radio and TV
land, and that problem is this: where the hell were you last year, last
month or last week when this should have been a priority back then?
As many of you know, I have been a silent proponent to try and help
change how guys like Herb Adderley, Eugene ‘Mercury’ Morris, Wayne
Hawkins and almost 250 other former NFL players have been treated by
the current NFLPA and it’s union head, Gene Upshaw. I have written
several stories about these guys and what they are going through. I
have had personal conversations, both via e-mail and on the phone, with
many of them and I have heard them tell me how the benefits package
that they signed for before the age of 62 has nearly crippled many of
them today. And I’m not just talking about some no name guys either.
I’m talking about many players who helped make the NFL what it is today
and that includes many Hall of Fame players and many of them who are
not a part of this weekend’s festivities. Guys like Adderley, Rayfield
Wright, Joe DeLamielleure, Alan Page and so many others. I’m talking
about guys who changed the game like a Marlon Briscoe, Mercury and Earl
Edwards. It was conversations like I had with Mercury some time ago
about his court battles and how much he just wants things to be equal
for every former player that has pushed me to write those articles and
it was correspondence with Edwards, Adderley, Smokey Stover, Ron Mix
and others that continues to keep me in the loop, trying to help these
guys get what they rightfully deserve but more importantly, to show the
union that it needs to do a better job of taking care of its ‘elders’.
So when I read Ratto’s piece or hear one of my friends talk about this
charity or that charity, I do get fighting mad at them. I get mad at
them because in our business of sports, we, as writers, talk show
hosts, or pundits should be caring this torch a lot longer than just a
few weeks before another Super Bowl game. I cannot tell you how many
times I have sent out personal emails to many of my friends saying that
it is up to us to put the pressure on Upshaw and others to realize that
former gladiators have paid a tremendous price for the rich millions
and billions that this league and players have today. I can’t tell you
how many times I’ve wanted to just pick up the phone and say, “When in
the hell are you guys going to get real about this issue and seriously
talk about it?” heck even this past week, I was so tempted to pull a
few trump cards and ‘sabotage’ some shows because all they were doing
was hitting and missing the issue. But what good would that have done
for any of us? Nothing.
Let’s take this even further. I have made suggestions, both via e-mail
and through writings, that some very well known former players like
Mike Ditka, Howie Long, Terry Bradshaw and others need to speak up on
video and call Upshaw on the carpet. I’d like to see guys like a Ray
Buchanan, James Washington, Greg Lloyd, Cornelius Bennett and Deion
Sanders not hide behind the ‘media’ cloak and just tell it like it is.
These guys and so many others who are a part of the media now have a
tremendous voice and if they spoke up more and often, things could
definitely be so much better.
By the same token, this story can only go away when the current
membership of the NFLPA realize that they are not helping former
players at all. Players can come to the rescue of a family like that of
Darrant Williams in tragedy but they cannot be proactive on a tragedy
that is ongoing right in front of them. What is wrong with this current
NFLPA to say, “okay guys, every month you need to kick in $250 so that
we can make sure that ALL of us have a pension plan for years to come”?
I simply cannot fathom the fact that nobody in the Washington, D.C.
offices sees that by simply raising a few dollars out of everyone’s
pockets now and creating a pension fund that covers those players like
Adderley and Edwards as well as the millionaires who will be leaving
soon. It just seems that nobody truly wants to fix the problem with
fresh new ideas; that they are perfectly happy with how things are
right now.
I know that there is a retired players committee at the NFLPA that is
working hard to correct the problem that is facing these former
players. I know that’s a true fact and I have been in contact with many
of those members who have said, “just point us to them and we’ll try to
help”. But that’s not good enough people. That committee should be a
separate committee who is making sure that each end every former player
who has signed the package that is paying them a $127.34 a month is
getting at least a check of $1,237.34 a month. There should be a
pension fund for these guys that takes advantage of the aggressive
markets in our financial districts, that benefits from various NFL
charity donations, that speaks about education to the new retiring
players and who is a true partner to the NFLPA. And yes I’m even saying
that maybe Upshaw should still be the man in charge.
But it shouldn’t be this way and it shouldn’t be a hot media topic the
week or weekend before the biggest game of the football season. These
players deserve better than what is being given by the media. Many Hall
of Famers like Adderley, DeLamielleure and Page should be a part of
this game. Media outlets should be just tripping over themselves to
talk to these retired players who have played in the early Super Bowl
contests. There should be long lines of callers wanting to speak to
these former gladiators and find out from them how things were back in
the ‘glory’ days of the NFL/AFL. That’s how it should be but that’s not
the reality. The reality is that the only time any of these men are
called upon is right about this time and I shouldn’t be surprised.
I’m not going to say that my disappointment in my own profession leaves
me shameful because it doesn’t. If a writer or talk show host wants to
take this time to bring out one of the biggest tragedies in sports
today, I say go for it because it needs to be exposed. But what I am
shameful about is the fact that while this story is being told all over
the world right now and maybe a few days after the big game, I know for
a fact that nobody will speak about this tragedy a month from now or
even a year from now until Super Bowl XLII in Arizona.
Look I applaud those who have decided to speak about the plight of our
retired NFL players. There really isn’t a better time to do it than
this weekend. However, if guys like Ratto, Wetzel and others really
want to help these guys out, then speak on this topic when this game is
over with and there’s nothing going on in March. These guys played
their hearts out for us in the early years and I think the sports
media, especially those who have the stroke of the pen or the boom of a
mike that can reach millions, to tell their story and to keep it as a
major blip on the sports story radar screen. This story needs to be
told as often as possible.
The Super Bowl isn’t the only time for this story to be told; it’s just
the biggest stage because of the game being played.
Gregory Moore is the Managing Editor of the San Antonio Informer, a
weekly African American newspaper located in San Antonio, Texas and is
an NBA analyst for Fox Sports Radio where he can be heard on the
national and affiliate programming. Gregory has also appeared on
Sporting News Radio, ESPN’s “Outside the Lines Nightly”, “Hot List” and
“4 Quarters” programming as well as appearing on local sports talk and
news talk radio programming in the San Antonio, Texas, Richmond, VA,
Hollywood, Florida and Highpoint, North Carolina markets on a weekly
basis.
________________________________________________________
Gregory Moore
Managing Editor - San Antonio Informer
Former NBA Analyst - Fox Sports Radio
Associate Editor - Blackathlete.net (BASN)
Syndicated columnist - American Chronicle Online Magazine
Contributing Columnist - 411 Sports Network
Columnist - Black Sports the Magazine
Show contributor for local, regional and national talk radio programming
Ph. #s: 210.227.8300 (work) • 210.627.4995 (cell)
9. Shame on NFL; it neglects greats
UNION-TRIBUNE
February 2, 2007
MIAMI – It's difficult for Super Bowl Week to get terribly serious. It is, after all, about a football game, not Iraq. There's that, and frivolity, debauchery, and picking the right party in which to be properly presented and seen. But No. XLI sobered up quickly yesterday morning. There was passion, not laughter, in the hall.
Some angry NFL legends gathered at the Miami Beach Convention Center to announce they are starting an online auction and donation drive to help the many retired players who are in need because their pensions basically amount to farthings.
So, the former players, including Mike Ditka, Jerry Kramer, Merlin Olsen, Joe DeLamielleure, Paul Hornung, Sam Huff – you get the picture – are auctioning off some of their precious memorabilia online to raise money for the Gridiron Greats Assistance Fund.
Many former players are down and out and physically or mentally impaired. Down and out? As an example, Herb Adderley, the Hall of Fame Packers cornerback, gets a $126.85 pension per month.
It's a shame and a disgrace. There are those who put the blame directly on players union chief Gene Upshaw, a former player and a Hall of Famer himself. Others put it on the NFL, especially on former Commissioner Paul Tagliabue, always an easy – and excellent – target.
“Our pensions (stink),” DeLamielleure said.
Ditka, along with DeLamielleure the most outspoken of the group, said he sent letters to every NFL club asking for $100,000 from each so a trust could be established, with money going directly to the players.
“I will say this: I don't know if it ever got into their hands; I don't know if they ever saw the letter,” said Ditka, who mentioned he had dinner with an owner of a team not involved in football and was given $100,000. “But I said, 'Here's what we've done in seven years. We've donated $100,000 to this trust, and if they could help with a one-time donation of $100,000 per team, if I know my math, that would make it $3.3 million and we can eliminate the problem and take care of these guys.'
“The response was not good. I got one check from an owner for $5,000 and another for $10,000 and I had them sent back.”
Some of the men who made the game what it is are the ones in dire straits. Among those is John Mackey, the great Baltimore Colts tight end, who has Alzheimer's and needs 24-hour care.
“These are guys who built the league with their backs, their knees and their legs,” DeLamielleure said. “It's like a big pie we've made and they're giving us the crumbs.”
The thing is, coaches and front-office people have terrific pensions, and the modern players have little to worry about. “Referees get larger pensions than the players,” DeLamielleure said.
One Hall of Fame player told me yesterday: “It's really not the NFL's problem. It's Gene Upshaw's problem. He's the one who has to get it done.”
He's just about right. Many modern players are incredibly selfish. But there's no reason the NFL, so concerned with its image and history, can't reach out and help these people. I mean, a $5,000 check?
Upshaw, meanwhile, represents all players, not just the ones involved today. And we aren't really talking about that many people being in distress. It isn't as though every old-timer is destitute. Many have passed away.
“There aren't 100,000 people out there asking for help,” DeLamielleure said. “All I know is that the guys who built the league are getting screwed. When you sell your brothers out, I don't have any use for you.
“I'm insulted by our union.”
Upshaw yesterday basically said the union is doing all it can but that it would take $800 million a year to get the older players to the same level as the modern ones.
“It's tough for me to answer a phone call when I know we're basically helpless (economically),” Upshaw said.
Please.
“What you don't hear about are the guys we help,” he added.
Look, I'm sure the union helps. But the people who spoke yesterday morning aren't looking for $800 million a year. The NFL can pay for what these folks need with chump change. So can the union, which is not destitute. True, some of these players decided to draw their pensions early, at 45, and now have nothing left.
But there's more to it. It's about helping your own, and I don't want to hear The League and the union don't have the means. Few players even ask for help. They're too proud.
“They're tired of begging,” Ditka said. “It's like fighting the Creator trying to get something done. If we can't help 'em, nobody's going to help 'em. It's embarrassing.
“I can't tell you if (Steelers Hall of Fame center) Mike Webster would be alive today with a better (pension plan). I don't know that. But I know he wouldn't have been a damn street person. I know that when he passed, his family wouldn't have had to sue to get his benefits. It's not right and it has to stop.”
It does. But the brake lines appear severed.
Nick Canepa: (619) 293-1397; nick.canepa@uniontrib.com
10. NFL makes battered players pay
MIAMI - It long has been an embarrassment for the NFL: players rendered mentally and physically broken from the brutal demands of the game and then left with little or no financial support from the league after they retire.
The veil was lifted off the problem at the Hall of Fame induction last summer when new inductee Harry Carson, the former Giants linebacker, addressed the matter in his speech. Ex-Bears coach Mike Ditka drew more attention to the matter when he said on an HBO "Real Sports" segment that the NFL didn't care about retired players.
Ditka and several prominent former players took the NFL Players Association and the league to task again yesterday, calling on both organizations to do more to help their brethren who are now destitute.
"I played next to a guy for seven years who is now in a homeless shelter," said Joe DeLamielleure, a former Buffalo Bills guard. "I played next to Mike Webster and Jim Ringo. Our pension (stinks). Twenty percent of nothing is nothing. I hold (union executive director) Gene Upshaw and (former NFL commissioner) Paul Tagliabue responsible for this. They were in power for 20 years and did nothing."
Oddly, none of the current players, all of whom are paying into the pension fund, has come out in support of the ex-players suffering from debilitating long-term injuries. It is a noticeable absence in this embarrassingly sad situation.
Perhaps the modern-day players are concerned that if the NFLPA and the NFL loosen their grip on the disability funds, there won't be anything left for them when they retire. Maybe they think that those ex-players, who didn't contribute very much to the pension fund when they were playing, shouldn't be able to draw on 2007 dollars.
It comes down to this: How much do today's players owe the players of yesterday, who built the league into the bonanza they are now reaping the financial rewards from?
"There's enough money to go around," Ditka said. "These guys today who play football are not the makers of the game. They are the keepers of the game."
In the past, Upshaw has taken a harsh tone when responding to the problems that retired players, saying that he doesn't work for them. But during his press conference yesterday, Upshaw softened his stance.
"Anyone who says Gene Upshaw and the NFL Players Association don't care about the retired players is not responsible," Upshaw said.
He said at the current rate it would cost $8 million a year to get the retired players on par with the current players in terms of disability payments. He said part of the problem is that some of the retired players started to collect their benefits when they turned 45, meaning their monthly pension is around $70. He also said there was no mechanism in place for those retired players who don't really need their pensions to donate them.
That is a tough sell in a league that has a TV contract worth billions and some players earning in the hundreds of millions. Under that setup, it looks cruel not to help those ailing retired players or to force them to drag you into court to get help.
There is a lot of bitterness and anger from the ex-players - Jerry Kramer, Lem Barney, Ditka and DeLamielleure - who were present yesterday to talk about the work of The Gridiron Greats Assistance Fund. There is also the feeling that the retired players must start doing something to help those who have fallen on hard times.
Kramer is holding a memorabilia auction through Steiner Sports to help raise money for the Gridiron Greats fund. For the next 11 days, people can go to www.JerryKramer.com to bid on items. Kramer said he hopes to raise $500,000.
What incensed the former players at the press conference yesterday was that ex-players had to beg and grovel before the NFLPA and the NFL to get disability payments.
"These guys are proud. They don't want to beg," Ditka said. "They don't want to ask. They don't have to. It's there."
Ditka said he had sent out letters to all 32 teams requesting a $100,000 donation. He got two responses. One was a check for $5,000 and the other was a check for $10,000. He had his secretary return the checks.
Those old warriors who sacrificed their bodies to help build the NFL into what it is today are going to have to lean on each other for support. They've got no one else.
Originally published on February 2, 2007
11. Bears icon Ditka speaks out for those the NFL money machine left behind, DAVID NAYLOR writes
by DAVID NAYLOR
Toronto Globe and Mail
Feb. 2, 2007
MIAMI -- Almost everything about Super Bowl week -- and the National
Football League in general -- reeks of wealth and abundance.
>From new stadiums to billion-dollar television deals, right down to
the free shrimp and booze this week in Miami, there seems no limit to
the NFL's desire to spend lavishly on itself and its guests.
All of which made yesterday's news conference just a little bit
jarring when a group of former NFL players gathered to condemn the
league and its players' association for allowing so many of them to
fall into poverty and desperation.
The NFL's ascent to top of the North American sports world occurred
during the 1960s and '70s, when it morphed from a rag-tag collection
of often money-losing clubs into the powerhouse of today, with
franchise values nearing $1-billion each.
And while modern players live rather well, those of the 1950s, '60s
and '70s are often destitute, encumbered partly by the crippling long-
term affects of the game they played with such passion.
"There's a lot of them out there," former Chicago Bears tight end and
head coach Mike Ditka said. "And it's not like there's not enough
money to go around, because there is enough money to go around.
"These guys today who play the game of football, not taking anything
away from them, they are not the makers of the game. They are the
keepers of the game. Period. They are doing what was laid down by a
lot of other guys before them, who didn't make money and played hurt
all the time.
"You hate to use that thing that where you're valuable to me when
you're a player and you can contribute, but when you're not, you're
not longer valuable to me. But that's what it looks like and that's
what it feels like to them."
Ditka's anger highlights a divide between players of today and those
of the past -- many of whom feel they have been mistreated by the
union and league they helped build. They're also frustrated with
difficulties many players have claiming disability benefits for
injuries they cannot prove were caused by football.
When the president of the National Football League Players
Association, Troy Vincent, addressed the issue of retired players
yesterday, he at first claimed to understand their plight, but then
said he and others were tired of constantly being hounded for money.
"I'm on the sideline and a coach who is a retired player says. 'Hey,
Troy, when are you going to increase the benefits?' " said Vincent, a
defensive back for the Washington Redskins.
"At practice or at the airport, everywhere. Think about that. Every
player is facing that. Every conversation with the retired players is
strictly about economics. At some point you just go and say: 'I've had
enough. I don't want to talk about it any more.' "
Ditka and other former players aren't waiting for a solution. An
online auction fundraiser at jerrykramer.com will feature many items
donated by retired players, including Ditka's 1975 National Football
Conference championship ring and a gold bracelet owned by former
Buffalo Bills offensive lineman Joe DeLamielleure given to him by O.J.
Simpson after the running back's 2,000-yard season in 1973.
"I really wanted to keep that O.J. bracelet, I've got six kids of my
own, two that I adopted," DeLamielleure said. "But I'm willing to give
it up because you've got to give something to get something,"
DeLamielleure said. "It's just come to point in my life where it's put
up or shut up, because I've been bitching about this for years. Now,
at least I've done something."
The plight of some former players has been brought to the NFL's
attention many times, including by former New York Giants linebacker
Harry Carson during his enshrinement speech at the Pro Football Hall
of Fame last summer.
Ditka wrote to the league several years ago, asking that each club
contribute $100,000 toward the problem. He received two cheques -- one
for $5,000 and another for $10,000 -- and sent them back.
Since then, he has refused to visit the Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio.
While there are examples of destitute former athletes in many sports,
football players seem to be paying a price directly related to the
nature of the game that they play. A generation ago, few paid
attention the accumulative toll of injuries and the way things such as
multiple concussions could possibly lead to dementia and Alzheimer's
disease.
Among those cited as currently in need is 70-year-old Willie Wood, the
former Green Bay Packers safety, Hall of Famer and one-time head coach
of the Canadian Football League's Toronto Argonauts. He's in an
assisted living centre in Washington.
"Willie Wood was known because he hit really hard," former teammate
Jerry Kramer said. "He'd come up and stuff guys at the line of
scrimmage.
"He's had a narrowing of the spinal canal in the high back, operation
on his lower back, operations on both hips and both knees. Willie was
a great football player, and now he's paying for it."
12. by Tim Smith
New York Daily News
Friday, February 2nd, 2007
MIAMI - It long has been an embarrassment for the NFL: players
rendered mentally and physically broken from the brutal demands of the
game and then left with little or no financial support from the league
after they retire.
The veil was lifted off the problem at the Hall of Fame induction last
summer when new inductee Harry Carson, the former Giants linebacker,
addressed the matter in his speech. Ex-Bears coach Mike Ditka drew
more attention to the matter when he said on an HBO "Real Sports"
segment that the NFL didn't care about retired players.
Ditka and several prominent former players took the NFL Players
Association and the league to task again yesterday, calling on both
organizations to do more to help their brethren who are now destitute.
"I played next to a guy for seven years who is now in a homeless
shelter," said Joe DeLamielleure, a former Buffalo Bills guard. "I
played next to Mike Webster and Jim Ringo. Our pension (stinks).
Twenty percent of nothing is nothing. I hold (union executive
director) Gene Upshaw and (former NFL commissioner) Paul Tagliabue
responsible for this. They were in power for 20 years and did
nothing."
Oddly, none of the current players, all of whom are paying into the
pension fund, has come out in support of the ex-players suffering from
debilitating long-term injuries. It is a noticeable absence in this
embarrassingly sad situation.
Perhaps the modern-day players are concerned that if the NFLPA and the
NFL loosen their grip on the disability funds, there won't be anything
left for them when they retire. Maybe they think that those ex-
players, who didn't contribute very much to the pension fund when they
were playing, shouldn't be able to draw on 2007 dollars.
It comes down to this: How much do today's players owe the players of
yesterday, who built the league into the bonanza they are now reaping
the financial rewards from?
"There's enough money to go around," Ditka said. "These guys today who
play football are not the makers of the game. They are the keepers of
the game."
In the past, Upshaw has taken a harsh tone when responding to the
problems that retired players, saying that he doesn't work for them.
But during his press conference yesterday, Upshaw softened his stance.
"Anyone who says Gene Upshaw and the NFL Players Association don't
care about the retired players is not responsible," Upshaw said.
He said at the current rate it would cost $8 million a year to get the
retired players on par with the current players in terms of disability
payments. He said part of the problem is that some of the retired
players started to collect their benefits when they turned 45, meaning
their monthly pension is around $70. He also said there was no
mechanism in place for those retired players who don't really need
their pensions to donate them.
That is a tough sell in a league that has a TV contract worth billions
and some players earning in the hundreds of millions. Under that
setup, it looks cruel not to help those ailing retired players or to
force them to drag you into court to get help.
There is a lot of bitterness and anger from the ex-players - Jerry
Kramer, Lem Barney, Ditka and DeLamielleure - who were present
yesterday to talk about the work of The Gridiron Greats Assistance
Fund. There is also the feeling that the retired players must start
doing something to help those who have fallen on hard times.
Kramer is holding a memorabilia auction through Steiner Sports to help
raise money for the Gridiron Greats fund. For the next 11 days, people
can go to www.JerryKramer.com to bid on items. Kramer said he hopes to
raise $500,000.
What incensed the former players at the press conference yesterday was
that ex-players had to beg and grovel before the NFLPA and the NFL to
get disability payments.
"These guys are proud. They don't want to beg," Ditka said. "They
don't want to ask. They don't have to. It's there."
Ditka said he had sent out letters to all 32 teams requesting a
$100,000 donation. He got two responses. One was a check for $5,000
and the other was a check for $10,000. He had his secretary return the
checks.
Those old warriors who sacrificed their bodies to help build the NFL
into what it is today are going to have to lean on each other for
support. They've got no one else.
Hall of Famer Mike Ditka joins movement to assist former NFL players,makes conscientious appeal to owners, public
13. by Dan Bickley
The Arizona Republic
Feb. 2, 2007 03:13 AM
MIAMI -- Mike Ditka has been a spokesman for toilet paper and Levitra.
He does his radio show from his restaurant in Chicago, where people
stand in line to pay for his pork chops and his autograph.
He sells his own beer (Iron Mike's, an amber ale), his own line of
wine (including Kick Ass Red) and recently has formed his own
recording label. Those who have worked with him have a nickname for
the former NFL tight end/head coach. They call him "printing press."
And after all these years, his profile and his empire are still
growing.
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Fortunately, Ditka is now standing for something nobler, for something
bigger than product endorsement. He is the ringleader for a great
cause, renewing efforts to provide more money and benefits for the
forgotten generation of broken-down NFL warriors.
And to prove it, he is donating his NFC championship ring from 1975.
"The guys today who play the game of football, they are not the makers
of the game," Ditka said. "They are keepers of the game, period. They
are doing what was laid down by a lot of guys before them who didn't
make money, who played hurt all the time, who didn't have sports
medicine . . . "
Of course, this is not a new issue. For years, the NFL has been
accused of ignoring the players who laid the foundation for a league
that is now floating in money. But Thursday's news conference
trumpeting an online auction for the Gridiron Greats Assistance Fund
should embarrass the NFL, because many great players are parting with
deeply personal memorabilia in order to help out their comrades. The
presence of the hugely popular Ditka and his ties to ESPN certainly
ups the stakes.
"I've played next to a guy who is in a homeless shelter; I played next
to (the late) Mike Webster," said former Bills offensive lineman Joe
DeLamielleure, who is donating a gold bracelet given to him and
inscribed by O.J. Simpson. "And our pension sucks, plain and simple. I
think (players union boss) Gene Upshaw and (former NFL commissioner
Paul) Tagliabue are responsible for this. They've been in power for 20
years and haven't done anything."
Tagliabue retired as commissioner last year, and Upshaw continues to
insist that, no offense, but the current players are very happy with
him.
Yet former Packers great Jerry Kramer, whose Web site (jerry
kramer.com) is hosting the auction, is in the process of gathering
data and is alarmed at how many former players have been physically
crushed by the game's brutality. And in a Super Bowl where the 1985
Bears are once again relevant, we regret to inform you that Wilber
Marshall, a former heat-seeking linebacker, has been stricken down
hard by the game. And that former Colts great John Mackey isn't doing
well, either, now in need of 24-hour care.
"I've seen the way the United States treated guys from Vietnam when
they came back home from protecting our country," former Lions great
Lem Barney said. "They fought their tails off, and a lot of them came
back wounded mentally, physically and spiritually. And when they came
back, they had no real benefits waiting for them. As a result, some of
them are living on railroad tracks, they're living in torn-down
places, and their families have divested from them. It's the same way
with these former football players."
But it's Ditka who now is applying the serious heat. He passed out
copies of a 2001 letter from Al Davis to Tagliabue in which the
Raiders owner condemns the former commissioner for blocking a
philanthropic project. Davis wanted to build satellite halls of fame
in Anaheim and Orlando to both honor and raise money for old-time
players, only to watch Tagliabue squash the idea.
Then Ditka told a chilling story. After his golf tournament had raised
$100,000, he sent a letter to all 32 NFL owners. He asked for a one-
time donation of $100,000. The $3.3 million would be put in a trust
fund, and the problem would be eradicated.
"My response was not very good," Ditka said. "I think I got a check
from one owner for five thousand and one for 10 (thousand). And I had
our people send them back."
Ditka wouldn't name the two teams, other than to say they were located
on the East Coast. But he finds it shameful, revealing that an unnamed
owner in a different sport just offered Ditka $100,000 to help the
cause.
"Nobody seems to care. That's what bothers me," Ditka said. "I know
Mike Webster might be alive today if somebody cared. These guys, they
really gave it their all. They built this league, and they didn't get
a lot for it, and nobody really cares."
Ditka says you can help, too. He thinks public donations eventually
will blow away the $500,000 they hope to raise with the auction. And
then he points to a chubby, swollen finger.
"Would I give this ring away?" Ditka said. "No. It's the most valuable
thing I've ever had. It's the Super Bowl ring I had with the Bears
from 1986. But (the NFC ring is) the ring from the Cowboys, and I
would give anything else away I have if I thought it would bring the
kind of money needed to take the pain away from these (former
players).
"It's time. The year is 2007. It's time to right a wrong that's
existed for a long time."
With Ditka doing the barking, it's about time the NFL paid attention.
14. by JERRY KELLAR
Wilkes-Barre (Pa.) Times-Leader
It was April 2002, the last time Johnny Unitas, then part-owner of the
fledgling Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Pioneers, visited this area. It was
also five months before one of the greatest quarterbacks to play the
game passed away.
The 20 minutes or so I got to spend that day with the NFL Hall of
Famer in a small conference room in the basement of Wachovia Arena
ranks among my most cherished memories in the business.
They also served as an eye-opener.
A couple decades in pro football took its toll on ol' No. 19's body.
His most noticeable problem was a curved right arm, a result of all
those passes he threw. He also suffered the lasting effects of a torn
Achilles tendon, broken ribs, a punctured lung and knee injuries.
But it was the right hand that I'll never forget.
Slightly deformed from nerve damage incurred from all that physical
pounding, Unitas had only limited use of the appendage. When a local
politician interrupted our interview to ask for an autograph, Johnny U
gently laid the marker into his palm and slowly etched his name on a
photograph.
The memory of the onetime gridiron hero struggling to carry out this
simplest of tasks, one that most of us take for granted, is
distressing.
That emotion turns to outrage when you come to realize that the work-
related injuries that befell Unitas and so many other players from the
golden age of the NFL is not covered by insurance because of the
league's unwillingness to rework the former employees' pensions to
include a health plan.
Think about that for a few moments.
As the NFL readies for its annual showcase event - Sunday's Super Bowl
- some of the biggest names in league history, athletes who have laid
the groundwork for what is now a billion-dollar empire, have been
forsaken by this greatest of all games and the greed-mongers who run
it. That includes union president and Hall of Famer Gene Upshaw, along
with a group of players who are reaping the rewards of the sacrifices
made by their predecessors.
Guys like Earl Campbell, a bruising Hall of Fame running back who
nowadays can barely walk. Or ex-Steelers' center Mike Webster, another
Canton inductee who died a virtual cripple at the age of 50 after
several dozen operations to his hands, knees, ankles and hips.
Webster, who in 1999 was diagnosed with incurable brain damage, the
result of repeated concussions during his career, passed away before
learning that a lawsuit to acquire full disability benefits from the
NFL was successful.
Stories such as these, a few of which were detailed in a recent
segment of HBO's Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel, left John Unitas a
bitter man at the end.
"It's hard not to be," he told me during his final visit to Wilkes-
Barre. "It's the side of the game most people will never hear about."
It should be noted that not all of today's players have turned their
backs on their gridiron brethren. But for every Peyton and Eli Manning
- whose dad Archie still bears the scars of a 14-year NFL career while
earning a fraction of what his sons make as high-profile quarterbacks
-- there are far too many others whose only concern is their personal
well-being.
Those players are representative of a generation which chooses to live
only for the moment. But even the bright lights of Super Bowl Sunday
eventually go out.
Then it's every man for himself.
15. Ex-Players Say Increase in Pensions Is Needed
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By CLIFTON BROWN
Published: February 2, 2007
MIAMI, Feb. 1 — Disenchanted with the National Football League and its players union, a group of retired players has organized an online auction to raise money for former players in need.
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Four members of the Gridiron Greats Assistance Fund — Lem Barney, Joe DeLamielleure, Mike Ditka and Jerry Kramer — held a news conference Thursday to raise awareness about the auction and the plight of many retired players. The four players, all members of the Hall of Fame, want an increase in pension benefits for former players.
“I played next to a guy for seven years who’s in a homeless shelter,” said DeLamielleure, 55, who was an offensive lineman for 13 years.
DeLamielleure said pension benefits to veterans were inadequate, and he blamed Gene Upshaw, the executive director of the N.F.L. Players Association, and Paul Tagliabue, the former N.F.L. commissioner.
“They’ve been in power for 20 years and haven’t done anything,” DeLamielleure said. “Guys need help yesterday. I said to Gene, It’s like there’s a big pie being made here, and there’s a couple of crumbs on the floor, and they won’t even give us a crumb. This isn’t some industry that’s not making money. And there’s not like 100,000 people out there that are asking for help. I’m insulted by our union.”
At a news conference later in the day, Upshaw defended what the union had done for its retired players, saying that some expectations were unrealistic.
“There’s $60 million that’s paid out each year,” said Upshaw, a Hall of Fame guard who played 16 seasons. “We just spent $51 million to improve the benefits. When everyone walks up to you and says we’re not doing anything, I know the body of work. What you don’t hear about is the guys we help. There was one of them in here earlier saying that we don’t do anything. We just paid his mortgage for the last five months.
“I know what we do, and I’m proud of what we do, because I understand what this is all about.”
Upshaw said that it was not economically feasible to raise the pensions of retired players to the level of current players.
Ditka said he had dinner Wednesday night with a team owner who offered to donate $100,000, and that current players should be doing more to help retired players.
“These guys today who play the game of football, and not taking anything away from them, they are not the makers of the game,” Ditka said. “They are the keepers of the game, period. They are doing what was laid down by a lot of other guys before them, who didn’t make money, who played hurt all the time, who didn’t have the sports medicine.”
Troy Vincent, president of the players association, said he had empathy for former players, but said that some players had grown weary of hearing complaints.
“On the opposite sideline, I’m getting up and going back to the huddle, and I have a coach that’s a retired player, ‘Hey, Troy, when you going to increase the benefits?’ ” said Vincent, a defensive back with the Washington Redskins. “At practice, you’re at the airport, everywhere. Every conversation with the retired player is strictly about economics. At some point you just go, I’ve had enough, I don’t walk to talk about it anymore.
“We are really making every effort to bridge the gap. Let’s develop a relationship first. You’re a Hall of Famer, tell me what I can do to improve my game, not just belittle me about what we’re not doing as an association.”
Ditka referred to Mike Webster, a Hall of Fame center who played most of his career with the Pittsburgh Steelers and died in 2002 at 50. Last month, a United States Court of Appeals upheld a 2005 trial court ruling that Webster sustained brain damage from playing professional football.
“I can’t tell you today if Mike Webster would have been alive today or not; I don’t know,” Ditka said, adding that he believed better benefits would have kept Webster from living on the street. “When he passed, his family wouldn’t have to sue to get his benefits.”
The auction, featuring football memorabilia donated by former players, began Thursday and ends Feb. 13. It can be accessed at jerrykramer.com. Ditka said the proceeds would go directly to players in need.
“We don’t make them jump through hoops, we don’t make a bunch of red tape,” Ditka said. “Every penny that goes in, goes out.
“I’m not going to bash Upshaw, or I’m not going to bash the commissioner. It could have been remedied a long time ago, and it should be remedied now. If they don’t, then there’re going to be a lot of people embarrassed over it.”
16. by Brian Ettkin
Albany (N.Y.) Times-Union
Tuesday, January 30, 2007
We can handle the truth. It's the NFL's good fortune that we're just
not interested in it.
We don't want to know how the NFL suppresses information about the
effects of multiple concussions on its players.
We're not outraged that the enormously profitable NFL and its players'
union "provides" a meager pension and no health insurance benefits for
former players whose careers began before 1977.
We don't care about the loopholes in the league's drug-testing policy.
We don't even care when a superstar such as Shawne Merriman tests
positive for steroids and is suspended for four games.
We are outraged by every revelation about steroid use in baseball.
Because we're smitten with the NFL, we'd prefer not to look at its
dark recesses. We want to observe Super Bowl Sunday as a holiday, and
ignore our favorite league's unsavory practices, which we could never
celebrate.
It's not that news stories casting the NFL in shadowy light are
softened. They're just not widely reported.
When an October 2006 story in ESPN The Magazine reported the NFL-
commissioned Mild Traumatic Brain Injury Committee's dubious findings
on head trauma, findings that contradict the research of other doctors
who study players with concussions, it was a nonstory in the popular
press.
Among the revelations: The MTBIC concluded that returning to play
after a concussion "does not involve significant risk of a second
injury either in the game or during the season." Which is funny,
because a 2003 NCAA study of 2,905 college football players found
exactly the opposite: a player who suffers a concussion becomes more
susceptible to further head trauma for seven to 10 days after the
injury.
The MTBIC claimed there's "no evidence of worsening or chronic
cumulative effects of multiple MTBIs in NFL players," even though a
2003 report by the Center for the Study of Retired Athletes at the
University of North Carolina concluded -- wouldn't you know it? --
just the opposite. And most sports doctors agree.
Yet, according to the MTBIC, 51.7 percent of players who sustain
concussions return in the same game.
The story also found that MTBIC chairman Elliot Pellman, the Jets'
team doctor, didn't include in his study all relevant available data
on players with concussions.
It's worth noting that Pellman is a rheumatologist, not a neurologist,
so he's not trained to study brain trauma. He didn't earn a medical
degree from Stony Brook, as he once claimed. He attended medical
school in Guadalajara, Mexico.
And we don't find this disturbing.
Then there's the pension and benefit plan for pre-1977 players, which
Hall of Famer Howie Long once called, the "dark secret nobody wants to
talk about."
Even players covered by the NFL disability plan rarely collect. NFL
veterans who play long enough become physically broken men and their
minds are sometimes permanently jumbled too. Yet, The Wall Street
Journal reported in December 2005 that only 90 of the more than 7,000
former players covered by the NFL plan were receiving the benefits.
This has prompted Pro Football Hall of Fame members including Deacon
Jones and Mike Ditka to boycott the annual induction ceremonies in
Canton to protest the NFL's and players union's treatment of its
former players.
Not that we want to know about it.
Brian Ettkin can be reached at 454-5457 or by e-mail at
bettkin@timesunion.com.
17. By Dan Wetzel, Yahoo! Sports
January 30, 2007
MIAMI - Mike Ditka is spitting fury and frustration, words hitting
harder than a South Beach hangover.
He surveys the scene here for Super Bowl XLI, takes one look at the
giant billboards, the corporate sponsors, the overflowing hotels and
restaurants, the four-figure ticket prices and he doesn't see smiling
faces - just old ones.
Like the one of Mike Webster, the Hall of Fame Pittsburgh Steeler who
died broke and sick and had spent time homeless, living in his pickup
truck.
Or Willie Wood, a Green Bay Packer Hall of Famer, who played in the
first two Super Bowls no less, currently struggling with a mountain of
medical bills from myriad surgeries to repair back, neck, spine and
hip problems almost all assuredly related to the violence of football.
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Or Herb Adderley, another of those old Packers, who is so disgusted at
his $126.85 per month pension in the face of all the NFL's profits
that he refuses to wear his Super Bowl or Hall of Fame rings anymore.
When you spend your days hearing sad stories from all your old friends
who helped make the Super Bowl the extravaganza it is, helped lay the
foundation for a league now filled with millionaire players and
billionaire owners, you don't have to have Mike Ditka's legendary fire
to want to blow up at the owners, at the NFL Players Association, at
the current players, at someone or something.
"It's a disgrace," Ditka said, starting to tick off his culprits. "The
owners ought to be ashamed of themselves. The owners are financiers,
and they are all about making money. They don't care about the history
of the game.
"[NFLPA executive director] Gene Upshaw?" Ditka continued. "Come on.
You can get somebody off the street to do what he is doing, and you
will pay him a whole lot less. You've got [players] today making
millions of dollars.
"All we are saying is we got a lot of guys that started this game that
have a lot of problems health wise and mental wise. I say help them
out. Help them out. Let them die with a little dignity and a little
respect."
With that Mike Ditka is about out of breath. But not out of will.
Here is where the issue gets as complicated as it is emotional.
Two things are undeniable. First, many older players (especially pre-
early 1980s) are suffering financially, physically and, often,
mentally and emotionally. A great deal of that comes from playing the
game. Second, the NFL is now awash in cash, a $6 billion industry.
The problem is that the retirement deals cut back in the day were
reflective of the fiscal realities of those times. Older players look
at today's Super Bowl as a cash cow and argue it wouldn't have been
possible without Super Bowl I.
"You see we've got a $4 billion contract, we've got a 59-percent
increase in income, franchises are now worth a billion and a half
dollars and you're going, 'hey, hey, excuse me, you forgot something
back here,'" said Hall of Famer Packer Jerry Kramer, who played in the
first two Super Bowls.
"This era is what founded the foundation of the league."
Indeed it is. But, then again, that first Super Bowl in 1967 didn't
sell out the Los Angeles Coliseum.
"The pension for the current players is quite good," NFL spokesman
Greg Aiello said Tuesday. "And those benefits are a factor of the
economics at the time. [For] guys who played years ago, the economics
of the league weren't as great. Therefore their benefit package isn't
what the benefit package is for the players today."
The NFL currently pays out $61 million in pension, but most of that
goes to post-1977 players. The NFLPA recently upped its contributions
to older players, but people such as Ditka claim it is woefully
insufficient.
And while you'd love to see the NFL just step up and cover every
player in need, it deserves at least some nod of respect for bucking
every known trend in corporate America - rather than trying to abandon
its legacy costs to retirees, it actually is upping its contributions
and commitments.
"Every collective bargaining agreement we've negotiated with the
players has included improvements in the pension plan for retired
players," Aiello said. "Which is unusual in industry for the
bargaining unit to go back and improve the benefits."
Of course, it isn't enough. Nor is the NFLPA's weak claim that it can
only do so much because it legally represents only current players,
not retired ones. Both the NFL and NFLPA could and should do more.
Both could and should act as examples of what is right here.
That they defend their current actions says there is a lot of
semantics here, a lot of buck passing, just not enough to the old
players.
But the real problem here isn't exploding revenue or left-behind
senior citizens - we've had that in most major sports. It is the
inherent nature of the NFL, too violent, too painful, too destructive
for any traditional definition of right and wrong to apply.
"Willie Wood had an operation on his high spinal column, on his high
shoulders, on the narrowing of the spinal canal, on his lower back and
on his hips," Kramer said of his old teammate.
"You know any one of those [surgeries] could wipe out a modest
savings."
You don't have injuries like that playing basketball or baseball. You
probably don't have them as a coal miner, or a lumberjack or a
jackhammer operator even.
If the NFL were just any old industry - and not our national sporting
obsession - it is quite possible the federal government would all but
outlaw it for the safety of the workers. The NFL can provide all the
helmets, trainers and team doctors it wants, but this still is a game
that essentially can ruin anyone who plays it at the highest level.
"Football is a great game until you turn 45," former San Francisco
wide receiver Mike Shumann told the San Francisco Chronicle in a story
that detailed how at least 20 members of the 1981-82 49ers already
cope with serious physical issues.
Which is why this is such an issue for the NFL. Common sense tells you
that many players retire from football due to disabling injuries that
will affect them for the rest of their lives, be it a blown knee or
the double-digit concussions. But unlike most industries, players have
been unable to prove it in court, and as few as two percent of retired
players receive disability from the NFL.
With near-crippling injuries suffered from this massively violent
pursuit, they struggle to make ends meet on meager pensions, hit-or-
miss health care and limited employment prospects.
But the NFL, as rich as it is, can't afford to have 1,000 players
suddenly on disability, sometimes for forty and fifty years. The
league, as a business, can't operate if it admits that so many
employees who do only what their job requires - tackling, blocking,
being tackled, being blocked - wind up disabled.
It is not an understatement that the entire league's existence would
be at stake. The federal government would have to pass some kind of
legislation protecting it from such claims so it could continue to
operate. That's why the NFL vigorously fights disability claims.
Moreover, the post-retirement life of a NFL player is full of non-
physical challenges. According to the Kansas City Star, two-thirds of
players have "emotional problems" within six months of retirement. And
eighty percent of their marriages end within four years - another huge
financial drain.
The NFL now works with current players about preparing for life after
football, understanding that many players arrive from coddling college
programs where there was little actual education and few thoughts
spent on anything but playing ball.
"We have programs in place that never existed years and years ago to
help prepare players for their transition," Aiello said. "They first
hear about it at the rookie symposium and then they go to their teams,
and they know about all of the resources that exist to assist them in
their life off the field including continuing education, internships,
life skill programs."
But that is too late for the older players who often mismanaged parts
of their lives. Ones such as Adderley, who was one of 324 former
players including 40 Hall of Famers who (foolishly, he admits) took
early retirement, which explains his pathetically low pension. Not
that it would have been much better. Kramer gets just $358 per month.
But the question remains, should it really be the NFL's job to care
for all these players for all these reasons?
That debate is sure to get more contentious and litigious. The former
players aren't backing down. There are lawsuits and press conferences
and fights to be had. Ditka is just one of the combatants. The battle
promises to be long and nasty, high stakes, high emotion.
In the meantime, Ditka and Kramer can't wait. And they won't. Both are
fortunate to be in good health and enjoy prosperity from post-playing
careers. But they won't forget their old teammates.
"I don't know if it is anyone's fault particularly," Kramer said.
"Some guys took retirement. Some had bad information. A lot of us got
[information] indicating we would die at an average of 54. A lot of
guys didn't, but a lot guys got caught in bad decisions financially or
medical decisions. The medical thing has gone so through the roof."
Whatever. Nothing can change that now.
"I've got guys in the hospital, guys in homeless shelters, I've got
guys who need help in days," Kramer said. "I can't believe the owners
and the union won't correct this problem. [But] that's not my concern
this week.
This week he is acting. Kramer, Ditka and a host of former players and
franchises are holding an online auction to raise emergency money for
players in need.
It's called the Gridiron Greats Assistance Fund and the memorabilia
and experiences are one of a kind. Ditka is auctioning his 1975 NFC
championship ring. There are celebrity experiences with Harry Carson,
Howie Long and Merlin Olsen. Hand-drawn plays from Vince Lombardi. All
kinds of stuff.
The information for the auction and the fund can be found on
jerrykramer.com.
And whether you think the NFL and NFLPA should do more, whether Ditka
is right or wrong, you can't argue with the need.
The Super Bowl is upon us - a celebration of the game. But not for
those whom football chewed up and forgot.
Dan Wetzel is Yahoo! Sports' national columnist.
18. The plight of retired players is a growing concern
By Ethan J. Skolnick
South Florida Sun-Sentinel
February 1, 2007
Forty years ago, Willie Wood ran the other way in glory. The slick
Green Bay free safety snatched a Len Dawson pass and raced 50 yards,
as the Packers sprinted to an easy victory in Super Bowl I against
Dawson's Chiefs.
Now, many contem-poraries and friends see shame as they accuse the NFL
and its players association of running away from legendary players
like him.
Wood, 69, is certainly in no shape to chase anyone these days.
The Hall of Famer has replaced one knee and one hip, will need to
replace the other knee, and maybe the hip, too. He has a wheelchair,
and back trouble, and gout, and diabetes, and arthritis in his hands,
and even early-stage dementia. While he never took his principal, his
pension still earns him only about $1,000 per month -- which is
actually four times as much as many players of his era, even after the
recent proposed 25 percent increase that is awaiting ratification.
"The medical monster has been a problem for a lot of older guys," said
Jerry Kramer, Wood's former teammate. "Costs have escalated so
dramatically, and many were caught without insurance, and some were
uninsurable. We were able to piece together some funds for Willie, and
get him into an assisted living facility."
For now, anyway.
But for Wood and so many of his physically and financially broken
contemporaries, who made a pittance compared to current players, the
resources run out quicker than any of them ever ran onto a field.
Speak to any player who retired before the late 1970s, and you'll hear
tragic stories about teammates. Some are invalids, with wives
returning to work to pay for care. Some are homeless, or in trailers.
Some have passed away penniless, with no family capable of paying for
a proper funeral.
After witnessing these declines, along with what they perceive as a
prolonged, shameful run from responsibility on the part of the NFL and
player union chief Gene Upshaw, several outraged football legends and
their supporters are taking a new approach.
"We will have World Wars IV and V before we have resolution on the
pension issue," said Bob Schmidt, Wood's former USC teammate and long-
time attorney. "You can't win that argument. We have to kill them with
kindness. If we go out and do the things that we are capable of doing
for these players, the league and the association will have to come
along, because otherwise they will really look stupid."
The NFL, and particularly, its players association have come under
heavy criticism of late, even from more recently retired Hall of
Famers such as Joe Montana and Howie Long. The issues: the meagerness
of pensions for old-time players, especially when compared to
contemporaries in baseball and the extreme difficulty in receiving
total and permanent disability status. Critics have mostly targeted
Upshaw, who has touted pension improvements, retirement packages for
current players, called retired players "ungrateful" and said he does
not represent them.
Upshaw told the Charlotte Observer last year that the NFL can't extend
health insurance coverage beyond the current 5-year post-retirement
limit because it would be cost-prohibitive, citing a figure between $5
billion to $9 billion to insure current players for life.
The retired player problem has become such a flashpoint that, when
asked for comment last week, NFLPA spokesman Carl Francis said that
Upshaw "would have an in-depth, comprehensive response to all of the
media reports" at today's 3:30 p.m. NFLPA press conference at the
Miami Beach Convention Center.
Earlier in the day, Mike Ditka will lead a press conference about the
concerns of retired players.
At 11 a.m., Kramer will announce the official start of his first
Gridiron Greats Assistance Fund auction, through JerryKramer.com.
"I just pray that the other people have an impact on the league, or
the pension fund, or the players association, but these are guys who
need help right now, today," Kramer said. "Virtually everyone we've
asked has donated something."
That includes those who could use help themselves.
Conrad Dobler, an NFL offensive lineman for 10 seasons, now runs a
supplemental staffing business for nurses. His house is getting
repossessed. His wife is paralyzed. He had seven surgeries in one
year, has had his left knee replaced twice, and spent nearly 100 days
in the hospital this past year. He pops Vicodin like candy. He has
never received a penny of disability money from the union or league.
"You have to be in a coma before you get anything," Dobler said.
He doesn't take his pension, because it would only cover his health
insurance, not including his co-payments.
And yet, he says, "There are a lot of other people in worse shape than
I am."
And, so while he has six children, and hoped to leave them his
mementos -- if not sell them on eBay -- he considers Kramer's to be
the ideal charity.
"It's time to quit the bitching and put together an organization to
get help where the players need help," Dobler said. "By God, if nobody
is going to take care of us, we will do it ourselves, with the help of
the players who respected the people like us, the people who made the
game great."
That's why Hall of Fame guard Joe DeLamielleure is auctioning off a
bracelet that former teammate O.J. Simpson gave him, one valued at
about $1,500. He wouldn't do otherwise, but after seeing the state of
former teammates -- one of which he just visited in a shelter -- and
considering "we have realized the union and league will do nothing
about this."
"It's an absolute disgrace that the former players, who were screwed
all along, have to give up the things that they earned," said
DeLamielleure, who has been receiving a $992 pension, which would have
been $2,200 if he could have waited until age 55. "If the industry was
suffering, then guys could say, `Hey, we understand it.' But it's not.
It's booming. We're forgotten, but we're not gone."
They're certainly not going quietly.
Bruce Laird and Tom Matte were among those frustrated by the NFLPA's
initial response to a call for help for former teammate John Mackey,
who suffers from dementia, and whose wife Sylvia had to return to work
as a flight attendant at age 62. So they formed a Google Group, which
now includes more than 1,000 retired players, they have lobbied
politicians, they have contacted legal firms and worked with Kramer --
also believing they need to act quickly to help former players before
real change comes.
Matte, now a Ravens broadcaster, made $85,000 at one point in his
career, so he considers himself fortunate despite his medical
problems. After a 12-year career, he makes $1,400 per month in his
pension, before the 25 percent increase.
"What we have to do is embarrass the league," Matte said.
They aim to represent a group that they believe lacks allies,
including current players. DeLamielleure believe that is because
Upshaw has not educated them. Matte thinks it's because they "have so
much change in their pocket, that they don't care what's happening."
Said Laird: "After new collective-bargaining agreement, the new
players get more, and the old players really don't."
His monthly pension is around $200.
"It's not about that, it's about the ancillary benefits the modern
player has," Laird said. "We are very happy for the active player.
They have finally gotten what they sorely deserve. We would just like
everybody to understand that the pioneers who made this game great
have been left out in the cold for a long, long time."
Copyright © 2007, South Florida Sun-Sentinel
19. by Shaun Powell
NEWSDAY SPORTS COLUMNIST
January 30, 2007
At some point tonight on the Amtrak from Baltimore to Miami, a
passenger might feel a gentle tap on the shoulder and see a large man
balling a fist, ready to hit him with a bit of nostalgia.
"See this?" John Mackey will say sweetly to the stranger while
flashing a striking piece of bling. "This is my Super Bowl ring. I
scored the 75-yard touchdown to beat the Dallas Cowboys."
This is what he tells people -- on the streets, in the malls, wherever
-- not just because the memory of his thrilling catch in Super Bowl V
gives him bragging rights. It's also because, in his condition, the
touchdown is almost all he remembers about the past.
And the ring. He wears two of them, actually -- a Super Bowl ring on
one hand, a Hall of Fame ring on the other. Always. He sleeps with
them. He rarely removes them. Which is why he's taking the train to
Miami for Super Bowl XLI and not a flight.
A few years ago, while headed to St. Louis for an autograph signing
show, he approached airport screening. Security ordered him to remove
the rings and place them in the plastic bins. He refused. They told
him again. He said no.
Then he noticed these weren't the same friendly strangers on the
street who listened patiently when he told them about the touchdown.
That's what dementia does. It makes its victims suspicious and also
very protective of their possessions, especially the precious ones.
Therefore, Mackey followed his football instincts, which took him from
Hempstead to Syracuse to the NFL and allowed him to cover 75 yards on
that touchdown catch and run 35 years ago, when he spun away from the
Dallas defense.
He elbowed past security and headed toward the gate. He was then, and
still is now at age 65, a firm 6-2 and 240 pounds with giddyap. In his
mind, he still was the man who starred for the Colts and
revolutionized the tight end position.
It took four security jackets to tackle Mackey. In a post 9/11 world,
that was enough for his wife, Sylvia, a flight attendant.
"If he could've gotten away and run down the corridor, they weren't
going to catch him," she said yesterday. "They'd have to shoot him.
And I'm not going to put him up against that."
So they'll ride the train to Miami to watch his old team, the Colts,
play in the title game for the first time since their Mackey-inspired
16-13 win in 1971. The trip will take a while, but it's nothing
compared with Mackey's long and draining journey to get financial help
from the NFL to cover his soaring medical costs.
His situation is not unique among former players who came before the
big salaries, who now pay the physical and sometimes mental price for
laying the foundation for a league that generates billions in revenue.
Mike Webster, the great center for those Super Bowl-winning Pittsburgh
teams, suffered brain injuries and was homeless before dying five
years ago from heart failure. Andre Waters recently committed suicide
at age 44 after being depressed, perhaps a result of brain damage
after playing 12 years as a hard-hitting safety.
Those are just two examples. One report recently said that of the
7,500 former players covered by NFL disability, fewer than 200 receive
football disability benefits. These players must prove their
disability is a direct result of football injuries in order to
collect. The league estimates it shells out $60 million a year in
pension benefits; others say the figure is closer to $15 million.
Regardless, it's a cruel coincidence for Mackey. As an outspoken
player, he fought for free agency and benefits at great risk to his
career. And where did this sacrifice get him? He was snubbed by Hall
of Fame voters until 1992, his final year of eligibility. And the NFL
players' union, the weakest in team sports, sits under the thumb of
the owners.
For many years after his career, Mackey had thriving business
interests and successfully raised a family. About eight years ago, his
wife noticed changes. He became forgetful about little things. Then
she overheard a conversation in which Mackey told someone: "I don't
have a sister." Sylvia pulled him aside.
"You do have a sister."
"No, I don't."
"Are you kidding? You have a sister."
"Well, what's her name, then?"
"That's when I knew something was wrong," Sylvia Mackey said. "He went
to a bar once, which is something he rarely did, and began singing
karaoke with someone. Then he announced they were taking their act on
the road. They were going to Vegas. And he was serious."
His health declined, the bills increased. Sylvia Mackey, a retired
fashion model, had to return to work as a flight attendant. They moved
from Southern California to Baltimore partly to stimulate his memory.
He began spending his days in an adult day care center, where the
monthly costs almost equaled his NFL pension.
On a whim, his wife wrote a heartfelt three-page letter to outgoing
commissioner Paul Tagliabue, urging him to take action. She told him
about John's behavior, which became childlike, and the financial and
emotional drain his condition had on the family. She explained how his
memory was running on empty, except for the rings and the TD in Super
Bowl V.
Tagliabue was moved. Within weeks, the NFL created the Number 88 Plan,
named after Mackey's uniform number, which provides up to $88,000 a
year for institutional care to former players suffering from dementia.
"I expected his reply to be along the lines of, 'We're working on it,
thanks for your letter, good luck,' something like that," Sylvia
Mackey said. "Paul felt everything he saw in my letter."
Other events in Mackey's life seem hazy. Only the NFL still registers
strongly. Seizing the chance, his wife strategically puts his medicine
in a box with an NFL address, which makes Mackey anxious to take it.
Because dementia destroys a person's hygiene habits, she also taped a
fake sign in their bathroom from the NFL, telling him to wash his face
and brush his teeth. She signed it Paul Tagliabue.
"Works like a charm," she said.
Football was his life, and after a brief separation, is back in his
life again. He stays sharp by watching video of old games, including
the two Super Bowls in which he played. He never tires of the 75-yard
touchdown play, or showing the Super Bowl V ring. But football does
have company for Mackey's affections.
"Before this disease, John was a person who had a hard time saying 'I
love you' to his wife," Sylvia said. "But now I must hear 'I love you'
10, 15 times a day."
She laughed. "I knew something was wrong when he started saying that."
20. by Wallace Matthews
Newsday
January 31, 2007
When Tiki Barber retired from the NFL at the end of this season, he
did more than walk away from his career at the top of his game. He
also walked right onto Gene Upshaw's enemies list.
There is simply no other way to describe the behavior of that
spineless mockery of a union, the NFL Players Association, or the
attitude of its president, also known as Roger Goodell's -- formerly
Paul Tagliabue's -- lapdog, toward its former members.
As exposed by HBO's "Real Sports" last week, and illustrated by my
colleague Shaun Powell's heartbreaking column about John Mackey
yesterday, once a player is done with the NFL, the NFL is done with
him.
This week is the NFL equivalent of Mardi Gras, a week of happy
horsecrap about the League That Can Do No Wrong.
But a handful of former players, Hall of Famers all, are not
swallowing the Kool-Aid the rest of the country seems to be drunk on.
While most of the NFL media is being distracted by the temptations of
Super Bowl Week, Jerry Kramer, Harry Carson and Mike Ditka, to name a
few, will be speaking truth in a hotel conference room a few hours
before Upshaw gets his chance to lie about how great everything is.
They have long known that The Shield, as the players refer to it, is a
league that eats its young, and the NFLPA is a union that discards its
old. And tomorrow, they want the rest of the world to know it.
As Kramer said, "It will not be a pleasant task. But then, it's not
pleasant to talk to Bill Forester [a Pro Bowl linebacker on Kramer's
Green Bay Packers teams of the mid-60s] and hear that he's suffering
from Alzheimer's and dementia and pneumonia, that he needs a feeding
tube to survive, and that he can't get any money from the Players
Association to help him."
Nor is it pleasant to consider the case of Willie Wood, a Hall of
Famer now destitute, living in a nursing home and needing to rely on a
trust fund for retired players set up by Ditka, of all people, in
order to survive; or to think about a former New England Patriot,
whose name is being withheld to preserve his privacy, living on the
street, nor to consider the future of Carson, now 53 and suffering
from post-concussion syndrome, the result of at least 15 game and
practice-related concussions. Will he be the next John Mackey or Andre
Waters?
This is the stuff the NFL never wants to talk about, but especially
not now, when everyone is paying attention to what is universally
regarded as the world's most lucrative and best-run sports league.
Upshaw did not return a call yesterday, but as he told the Charlotte
Observer recently, "They don't hire me and they can't fire me. They
can complain about me all day long. But the active players have the
vote. That's who pays my salary."
Clearly, there's no help there, so after their news conference, the
players will stage an auction of items from their personal
collections, many of them prized possessions, to raise money for the
thousands of players who can't, or won't, go to the union for help.
"These are proud guys, and a lot of them are too embarrassed to ask
for help," Carson said. "But for them to even get to the point where
they have to beg for assistance, that really -- me off."
Thankfully, Carson does not need the $700 or so a month his NFL
pension would pay him if he applied for it. But it enrages him to
think of Herb Adderley cashing an NFLPA check for $126.85 a month --
that is not a misprint -- and it really infuriates him when Upshaw
crows about increasing all benefits this year by 25 percent.
"Great, now Herb will get $150," Carson said.
For a league that receives $3.1 billion a year for its television
rights alone, it is an incredibly chintzy way to do business. Of the
9,000 retired NFL players, only 144 receive disability benefits and
the league has never lost a lawsuit brought by a former player seeking
help.
"You really do need to be crawling on the floor to qualify for
disability benefits," Carson said. "They just deny, deny, deny, and
hope that it all goes away."
Kramer said he hopes the auction will raise between $250,000 and
$500,000, with all proceeds to be distributed as soon as possible
because "we got guys who need help right away."
The NFL is providing nothing but the hotel room, because to deny the
retired players a place to speak out would have garnered even worse
publicity than what they will say.
But that is where The Shield's commitment ends.
"They told us they had so many requests for help, they didn't know who
to help first," Kramer said. "So they decided to help nobody."
For the NFL, it is business as usual. Profits through the roof. Heads
in the sand.
The N.F.L.’s Blue-Collar Workers - New York Times 01/29/2007 09:03 AM
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/21/weekinreview/21gross.html?ei=5070&en=9a88342449836c0c&ex=1170219600&pagewanted=print Page 1 of 3
January 21, 2007
WHOMP
21. The N.F.L.’s Blue-Collar Workers
By DANIEL GROSS
Correction Appended
THE Super Bowl, the highlight of the National Football League season, is the very model of a 21st-century media, marketing and entertainment mega-event. It commands a huge audience (an average 90.7 million viewers tuned in to last year’s Super Bowl), attracts enormously lucrative commercials ($2.6 million for a 30-second spot this year), and will feature Prince as the performer during its halftime extravaganza.
But despite all the trappings of a modern business empire, football — or more specifically its labor system — harks back to the 19th century. Like miners and dock workers of that time, the N.F.L.’s work force has little protection against job loss. Workers frequently toil outdoors in freezing temperatures. And they often literally put their lives at risk, as we were reminded last week when a neuropathologist claimed that the suicide of a former N.F.L. player, Andre Waters, was linked to brain damage he sustained while playing football.
“It brings to mind the high-risk jobs of the earlier industrial period,” said Raymond Sauer, an economics professor at Clemson University and founder of the Sports Economist blog.
To be sure, football players, with their generous paychecks, do not seem as exploited as those rail-thin miners dusted with coal. But compared with athletes who ply their trades in two other big-money sports — basketball and baseball — they’re strictly blue collar.
“The average salary in the National Football League is somewhere around $1.3 million,” notes Andrew Zimbalist, an economics professor at Smith College, compared with $2.7 million for Major League Baseball and $4.2 million for the National Basketball Association. Beyond that, football players’ careers resemble life as Thomas Hobbes described it in the 17th century: they’re nasty, brutish and short. The average football career lasts less than four years, notes Mark Yost, author of “Tailgating, Sacks and Salary Caps: How the N.F.L. Became the Most Successful Sports League in History.”
The minority of players who do make it past a fourth year are still treated like (highly paid) temporary or contract workers. In baseball and basketball, teams must honor multiyear contracts, even if players suffer career-ending injuries or if their skills decline.
The N.F.L.’s Blue-Collar Workers - New York Times 01/29/2007 09:03 AM
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/21/weekinreview/21gross.html?ei=5070&en=9a88342449836c0c&ex=1170219600&pagewanted=print Page 2 of 3
contracts, even if players suffer career-ending injuries or if their skills decline.
Not so in football. “A person with a five-year contract will get paid only for the current year if he suffers a career-ending injury,” Professor Sauer noted.
Star players with bargaining power have been able to protect themselves by negotiating guaranteed multimillion-dollar signing bonuses. But less-valued players are not able to extract those bonuses, and the relatively weak players’ union has not been effective in getting many concessions from owners, nor much protection for players hurt on the job.
Tiki Barber, the New York Giants star running back who retired this year after 10 years in the N.F.L., summed up many players’ predicament when he told New York magazine recently that he wanted to retire while he could still walk.
But while Mr. Barber and his fellow players will likely feel the after-effects of the hits they suffered for years, their employers won’t necessarily cover the care they might require. “Players get insurance that covers them for five years after their careers are over,” Mr. Zimbalist said. “But given the kinds of abuse that they suffer, and the injuries they have, that’s not enough.
They have ongoing physical problems that can last for 10 or 20.”
In choosing to play despite those risks, football players are engaging in a brutal form of costbenefit analysis, with their health on the line. In his interview with New York magazine, Mr. Barber said he was motivated to retire in part by the example of Earl Campbell, who played for the Houston Oilers: “He can’t even walk. He has a wheelchair or a walking stick.”
Indeed, evidence suggests that the job requirements for playing football — a huge physique and a capacity for dishing out and accepting physical punishment — can be hazardous to one’s health. And the more physiologists learn about the damage sustained by football players during their careers, the more it seems the parallels should be drawn not between football and other sports, but between football and dangerous working-class labor like working with asbestos and mining coal.
The gladiator mentality instilled in players early on ties the endurance and acceptance of pain to economic rewards. Given the economics of the industry, prospective college scholarships (which high school players compete for), tuition and board (which college players count on), and later, N.F.L. salaries are all contingent on players absorbing immense amounts of physical punishment. Players have generally accepted the aches associated with the bargain in exchange for the compensation, and wear their creaky legs and aching backs as badges of service, like varsity letters.
But like asbestos workers who develop with mesothelioma years after exposure, or coal miners stricken with black lung disease, they are finding that the wear and tear associated with using their bodies as commodities can take years off their lives.
The N.F.L.’s Blue-Collar Workers - New York Times 01/29/2007 09:03 AM
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/21/weekinreview/21gross.html?ei=5070&en=9a88342449836c0c&ex=1170219600&pagewanted=print Page 3 of 3
their bodies as commodities can take years off their lives.
Last year, a Scripps Howard News Service study found that “football players are more than twice as likely to die before age 50” as Major League Baseball players are, and that many of those who died suffered from obesity, or from ailments tied to obesity like heart disease.
In the case of Andre Waters, Dr. Bennet Omalu, a neuropathologist at the University of Pittsburgh, concluded that the 44-year-old former safety’s brain tissue resembled that of an 85-year-old man. Dr. Omalu says the damage was either caused or worsened by successive concussions Mr. Waters sustained playing football. That damage, he says, was at least partly to blame for Mr. Waters’s life-threatening depression.
None of this is to say that playing in the N.F.L. isn’t an attractive career path. But it isn’t all that glamorous either. Just ask Earl Campbell.
Correction: January 28, 2007
An article last Sunday about the lack of job security for professional football players misstated the average salary of an N.F.L. player. It was $1.4 million in 2005, the most recent figure available, not $1.3 million a year.
Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company
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22. Smizik: Porter has legitimate gripe, but it's with Gene Upshaw
Wednesday, August 23, 2006
By Bob Smizik, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Joey Porter is right. The news media, including this column, has spent too much time on his salary and his attitude. Although conducting himself away from the field pretty much like one extremely unhappy camper this summer, Porter has fulfilled every aspect of his contractual obligation to the Steelers in a professional manner. Nothing more can be asked.
Porter also is wrong. He's the guy who put the subject on the front burner by telling the NFL Network he felt he was underpaid. Any time an outstanding athlete, particularly one who played a prominent role on the Super Bowl champions, draws attention to his situation -- and that's what Porter did -- he should expect to be written about.
The following, however, is not about Porter. It's about why he griped about his salary in the first place.
On the current edition of HBO's "Real Sports With Bryant Gumbel," the host takes an extreme blast at Gene Upshaw, longtime head of the National Football League Players Association, which is the bargaining agent for Porter and his colleagues.
In his parting shot, in the form of an open letter to new NFL commissioner Roger Goodell, who will replace Paul Tagliabue Sept. 1, Gumbel said the following:
"Before he cleans out his office, have Paul Tagliabue show you where he keeps Gene Upshaw's leash. By making the docile head of the players union his personal pet, your predecessor has kept the peace without giving players the kind of guarantees other pros take for granted. Try to make sure no one competent ever replaces Upshaw on your watch."
Tagliabue was furious and hinted that Gumbel could lose his job as play-by-play voice of the NFL Network. Upshaw refused to respond to the statement.
Gumbel clearly hit a sore point. He might have gone too far in addressing the relationship between Tagliabue and Upshaw, but there can be no mistaking the fact that the compensation for NFL players pales next to what pro baseball and basketball players earn. The price of labor peace in the NFL -- and all the benefits that come with it -- has been reduced compensation for the players. There's no getting around that.
Porter is a star player, playing an important position on the Super Bowl champions. In this his eighth year, he will make $3.85 million.
Compare that figure to what Pirates and ex-Pirates are making.
Jack Wilson, Kip Wells and Craig Wilson all in their sixth season, are making, respectively, $4.75 million, $4.15 million and $3.3 million. Sean Casey, in his eighth season, is making $8.5 million.
Those players have the same service time or less than Porter. None is as good at his job as Porter is. All except Craig Wilson, who is not a regular, are making more.
The Pirates are the opposite of the Steelers. They're one of the worst teams in baseball with one of the lowest payrolls, yet they have ordinary to good players making more than a star for the Steelers.
The Philadelphia Phillies, playing in a bigger market and with more success, yet not nearly at a championship level, paid these kinds of salaries this season to players and ex-players: Bobby Abreu, $13.6 million; David Bell, $4.7 million; Pat Burrell, $9.75 million; Tom Gordon, $4.5 million; Jon Lieber, $7.583 million; Mike Lieberthal, $7.5 million; Jimmy Rollins, $5 million; Randy Wolf, $9.125 million.
The only player on that list who has Porter's star power is Abreu, who makes more than three times as much money and now plays for the New York Yankees.
Of course, MLB has to pay 25 players compared to the 53 on an NFL roster. MLB teams, however, operate as many as six minor-league clubs, while the NFL has its players developed free of charge by the colleges. The travel and in-season expense money doled out by MLB is considerably larger than that incurred by the NFL.
The reason for this disparity is the Major League Players Baseball Association historically has taken a confrontational stance with ownership. It has not been afraid to go on strike and it has clearly and repeatedly outwitted ownership at the bargaining table. Upshaw has chosen not to be as confrontational, perhaps correctly feeling his players didn't have the commitment that the baseball players did.
But, in failing to gain higher wages, he also has failed to come through with guaranteed money, which baseball and basketball players have. In a sport where injury can wipe out a career quickly, it would seem that guaranteed money should have been a priority with Upshaw. And because it wasn't, then higher salaries should have resulted.
He should have got one or the other -- guaranteed money or higher salaries. He got neither.
Upshaw is not a docile pet. He's a man of integrity. He's also a failed labor leader. If Porter is looking for a reason for his frustration over his contractual situation, he should look no further than Upshaw.
(Bob Smizik can be reached at bsmizik@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1468. )
23. by CHARLES CHANDLER
Charlotte Observer
MIAMI - The Rev. Jesse Jackson is entering the effort to improve
benefits for retired NFL players.
Jackson, a longtime civil rights leader, attended Super Bowl XLI
Sunday and said on his way into Dolphin Stadium that he has held
discussions recently with some retired players and team owners.
"We must reach some common ground," he told the Observer.
Even though retiree pensions and benefits have been increased several
times over the years, Jackson suggested more needs to be done.
"The game's profit has exploded," he said. "These (retired) guys, many
of whom are now crippled, gave their bodies so the game could be what
it is today."
There is a growing hostility among some former players who say the
league and NFL Players Association are not doing enough to improve
pensions and disability aid for retirees.
Hall of Famers Mike Ditka and Joe DeLamielleure criticized the league
and players' association at a news conference Thursday, prompting
questions in later news conferences held by league Commissioner Roger
Goodell and union chief Gene Upshaw.
Goodell said Friday that he believes more needs to be done and that he
would talk to Upshaw to seek creative new ways to provide assistance.
Hall of Famer Harry Carson, the former New York Giants linebacker, is
among the former players who've talked to Jackson. Jackson said he
will try to serve as a mediator.
"There (is) some need to smooth it out and build a bridge," he said.
"I hope to be a part of that."
24. Posted 2/5/2007 1:20 AM ET
By Gary Mihoces, USA TODAY
MIAMI - Roger Goodell, who took over as NFL commissioner at the start
of this season, inherited the prosperity of predecessor Paul
Tagliabue. America's dominant pro league has multibillion-dollar TV
deals and labor peace with its players through 2012 - potentially.
But just as Tagliabue did before his retirement, the 47-year-old
Goodell faced questions about an assortment of thorny issues Friday
when he held his first state-of-the-NFL news conference.
A day earlier, Super Bowl halftime entertainer Prince declined to take
questions and instead turned his news conference into a loudly
amplified concert.
"For those of you who attended the Prince press conference, I'm not
sure I'm going to be able to meet that standard," said Goodell, whose
dark suit also contrasted with Prince's orange attire.
But Goodell answered all questions on topics that included player
misconduct off the field, drug testing, stadium financing, labor
peace, minority hiring and more.
"I've been working for the NFL for 25 years. ... And I'm fortunate to
understand the issues," said Goodell, who started with the NFL in 1982
as an intern and since 2001 had been executive vice president and
chief operating officer. "I don't worry as much about the transition
now. I worry about the challenges ahead."
Off-field behavior was among the topics Godell discussed in reviewing
his first season.
The Cincinnati Bengals alone have had nine players arrested in the
past nine months. Goodell, who has met with Bengals management about
the matter, was asked if he might hold clubs responsible for the
conduct of their players.
"Well, we have to do something about it," said Goodell, son of the
late U.S. Sen. Charles Goodell (R-N.Y.). "One incident is too many in
my book."
Goodell said the league will "re-evaluate" its program designed to
help players stay out of trouble.
Labor peace
Last March, the NFL and the players union reached agreement on a six-
year contract extension. But some club owners here say the deal is too
costly.
"I think the union did too good a deal last time. They overreached,
and we're going to have to recalibrate if we want to keep going," New
England Patriots owner Robert Kraft said.
But Atlanta Falcons owner Arthur Blank said: "I don't know that the
union overreached. The union reached, and we accepted."
The extension also included an opt-out provision. As early as 2008 it
would allow either side to eliminate the final two salary-capped years
of the deal, 2010 and 2011. The games would continue but without any
limits on salaries. The final year of the extension (2012) is an
uncapped year.
"I know there's some concern about the cost of the deal, but we have
to do that evaluation," Goodell said. "So I would urge all of you to
be patient, to understand it, do the evaluation. It is our job, our
responsibility with players, to strike a reasonable agreement that
works for all parties."
Performance-enhancing drugs
Goodell described the NFL's steroid testing as "high quality" and
described the league as "leaders in this area." Does he believe
players also should undergo blood tests for use of human growth
hormone (HGH)?
"There is no reliable test for HGH right now," he said. "We are
investing money to develop that test. I don't know if that will be a
blood test or a urine test. We are going to pursue both. We keep an
open mind-set about the use of a test."
Former players in need
Earlier this week, former players such as Jerry Kramer of the Green
Bay Packers, Mike Ditka of the Chicago Bears and Joe DeLamielleure of
the Buffalo Bills held a news conference to draw attention to an
online memorabilia auction they are holding to raise money for former
players who have fallen on hard times economically and medically.
DeLamielleure said: "Our pensions suck, plain and simple ... and I
think
(players' chief) Gene Upshaw and Tagliabue are responsible for this.
They've been in power for 20 years and haven't done anything. ... Guys
need help yesterday."
Goodell was asked what can be done to remedy the situation.
"I think that's an important question," he said. "I am very concerned
anytime you see one of our former players, and the men that helped
make this game great, have the medical issues that they're having," he
said. "And I think that's something that Gene and I have discussed
quite extensively over the last several weeks. I think we're going to
sit down and see how we can be creative and deal with that."
Minority hiring
This was a historic Super Bowl with the first two African-American
head coaches in the game. Goodell said that is an affirmation of the
"Rooney Rule," which requires clubs with head coaching vacancies to
interview at least one minority candidate.
Goodell said "the whole basis of the Rooney rule was to make sure we
have the best possible people in these positions. ... Those are two
great examples, and it's happening across the league, and we're proud
of it."
However, he did not commit the league to expanding the rule to include
coordinator coaching posts and top front-office positions.
"The great news about the Rooney Rule, I hope some day it's not going
to be necessary," he said. "And I feel the same way about the front
office. Clubs are doing it voluntarily because they believe it's
paying dividends for them and they're benefiting and, most
importantly, it's the right thing to do."
Posted February 2, 2007
25. Mike Vandermause column: Kramer calls for help
By Mike Vandermause
Most Packers fans think of Willie Wood as the hard-hitting, sure-tackling safety who was part of five championship teams in Green Bay during the 1960s and earned a berth in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
The picture of Wood today is far less flattering. He resides in an assisted care facility in Washington, D.C., and gets around with the aid of a cane and walker.
Surgeries on his back, hips and knees over the years have left him virtually incapacitated. Overweight and discouraged, the 70-year-old Wood desperately needs physical therapy.
His condition is heartbreaking, and what's worse is, Wood doesn't have the money to pay for necessary care.
NFL pension and disability benefits for players Wood's age are woefully inadequate, and a number of ex-NFL stars like Wood have slipped through the cracks.
The situation has prompted one of Wood's ex-Packers teammates, Jerry Kramer, to take action. Kramer has started a campaign called the Gridiron Greats Assistance Fund to raise money for former players who have fallen on hard times.
Kramer held a news conference on Thursday in Miami, site of Super Bowl XLI, in hopes of raising awareness about the problem.
"These are your brothers, these are your pals, these are the guys you went to war with," said Kramer in a telephone interview on Wednesday. "It feels good to be able to help them out. It feels bad that they need to be helped out."
Kramer has enlisted the aid of several former NFL stars, including Willie Davis, Mike Ditka and Gale Sayers. An auction featuring NFL memorabilia will help raise money, and donations can be made at jerrykramer.com, a non-profit Web site.
Wood's condition underscores a serious problem among players who competed during that era. Not only were salaries then a fraction of what they are today, but also pensions for anyone who played before 1977 are embarrassingly small.
Former Packers cornerback Herb Adderley, a Pro Football Hall of Famer, earns a pension of $126.85 per month. Adderley is so disgusted he refuses to attend NFL functions and has stopped wearing his Super Bowl and Hall of Fame rings.
"I thank God that I didn't depend on my NFL pension," said Adderley in an e-mail on Kramer's Web site. "If I had, I would be homeless."
Both the NFL and the players' association have been blamed. Ditka, a former player and head coach, is spitting mad.
"It's a disgrace," Ditka was quoted as saying on the Yahoo! Sports Web site. "The owners ought to be ashamed of themselves. The owners are financiers, and they are all about making money. They don't care about the history of the game."
Kramer hopes the league and the players' union do something. After all, the same players who are struggling are the ones who helped lay the foundation for the NFL's success as a big-money industry.
In the meantime, Kramer isn't going to stand idly by and watch his former comrades suffer. "I've got guys in homeless shelters today," he said. "They've got pneumonia. They need help, and they need it right now."
That includes Wood, whose care over the next 90 days has been paid for thanks to the efforts of Ditka, Kramer and others.
"The whole process is pretty tough for him," Kramer said of Wood. "He needs to get his butt moving pretty good and somebody who gives a damn about getting him moving."
Wood and other players from that era gave themselves up for the game. It's time they receive something in return.
Mike Vandermause is sports editor of the Press-Gazette.
Date posted online: Wednesday, February 07, 2007
26. By John Doherty
Times Correspondent
In one episode of "Seinfeld," the character Uncle Leo complains
throughout of ringing in his ears and keeps yelling for somebody "to
answer that phone." New NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell must know how
he feels. Goodell's phone won't stop ringing because another ex-player
is complaining of too much ringing in the ears -- and all the other
symptoms of concussion.
In Miami on Friday for the commissioner's annual "state of the NFL"
speech and news conference -- his first -- Goodell found himself
answering questions about Ted Johnson instead of the Super Bowl.
Johnson was a linebacker for the Patriots for their three Super Bowl
championships. He retired just prior to the 2005 season due to post-
concussion syndrome. Since then, the life of the 10-year NFL veteran
has been a downward spiral and, on Friday morning, the Boston Globe
told his story. Bad timing for Goodell and the NFL.
In the Globe piece, Patriot head coach Bill Belichick was remarkably
obliging -- and absurd. Refusing to allow Patriots head athletic
trainer Jim Whalen to respond to questions, Belichick acknowledged he
had made errors in dealing with Johnson.
However, as to the allegation that he had forced Johnson to practice
one day in 2002 when he was still recovering from a concussion,
Belichick said, "If Ted felt so strongly that he didn't feel he was
ready to practice with us, he should have told me." Nice try. Bill.
Johnson already had been ruled out of the practice by Whalen.
That is why teams have a medical staff. They decide whether a player
can or can not play, especially when the player's judgment may be
impaired -- which is precisely the case when the brain is concussed.
Responding to a question regarding Johnson, Goodell said, "I won't
accept the premise that (rushing players back from concussion is)
common practice, but it does concern me." He went on to say that
league research on concussions "has led to new helmet designs, it's
led to rule changes, and I think a safer environment for our players."
Goodell should think again. The one study on the efficacy of the
Riddell Revolution helmet was deeply flawed, was done only on high
school players, and showed only marginal improvements in concussion
frequency and severity. As for the rules, they are erratically
enforced and have done nothing to address the new physics of the game,
which have resulted in this age of bigger, faster, stronger.
On Dec. 20, in this space, I asked how many more lawsuits the NFL
would face after the estate of late Steeler Mike Webster was awarded
$1.5M-plus for the brain injuries he'd suffered. Since then, late
Eagle Andre Waters' recent suicide has been attributed to his repeated
concussions and now Johnson's telling his story.
The answer? I don't think Goodell wants to count that high because the
number won't have a nice ring to it.
John Doherty is a certified athletic trainer and licensed physical
therapist.
This column reflects solely his opinion. Reach him at
ptatcsport@sbcglobal.net.
27. by Gregory Moore
Blackathlete.net
http://www.blackathlete.net/artman/publish/article_02866.shtml
The ugly story about former NFL players who are disabled not being
able to get their disability checks has reared up and once again
NFLPA's Gene Upshaw and Troy Vincent are railing against these former
gridiron players as if they are nothing more than a pariah to their
happy landscape.
These two guys simply don't get it and they don't want to get it. They
don't get it because one doesn't seem to care about his fallen
comrades and the other has no clue what it is to have played at a time
when a doctor gave you aspirin for a concussion or told you to take
this shot to ease the pain.
For the hundreds of guys who made the NFL what it is today, they
simply do not get any love from Vincent or Upshaw.
Well that may now become a huge mistake on their part. It seems that
the very fact that the NFL and the NFLPA are trying to 'wish' this
problem away has riled up the competitive juices of a lot of retired
players and that may be a fight that Upshaw and Vincent don't want to
take on.
I had the privilege of speaking to one such angry hornet of a retired
player this past Sunday, Hall of Fame offensive lineman Joe
DeLamielleure. He called me on Sunday to thank me for writing an
article about how the media needs to keep this story on the front
burner but we also talked about the statements that Vincent and Upshaw
made.
"Greg, they have awakened the competitive juices of a lot of former
players," DeLamielleure told me over the phone.
The former Buffalo Bill is an angry former player and you can't blame
him. While he may be doing pretty well by most standards, it's the
fact that he hasn't forgotten his former teammates and 'brethren' who
played during the same time.
To show how much he cares about those fallen men, DeLamielluere
donated the very bracelet that O.J. Simpson gave his linemen when he
rushed 2,003 yards in 1973 to the Gridiron Great Assistance Fund that
was started by former Green Bay Packer Jerry Kramer.
That's deep folks; it's really deep. And when you have many Hall of
Famers, many of them in the destitute situations that are described by
numerous articles, there seems to be uproar from that group that wants
to not just shout obscenities at a union that doesn't care about them;
they want to change the complete landscape.
Well maybe having some 200+ Hall of Fame members railing against you
is what the NFLPA needs. Maybe it is time that the HOF fraternity band
together and start letting the world know just how they are treated by
a union that is making almost billions off of the sweat, grit and
determination of guys like Herb Adderley, Willie Wood, and others.
Maybe it's good that these former players are now fighting mad about
how they are being treated and respected by a union that has no
inclination the importance of the 'old timers'. Maybe it is time for
the 'old timers' to kick a little butt. DeLamielleure made a very
poignant observation to me and I do think it's appropriate in it's
context.
He equated the civil rights movement for African Americans to what the
retired players are going through right now. In principle, Joey D.
isn't too far off the mark. Civil rights isn't just about riding on a
darn bus or being able to eat at a restaurant. It was and still is
about economic power.
Right now, the union and league have the power and the retired
players, no matter when they retired, do not. And for a league that
owes these guys so much, they need to be a little more grateful and
definitely a lot more giving to a group of men who literally gave
their lives and bodies for guys like Vincent and others.
28. Public Opinion Online
Chambersburg (Pa.) Public Opinion
By GRAHAM MESSNER
For Public Opinion
Imagine getting hit by a car.
Then imagine getting hit by a car three or four times a week for at
least 20 weeks.
For 10 years straight.
Sound like a good time?
It has been estimated by research that the collisions that occur
during professional football games involve forces up to 100 times that
of gravity (100 Gs).
In an article in the Chicago Times, Kevin Guskiewicz, research
director for the Center for the Study of Retired Athletes at the
University of North Carolina said, "A 100-G impact is analogous to a
car crashing into a brick wall at 25 mph with test dummies hitting the
windshield with 100 Gs of force."
It's always been both sad, yet fascinating, to hear the stories of how
many former great NFL football players have a heck of a time simply
getting out of bed because of all the pain that came with all the
glory.
This week, former wide receiver Mark Clayton (Miami Dolphins) told the
Miami Herald that he currently has right arm numbness and chronic
headaches. He can't lift anything. He's 45.
Here's a former Pro Bowler who was the equivalent of a jet fighter 15
years ago and is now more like a $1 balsa wood toy flier, hoping to
not get pulled out of the cellophane.
Clayton is just one of very many former NFL players who are in
constant pain. Forty-two percent of all players between ages 45 and 64
had arthritis, according to Guskiewicz.
In other words, a lot of these guys are winding up crippled and sorely
needing additional pensions and disability aids.
Yeah, we could all use a little more, but in this case, the entity
that doesn't seem to be in any hurry to help is the NFL Players Union.
The money currently pouring into the NFL resembles Category 5 white-
water rapids, which is why it is hard to understand why there are no
concessions being made.
An NFL player stops receiving medical benefits a year after he leaves
the league, while an NFL assistant coach gets medical benefits for
life.
Making the case that life isn't fair -- as many readers like to point
out -- isn't good enough in this case. Nobody could have possibly
predicted the long-term effects of the physical pounding these guys
endure and how the rising cost of health care were going to combine to
create such a quandary.
The guys today wear more pads than their gridiron forefathers, but
they are ridiculously faster, bigger and stronger. It really is like a
demolition derby every Sunday at the nearest NFL stadium near you.
According to the Living Heart Foundation, the biggest players, such as
linemen, suffer from a much higher incidence of sleep apnea and
enlarged hearts than the general populace. These guys have paid a
price.
Interestingly, most of the guys wouldn't trade it for anything. They
truly love the sport -- playing the games, the camaraderie before and
after games, getting through preseasons and forming lifelong
friendships that go beyond what many people can truly understand.
These guys are like Barbaro in a way. They suffer through surgery
after surgery, trying to address all the issues. They are used to
playing through pain and now are forced to live through it.
Without embellishing, a retired player might have shoulders made of
putty, a gimpy knee, heart problems, cracked vertebrae and recurring
migraine headaches.
Addressing all of the ailments a former player must suffer through is
a bit like trying to put a pair of socks on an octopus. It's almost an
exercise in futility.
In the end, the pain lingers, the bills mount and their quality of
life declines.
Talk about giving 110% ...
Things have gone too far for too long.
----------
Graham Messner, a coach at the high school level, is a local columnist
for Public Opinion. He may be reached at graham@innernet.net.
29. Los Angeles Times
Thursday February 01, 2007
Ex-NFL stars conduct auction for charity
Home Edition, Sports, Page D-9
Sports Desk
16 inches; 553 words
By Greg Johnson, Times Staff Writer
Mike Ditka is donating a 1975 NFC championship ring that he earned while playing for the Dallas Cowboys. Joe DeLamielleure is contributing an inscribed bracelet that O.J. Simpson presented to him and other members of the Buffalo Bills fabled "Electric Company." Merlin Olsen is volunteering to serve as a fishing guide during a two-day trip into the Hells Canyon region on the border between Idaho and Oregon.
The auction items being offered by the three Pro Football Hall of Fame members are among dozens of NFL-related merchandise and services to be put on the block starting today by the Gridiron Greats Assistance Fund. Ditka, DeLamielleure, Willie Davis, Gale Sayers and Harry Carson will serve as board members for the non-profit organization created recently to assist professional football players who have fallen upon hard times.
"I think the Super Bowl is a perfect time to do this," said former Green Bay Packers star Jerry Kramer, who jump-started the fund-raising effort that fans and collectors can access at jerrykramer.com.
Former NFL players are raiding their treasure troves and using their big league connections to solicit one-of-a-kind donations for the auction that will run through Feb. 13 and hope to raise $500,000. Auction items include Lem Barney's 1967 Pro Bowl helmet, a football with Dwight Clark's autograph and a diagram of his famous "Catch" play in the 1982 NFC championship game. Vince Lombardi's son has donated a hand-drawn play from the Packers' celebrated coach who won the first Super Bowl. And John McEnroe has offered up a day's worth of tennis.
Auction organizers will hold a news conference to announce the auction today at the Super Bowl XLI media center in Miami.
The relief effort is being driven by mounting frustration among many NFL veterans who've watched former teammates and opponents lose their health, homes and dignity, Kramer said.
"There are lots of guys in dire need," Ditka said. "Guys like [Hall of Famer members] John Mackey, Doug Atkins, Joe Perry and Pete Pihos. A lot of guys have Alzheimer's. Doug Atkins rarely comes out of his house, and Willie Wood needed financial help to move into an assisted-living facility.
"These guys were the foundation of the NFL. The league and players are making millions of dollars and all we're saying is that some of the guys who started it have health problems, mental problems. We should be helping them out."
Kramer said the auction will need to be repeated because so many former players need financial and medical assistance.
"I'm looking at this as a five-year project," Kramer said. "I'm hoping it will create an outcry among people who want to donate, and that other players will get involved."
Organizers are hoping that the Super Bowl will drive interest in the auction. But the New York auction house that has volunteered its services believes that the one-of-a-kind nature of auction items will drive up prices.
"Each item will come with a letter that attests to its authenticity," said Jared Weiss, president of Steiner Sports. "Nothing matches Mike Ditka saying 'It's my ring.' "
Auctioneers have high hopes for many items on the block, including DeLamielleure's gold bracelet, one of several that Simpson presented to his offensive linemen after becoming the first NFL running back to rush for more than 2,000 yards in a season.
greg.johnson@latimes.com
Descriptors: FOOTBALL PLAYERS; MEMORABILIA; AUCTIONS; FUND RAISING; ILLNESS
30. By Jules Molenda/A word from the publisher
Lake Sun Leader, serving Lake of the Ozarks
Now that the Super Bowl has come and gone, we can look forward to some
real sporting events soon ' next week major league baseball's pitchers
and catchers report for spring training.
Don't get me wrong: If you like professional football, please enjoy
it. Just don't expect me to do the same.
It's played mostly by men who have altered their physical shape
grotesquely and unhealthily in order to enjoy an extravagant but brief
career.
Or as social commentator Ian Schoales has said: 'Professional football
players, like prostitutes, are in the business of ruining their bodies
for the pleasure of strangers.'
But before all the high school fans fire off letters to the editor,
let me say emphatically, 'I love high school football.'
One of the best things about moving here last year was discovering
that we've got a football program at Camdenton that is usually
competitive and always entertaining.
But something happens to the football player pool when all the
nation's high school graduates are culled to those useful to college
programs and culled again when 'elite' college players are drafted by
the NFL.
Like most professional athletes, these elites understand that they
can't play at their sport to succeed. They have to work hard at it.
But for the core players on most teams ' the linemen ' work means
bulking up.
Size trumps athleticism on the front line and at the linebacker
positions.
Most football linemen have dolphin necks and couch-potato bellies
(with apologies aside to Camdenton native and NFL lineman Jason
Whittle).
What they don't have is any athletic skill.
Many spend their entire season without actually touching a football
and if, by chance, they actually scooped up the ball and tried to run
any distance with it, they'd fall over from exhaustion.
In order to play at their peak for 10 years or so, many of them ruin
their health permanently. Lyle Alzado was a 275-pound defensive end
who played mostly for Denver, Cleveland and Oakland in the 1970s and
1980s.
He consumed huge quantities of steroids to increase his size and
strength and died at age 43 of a brain tumor he blamed on the drugs.
At the end, he weighed less than 135 pounds.
I remember a Frontline piece 10 years ago that focused on former
players with permanent disabilities.
One of them was Oakland Raider center Jim Otto. Despite being somewhat
undersized for his position, he bulked up to 250 pounds.
This, and an iron-man mentality, allowed him to play every single game
(308 in total) during a 15-year career. During 12 of those years he
was named All-Pro.
It is an amazing football story, but his life since has been a
physical nightmare. He has undergone 40 surgeries including 28 knee
operations and multiple joint replacements.
It takes him two hours to become mobile each morning as he waits for
the calcium deposits in his knees and back to loosen enough so he can
leave his bed.
He can stand for no more than two hours at a time, which makes a grind
of his post-football career as owner of three McDonalds restaurants.
Football also stands out among major professional sports in the way it
treats its veterans.
A recent HBO special on this issue keyed on Conrad Dobler, a 13-year
lineman who played for the St. Louis Cardinals and Buffalo Bills.
Now in his mid-50s, Dobler is a fraction of his former size and has
undergone multiple operations on his knees ' including seven
operations in 2006.
He walks slowly and precariously on these mis-shaped and zipper-
scarred joints. Several doctors have concluded that he's 100 percent
disabled.
Despite this, the NFL has ruled that he can perform 'sedentary' work
and denied him a disability pension.
Between his financial predicament and the constant pain, he talked
about committing suicide during his interview.
Dobler's financial problems arise from trying to live on the league's
pension, which doesn't even cover his out-of-pocket medical bills.
The NFL pension plan is the worst in major professional sports.
A 10-year pro football vet, for instance, is entitled to $24,000 per
year pension. Baseball's 10-year vets earn $175,000 per year.
The head of the NFL players union, Gene Upshaw, is a retired vet who
has come under heat for the poor pension and the way the league treats
its veterans.
His response: 'These guys don't pay my salary. The active players do.'
Upshaw reportedly earns $3 million a year.
This is one reason to dismiss professional football.
But the real reason I've grown away from the sport is because, most of
the time, it's simply boring.
A pro football game lasts about 3 hours.
The clock time for a game is 60 minutes. The time when the ball is
actually in play, however, is about six minutes.
During the rest of the 'game time,' players are unpiling, huddling and
waiting while referees confer or for TV commercial breaks to conclude.
When I watch a game these days, I keep a good book handy.
Reading is a more interesting use of the three hours and, if something
exciting occurs on the field, I won't miss it.
It's sure to be shown repeatedly in slow motion.
Contact the publisher at jmolenda@lakesunleader.com
31. NFLPA blamed
By ETHAN J. SKOLNICK
South Florida Sun-Sentinel
2/6/2007
After witnessing these declines, along with what they perceive as a prolonged, shameful run from responsibility on the part of the NFL and player union chief Gene Upshaw, several outraged football legends and their supporters are taking a new approach.
"We will have World Wars IV and V before we have resolution on the pension issue," said Bob Schmidt, Wood's former University of Southern California teammate and long-time attorney. "You can't win that argument. . . . If we go out and do the things that we are capable of doing for these players, the league and the association will have to come along, because otherwise they will really look stupid."
The NFL, and particularly, its players association have come under heavy criticism of late, even from more recently retired Hall of Famers such as Joe Montana and Howie Long. The issues: the meagerness of pensions for old-time players, especially when compared to contemporaries in baseball, and the extreme difficulty in receiving total and permanent disability status. Critics have mostly targeted Upshaw, who has touted pension improvements, retirement packages for current players, called retired players "ungrateful" and said he does not represent them.
Upshaw told the Charlotte Observer last year that the NFL can't extend health insurance coverage beyond the current five-year post-retirement limit because it would be cost-prohibitive, citing a figure between $5 billion and $9 billion to insure current players for life.
"I just pray that the other people have an impact on the league, or the pension fund, or the players association, but these are guys who need help right now, today," Kramer said. "Virtually everyone we've asked has donated something."
That includes those who could use help themselves.
Conrad Dobler, an NFL offensive lineman for 10 seasons including two seasons with the Buffalo Bills, now runs a supplemental staffing business for nurses. His house is getting repossessed. His wife is paralyzed. He had seven surgeries in one year, has had his left knee replaced twice, and spent nearly 100 days in the hospital this past year. He pops Vicodin like candy. He has never received a penny of disability money from the union or league.
"You have to be in a coma before you get anything," Dobler said.
He doesn't take his pension, holding off so his monthly check will be higher. And yet, he says, "There are a lot of other people in worse shape than I am."
32.Questions with Bob Sansevere
Pioneer Press
Twin Cities.com
Posted on Sat, Feb. 10, 2007
Brent Boyd was an offensive guard with the Vikings from 1980-86. I
hadn't seen Boyd or heard from him in more than 20 years. And then the
other day, I got an e-mail from him. It was a powerful e-mail, one
that touched and saddened me.
He started off by mentioning that ESPN is doing a segment on him
Sunday morning in its "Outside the Lines" show and that "it is about
my disability from NFL concussions" and the "way the NFL denied
benefits." Then he said, "I have been on permanent disability for
several years. Besides the physical (headaches, dizziness, knee
replacement) and mental (depression, anxiety, forgetfulness) the
inaction of the NFL has caused me and my son incredible financial
hardships."
He also wrote, "I recently read about Andre Waters' brain damage and
suicide, and Mike Webster's death and lonely last years. His son
Garrett talked about how his dad wouldn't call or let old friends see
him in his condition. Then it hit me. I was doing that, too. ... I'd
like to let old friends in the Twin Cities know the show is going to
be on before it airs. I have been ashamed to be seen, but they
probably think I was NFL guy and 'big timing' them. Just the opposite.
I want them to know what's happened to me and that they are in my
thoughts."
I called Boyd after I received the e-mail and talked to him about what
he has been going through.
BS Is what you're dealing with getting worse each day, or each week or
each month?
BB Physically, I was able to deal with it when I was younger because
you're stronger and have more energy. Is it getting worse? I don't
know. It could feel like it is because I'm getting older. The fatigue
is from the part of the brain that was injured. Instead of having more
blood there like most people, there's less. Mentally, it's probably
worse. You get used to aches and pains. When it's your mind, it's
tougher to deal with. You can't compensate for it.
BS Are you often fatigued?
BB All the time. I've got vertigo that doctors said is from a
concussion. You know what it's like to have the flu? You're tired and
dizzy and you have to lean on something. You put things off until
tomorrow. But tomorrow never comes.
BS Is it difficult to get out of bed some days?
BB It definitely is. I spend a lot of days in bed just staring at the
wall.
BS How long has this been going on?
BB When I was with the Vikings, I kept complaining about headaches. It
started in 1980, my rookie year. I hurt my knee in 1981 and they gave
me anti-inflammatory and said the headaches were from that. My first
concussion was my rookie year during the preseason. I lost vision in
one eye. I played about half the game and couldn't see out of one eye.
A concussion back then wasn't what it is now. Unless you were strapped
on a gurney, anything less than that wasn't a concussion. It was
getting your bell rung.
BS When is the last time you were able to work?
BB I graduated from UCLA with honors. Everybody expected I'd do big
things. After football, I couldn't even do menial jobs. I didn't know
when I'd feel good. I tried to be in sales and couldn't do it. I
haven't been able to work eight or nine years. I'm on Social Security
and disability.
BS What's a good day for you?
BB I have a son. I was a single dad since 1992, then I remarried in
2004. We try to live normal and try to laugh as much as we can.
BS You mentioned Andre Waters' suicide. Have you ever felt suicidal?
BB It's something that's hard to talk about. When the NFL betrays you
like that and I can't go out and get a job to improve our situation ...
we've had some very tough times. Those thoughts come and go. That's
why I try to laugh and keep Comedy Central on.
BS How many concussions did you suffer during your NFL career?
BB Who knows? I have no idea. I played seven years. That's longer than
average. You get kicked in the head. A lot of times something happens.
Back then, you weren't thinking in terms of concussions. You're dizzy
for a while. You're young and strong and you put up with it. You don't
want to go into the training room and complain about anything.
BS Are you angry with the Vikings?
BB My beef is not with the team. Bud Grant, Fred Zamberletti, I love
those guys. My beef is with the league and the NFLPA.
BS What do you want to tell the NFLPA and the NFL?
BB It's too late. There's nothing I can say to the NFL or NFLPA that
will make a difference. I want the current players to know what's
going on. I'd tell them to get rid of (union leader) Gene Upshaw right
away. The players think they're making millions and have such a great
lifestyle. There's no guarantee it will always be there. If they're
going to cash their paychecks, they need to honor the guys that played
in the 1950s, '60s, '70s and '80s.
33. CITIZEN-TIMES.com
Asheville (N.C.) Citizen-Times
By Keith Jarrett
KJARRETT@CITIZEN-TIMES.COM
February 10, 2007 12:15 am
ASHEVILLE - An esteemed Charlotte Observer columnist, tired of hearing
the common refrain from athletes that they are paid so well because
their sports careers are so short, once offered a common-sense answer
to the question, "What am I supposed to do after I'm through playing?"
Ron Green Sr.'s response was, "Get a job."
That seems a ridiculous idea now in the days of multiyear,
multimillion-dollar contracts that spread the wealth through decades
and generations of an athlete's life.
It takes a Mike Tyson to blow through the fortune of a modern sports
star, but for those who played in earlier eras and those not
financially covered by pensions, the end of playing ball means the
beginning of entering the real world of the employed.
"For years people asked me what I did now that I was retired," said
Mickey Marvin, 51, of Hendersonville, who played in the NFL with the
Oakland Raiders from 1977-88.
"I told them I went to work. I knew that my pension wasn't going to be
enough to live on, and I had to get a job," said Marvin, who works
with the Raiders as a scout and player personnel adviser.
Some get no benefits, others very few
The unprotected received national attention this week when NASCAR
drivers, who don't have a pension plan, talked about helping some
older drivers who had fallen on hard times.
Asheville's Jack Ingram drove a racecar for decades and never reached
the high money level of NASCAR's Winston (now Nextel) Cup, but he is
among those who planned for his future.
"I did pretty well driving and put that money back into my race team,"
said Ingram, who at age 70 still operates Jack Ingram Racing on
Brevard Road.
"And I invested $12,500 for a piece of property out here in 1973
that's worth a whole lot more now."
A recent Associated Press story detailed the life of driver Sam Ard, a
contemporary of Ingram's who lives in a doublewide trailer in South
Carolina and has Alzheimer's disease.
Ingram said he donated a diamond championship ring for a NASCAR
auction to help Ard, and the ring sold for $4,800.
'A way to help'
"I don't know how NASCAR would do it, because drivers are independent
contractors, but there should be a way to help those drivers," said
Ingram. "It would be good for racing if they could do that."
While NASCAR drivers deal with no pension plan, many older athletes
struggle with retirement benefits far short of current living
expenses.
During Super Bowl week, Hall of Famer and former Green Bay Packers
defensive back Herb Adderley said he no longer promotes the NFL and
doesn't attend league functions because his monthly pension is
$126.85.
Adderley played from 1961-72.
Willie Wood, another Hall of Fame player who was Adderley's teammate
in Green Bay, can barely walk and lives in an assisted living facility
in Washington. Wood's plight was one reason Jerry Kramer, another ex-
teammate of Wood's, started a campaign called the Gridiron Greats
Assistance Fund to raise money for former players who have fallen on
hard times.
"These are the guys that paved the way for all of us, and they should
be taken care of," Marvin said.
MLB lauded for plan
While pension plans vary from sport to sport and have improved over
the years because of the huge increase of money produced, Major League
Baseball is held up as a model for taking care of its veterans.
Baseball's plan
"Baseball has the best pension plan," said Dave Bristol of Andrews,
who spent 45 years in the game and was a major league manager for 11
seasons.
"We were fortunate that we had people who had the foresight and the
intelligence to develop a good plan and thousands of guys like me have
benefited from that."
Marvin has sympathy for ex-athletes with poor or no pension plans, to
a point.
"I hate to hear about those older players who aren't doing well
physically or financially, and I believe the NFL should do something
to help them," Marvin said.
"But at the same time, athletes are like everyone else - they have to
plan for their future. I'm 51 years old and I'm not retired. I'm
working just like you are."
posted by They Call It A Game by Bernie Parrish at 7:08 PM
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