"A game of ... PAIN" - another interesting article

[MFFL]

Posted on Sun, Dec. 29, 2002
A game of ... PAIN
Players know that an NFL career could make them grow old early
By Charean Williams
Star-Telegram Staff Writer

Cowboys defensive tackle La'Roi Glover has both knees wrapped in ice. His lower legs, the flesh ripped away weeks ago by an offensive lineman's cleats, are covered in fresh bandages. His ankles, cleaned of bone spurs two years ago, are "killing him." His hands are cut. His fingers are sore. The bursa sac on his left elbow is puffy.

And this was a good Monday.

"You check yourself out the day after a game," Glover said. "How are the ankles? How are the knees? How are the shoulders? How are the wrists? How are the hands? ... You get into a lot of collisions, so you've got to do an inventory on yourself."

Playing in the NFL is a pain in the ankles, the shoulders, the hands, the knees, the head and the hips. By now, in Week 17, players are beat up, cut up and shot up.

No pain, no game.

"Every day is a pain. Every day," Oakland Raiders guard Frank Middleton said. "You do the small things to take the pain away. If you can get through Monday, Wednesday and Thursday [practices], you're good to play. It doesn't hurt on Sunday. Everything just hurts during the week.

"If you don't wake up hurting on Monday, you didn't play hard enough."

What NFL players don't know will hurt them: Playing in pain means living in it.

Retired NFL players' war wounds -- rebuilt knees, replaced hips, sore backs, double vision, migraines, stiff necks, arthritic hands and crooked fingers -- serve as reminders of their careers as much as Super Bowl rings, Hall of Fame busts and autograph seekers do.

They are growing old before their time.

"I'm sort of pieced together," said Joe Theismann, a quarterback for the Washington Redskins for 12 seasons until he fractured his right tibia and fibula. "I always feel the weather. The big thing is my right leg healed three-eighths of an inch shorter than my left leg, so my right side is always a little sore.

"You just learn to live with pain. I always knew the day I entered training camp would be the last day I would feel good for seven months. That's just the way it is."

Roll call for pain

Players give a lot to football, but they leave behind few regrets. Most would do it over again, regardless.

Jim Otto, a center for the Raiders from 1960-1974, has given both knees, both shoulders and part of his spine. He has had 40 surgeries, including 30 on his knees. Otto, 64, almost died three times from infections lodged in his artificial joints.

Sherrill Headrick, a linebacker for nine seasons, left the game with one Super Bowl appearance, five All-AFL appearances and induction into the Kansas City Chiefs Hall of Fame, and in need of two artificial hips and two artificial knees. He also has had four disks removed from his back and is in need of surgery on both shoulders. His degenerative arthritis requires that he use a wheelchair when he has to go farther than to and from his car.

"The thing is: I've been this way since I was 40 years old," said Headrick, 65. "I'm lucky just to get through life. Without my wife, I probably wouldn't be around today. She's kept me alive."

There is no evidence to suggest that football causes NFL players to die young. But the average NFL career lasts only 3.3 years, and an NFLPA-commissioned study estimated two-thirds of players leave with a permanent injury.

"They go on and suffer enormously," said Mickey Yaris-Davis, director of benefits for the NFL Players Association. "They used to think they all died at age 55, but ... they live a normal life span. It's just the quality of their life is not the same."

Johnny Unitas, a Hall of Fame quarterback who won three championships for the Baltimore Colts, died of a heart attack in September. He was 69. Unitas had two artificial knees and suffered from nerve damage in his right hand, the result of a 1968 injury.

Unitas played in an era when leaving a game was a sign of weakness, and, because rosters were small, a letdown to the team. Players were counted on to play through anything, and most of them did, sometimes for fear of losing their jobs.

"I never thought about leaving the game," said Walt Garrison, a Cowboys running back from 1966-74. "You go over there and they either tape you up or do whatever they have to do to get you back in the game. ... We took it as almost a cowardly act to be hurt. 'How you doing?' 'I'm OK.' 'Well, how about that bone in your leg sticking out?' ...

"Hey, there's not much difference between toughness and stupidity."

Headrick, nicknamed Psycho, once played two days after hemorrhoid surgery. Doctors shot him full of painkillers, provided him a sanitary napkin and cleared him to play. He also played with an undiagnosed broken neck suffered during pregame warm-ups. He had three interceptions.

"I played with all kinds of injuries I probably shouldn't have been playing with," said Headrick, a TCU-ex who lives in Fort Worth. "But, back then, we didn't know."

Painkillers

Sports medicine was in its infancy. MRIs and arthroscopic surgery were unavailable. Trainers recommended salt tablets and large dosages of vitamin B-12. Cortisone, which won the Nobel Prize for Mayo Clinic researchers in 1950, was the drug of choice; Butazolidine was a common anti-inflammatory; and a Xylocaine cocktail, combining the numbing-agent Xylocaine with cortisone, was used often.

In 1984, the Food and Drug Administration linked Butazolidine to serious health problems and restricted its use.

Cortisone now is rarely prescribed after being linked to 25 percent of the 500,000 hips replaced in the United States. In the 1994 study commissioned by the NFLPA, two Ball State professors found that 55 percent of players who retired before 1990 took cortisone.

Bill Stanfill, a defensive end for the Miami Dolphins from 1969-76, uses a walker and keeps one of his hip sockets in a mayonnaise jar. Stanfill, 55, has two artificial hips, four fused vertebrae and is 65 percent disabled.

"When my orthopedic surgeon first took a look at my left hip, he said, 'Did you take a lot of cortisone?' " said Stanfill, who played the 1973 season opener while wearing a hospital bracelet, checking out only long enough to play 18 snaps before returning to continue treatment for liver damage.

"... The cortisone is what caused me to lose my hips. We all did it. I'm not faulting the doctors, the league, the Dolphins or myself. Twenty-five or 30 years ago, no one knew what the long-term side effects of excessive use of this drug would do."

Charlie Krueger, a defensive lineman for the 49ers from 1959-73, was the first NFL player to successfully sue for medical treatment that involved cortisone shots. Krueger, who collected $1 million in 1989, passed 11 physicals over more than 10 seasons but learned three years after retiring that an anterior cruciate ligament in one knee was gone and that he was permanently disabled. In a similar suit, Hall of Fame middle linebacker Dick Butkus sued the Bears and collected $600,000 in 1996.

"The NFL for many, many years ... had everything under control," said Krueger, who played for Texas A&M. "A player was a willing, and sometimes a not very willing, participant in these things, and, many times, players played with things they shouldn't have.

"The NFL got away with a hell of a lot of crap."

Then, teams didn't have millions invested in players, and the union wasn't strong enough to protect players. When Gene Upshaw, a Hall of Fame guard for the Raiders from 1967-81, became president of the NFLPA in 1980, players won the right to obtain their medical records and second opinions, and to consult doctors of their choice.

Still, the team doctor's role remains controversial because he is paid by the owner.

Rob Huizenga, a former Raiders team physician, wrote in his 1994 book You're OK, It's Just a Bruise that he resigned when owner Al Davis reprimanded him for undermining the advice of a senior Raiders doctor by recommending an injured player see a neck specialist.

"The NFL doesn't have a system where we can address the problem of playing with pain," Huizenga said last week. "There should be an individual under the employ of someone, like at a boxing match, who says, 'Wait a minute, I'm calling the fight.' "

Everything has changed, and nothing has changed, in the past 25 years.

Players today have chiropractors, masseurs, muscle-stimulator machines, ultra sound, Pilates stretching methods, electromagnetic beds, hyperbaric chambers -- an oxygen-enriched device used to help divers who have the bends -- and advanced medicine. Players are bigger, faster, stronger and better equipped, but the pain remains the same.

"I walk like an old man," said Dolphins linebacker Zach Thomas, 29. "That's part of the job. I don't like the feeling. It's always like that, and it's definitely going to affect me when I get older. But that's part of it. I love this job."

It's a tough love.

Super expectations

When Cowboys running back Emmitt Smith separated his right shoulder in the second quarter of the 1993 regular-season finale, he wrapped a thigh pad under his shoulder pads for extra cushioning and took a painkiller at halftime. He finished a 229-total-yards day with an overtime victory and an overnight stay in the hospital.

Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb injured his ankle on the third play Nov. 17 but still completed 20 of 25 passes for 255 yards and four touchdowns in the 35-14 victory. X-rays later revealed a fractured right fibula that has kept him out since.

Smith and McNabb were applauded for their toughness, but most NFL players are superheroes.

"I don't think anybody is ever healthy out there," New York Giants defensive end Michael Strahan said. "That's just something that is understood. ... You're expected to play in pain."

Coaches count on it. Jon Gruden, in his first season coaching the Bucs, admits he has a high pain threshold. Tampa Bay guard Kerry Jenkins fractured his left fibula in a Monday night game against the Rams but started the next game at Cincinnati.

"Hey, I'll be honest with you, I think it's my role to let some of these guys know, 'If you can go, we need you,' " Gruden said. "The water is cold. Sometimes I just try to push them in ... to help them through it."

Players seek relief with pain-killing injections and prescription medications.

The NFL requires that teams keep records of all prescription drugs administered to players, including painkillers like Vicodin, which is taken orally. The NFL says it monitors the records, but that didn't prevent Packers quarterback Brett Favre from becoming addicted to Vicodin.

"We all know it's not good for you, but NFL football isn't good for you," Cowboys defensive end Greg Ellis said. "There probably isn't a player in the league who from time to time hasn't had to take some type of painkiller."

Life after football

NFL players, who make an average of $1.123 million this season, rarely worry about life after football. Even after reading that 47 percent of retired players who responded to the 1994 NFLPA survey said they suffered from degenerative arthritis. Even after seeing Hall of Famers living in pain, unable to shake hands or sometimes even walk. Even after hearing the NFLPA's Yaris-Davis warn of the increase in concussion-syndrome cases and Parkinson's disease from head trauma.

The future is just another job hazard.

Yet, they always return for more. At least until their bodies can't take it anymore. The NFLPA found that only 25.7 percent of former players elected to walk away on their own.

But retired players, even those who can barely walk, would change nothing. Football was their life, and it still defines who they are: men of steel.

"Sure, I'd do it again," said Manny Fernandez, 56, a Dolphins defensive tackle from 1968-75 who estimates he has had 12 surgeries. "That's what I lived for. Besides, it makes every day an adventure now."

A terrible 10

These other NFL injuries, captured by TV, were not for the squeamish:

1. New England receiver Darryl Stingley vs. Oakland, Aug. 12, 1978. Stingley was running a crossing pattern when safety Jack Tatum delivered a savage forearm during an exhibition game. Stingley broke his neck and was paralyzed from the chest down.

2. Los Angeles Oakland running back Napoleon McCallum vs. San Francisco, Sept. 5, 1994. McCallum took a handoff and was met by a host of 49ers, including linebacker Ken Norton who pulled McCallum's shoulders backward. McCallum's left knee was contorted so badly his lower leg looked to be dangling by a thread. McCallum was confined to a wheelchair for two months and crutches for another two months. Six more surgeries followed. He never played again.

3. San Francisco defensive tackle Bryant Young vs. New York Giants, Nov. 30, 1998. Young had a hand on quarterback Kent Graham when linebacker Ken Norton rolled into Young's right leg. Everyone on the field heard Young's leg snap at mid-shin, where it was left at a 40-degree angle. It was so gruesome that ABC replayed it only once. Doctors inserted a 16-inch titanium rod in Young's tibia, and he returned the next season.

4. Detroit linebacker Reggie Brown vs. New York Jets, Dec. 21, 1997. As he was tackling a runner, Brown was hit in the head when Jets lineman Lamont Burns fell backward. Brown was knocked unconscious and needed mouth-to-mouth resuscitation on the field after bruising his spine in the collision. Brown never played again but regained his ability to walk.

5. Cincinnati nose tackle Tim Krumrie vs. San Francisco, Super Bowl XXIII, Jan. 22, 1989. While trying to tackle running back Roger Craig, Krumrie's left leg snapped with his tibia and fibula shattering in three places. Krumrie returned the next season and played six more seasons.

6. Cowboys receiver Michael Irvin vs. Philadelphia, Oct. 10, 1999. Irvin injured his neck when his helmet smacked against the Veterans Stadium turf on a hit by safety Tim Hauck. Irvin never played again.

7. San Diego tight end Kellen Winslow vs. LA Raiders, Oct. 21, 1984. Winslow took a hit to his right knee from Raiders linebacker Jeff Barnes. Doctors who repaired the severed medial collateral and posterior cruciate ligaments in Winslow's knee likened it to sewing two mops together. Winslow returned the next season and played in the 1988 Pro Bowl.

8. Chicago receiver Wendell Davis vs. Philadelphia, Oct. 10, 1993. While running a pass route, Davis' feet caught in the Veterans Stadium turf. He tore the patella tendons in both knees and never played again.

9. Washington punter/holder Bryan Barker vs. Cowboys, Nov. 28, 2002. While trying to recover a blocked field goal, Barker chased the ball across midfield before falling on it. That's where his nose met safety Roy Williams' left knee. The hit was so violent that Williams' knee was cut and Barker's face left a bloody mess. Barker needed surgery and is out for the year.

10. Denver receiver Ed McCaffrey vs. New York Giants, Sept. 10, 2001. While making a one-handed catch, McCaffrey broke his left leg as it whipped into safety Shaun Williams' body. McCaffrey returned this season.

[MFFL]

But the average NFL career lasts only 3.3 years, and an NFLPA-commissioned study estimated two-thirds of players leave with a permanent injury.

Yet, they always return for more. At least until their bodies can't take it anymore. The NFLPA found that only 25.7 percent of former players elected to walk away on their own.


A couple of chilling stats.

[grbh]

Nice article, tough way to make a living.

[Rhylan]

<< 2. Oakland running back Napoleon McCallum vs. San Francisco, Sept. 5, 1994. McCallum took a handoff and was met by a host of 49ers, including linebacker Ken Norton who pulled McCallum's shoulders backward. McCallum's left knee was contorted so badly his lower leg looked to be dangling by a thread. McCallum was confined to a wheelchair for two months and crutches for another two months. Six more surgeries followed. He never played again. >>



Man, I'll never forget this one. It was SICK. I don't remember it exactly like that -- I remember his left leg being planted behind a pile and his body being pulled forward on top of the pile, completely hyperextending his left knee -- I mean, it literally bent 90 degrees the wrong way. Sick.

Also take note how more than one of these on this list came courtesy of the good ol' turf at The Vet. I've been saying it FOREVER, but traditional astroturf needs to be taken out of at least football, if not all pro sports.