Some questions NFL players should be asking
FRIDAY, 24 SEPTEMBER 2010 08:39
BY EVAN WEINER
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
THE BUSINESS AND POLITICS OF SPORTS
http://www.newjerseynewsroom.com/professional/some-questions-nfl-players-should-be-asking
Has the Philadelphia Eagles organization weathered the public relations problem of the first week of the National Football League season after Eagles coach Andy Reid put Stewart Bradley back on the field about four minutes after the linebacker suffered a head injury. Quarterback Kevin Kolb also went down with a head injury in the game against Green Bay. Kolb has lost his starting job but it wasn't because of the injury according to Reid. Michael Vick is playing better.
The Eagles franchise was criticized by medical observers for not giving Bradley a full exam before he went back into the game. But the storyline has shifted from the two concussions to Vick as the Eagles starter. Injuries are not great stories to tell for the football narrative. No one wants to know about the wreckage and carnage of football.
That's football.
Players are trained to play through pain and there is a macho man mentality of never showing weakness. A player can get his "bell rung" and after the initial blow get right back into the action. But there was a toll that was paid by former players and many of them don't tell their stories about life after the cheering stops. Big, strong men who played football in their 20s have problems with their short term memory because of head injuries and suffer from depression and might be more prone to Lou Gehrig's disease because of head injuries.
They also are candidates for serious cardiovascular problems according to a Mayo Clinic study.
Sunday and Monday Night warriors are mere mortals as they get older.
It is doubtful that players give much thought to the issue after they began to feel better. Players don't really look ahead and think about what might happen to them 10 or 15 years after their playing careers are done. But Bradley, Kolb and every player in the NFL should be asking some very tough questions of league officials and the leadership of their players association.
The questions should start with a simple query.
Are all NFL players going to get real post retirement health benefits and if a player is physically disabled because of an injury or injuries suffered on the field, will the players association take care of medical bills or will the disability board turn down the former player forcing that player to seek government programs to pay for medical bills?
Will the NFL retirement and disability board take care of them? In the case of Johnny Unitas and many other players, they answer was no. Apparently players had a choice, retirement benefits or disability benefits. In Unitas' case, the retirement checks stopped when he took disability payments.
What happens if an NFL career lasts just a year before benefits really kick in? Who takes care of that player if in that one year of NFL play something happens that won't kick up until years after the career is done but can be traced back to football?
Will the United States Government be responsible for football related injuries? The answer to that question is yes and it doesn't matter if you are for health care or against it or you want social security or are looking to gut the system. That's why Congress is taking a closer look at the violent world of football.
One former player is claiming that owners don't want to pay medical and disability payments to former players and that the players association has gone along with the owners and not helped disabled players.
Another question. Is the Department of Labor's assertion that the NFL Retirement and Disability Board paying more attention to hiring lawyers and spending money there instead on former players with disabilities true?
The players should be looking into that.
The National Football League Players Association has put out some information saying it has spent $13 million or so to help out disabled players. A little while ago, the former Interim Director of the NFLPA Richard Berthelsen who was the association's general counsel for years took issue with the comment that the former Executive Director, the late Gene Upshaw, did very little to help out former players like John Mackey in times of need. Berthelsen said nobody did more for Mackey than Upshaw. The league and the players have a program, Plan 88 (Mackey's old number with the Baltimore Colts) that was added to the Collective Bargaining Agreement in 2007 providing eligible retired players with up to $88,000 per year for medical and custodial care resulting from dementia or Alzheimer's.
Mackey, the former President of the National Football League Players Association, is suffering from front temporal dementia. The NFL Players Association initially refused to pay a disability income due because some doctors have concluded there is no proven link between brain injury and playing football.
The battle between former players and the football industry over whether playing football causes brain injuries continues. The NFL is telling players if you have a head injury report it immediately.
There is a lot of infighting and frustration among former players and the back and forth e-mails in that group are rather enlightening. A major question has popped up with deserves closer attention. If the National Football League Players Association does indeed decertify in an effort to stop NFL owners from locking out the players following the Super Bowl, what happens to their benefits?
Do the retired players also suffer from the lockout? According to one lawyer, there could be some trouble ahead for the former players.
"Essentially they would cease to exist as a union — which they did once before as you know and won (Freeman) McNeil (the former New York Jets running back and seven other NFL players filed a lawsuit in a Minneapolis court room against the league in 1993 because the players felt the NFL's Plan B free agency gambit was too restrictive. A jury agreed with them which forced the owners to go back to the bargaining table and come up with a free agency system) — and their fiduciary obligation to anyone would likely cease, except perhaps as it pertains to the pension board — and then only as board members and not as a union," said the lawyer.
"So the pension fund would continue — the union wouldn't — in theory, although the same people would be involved as board members. What would change this time is the league would likely make attempts to reunionize the players and start new benefit funds and there is significant doubt that (NFLPA Executive Director) DeMaurice Smith could actually hold enough players together this time.
"Also it isn't a dunk shot that the (President Barack) Obama NLRB will permit decertification given their pro-union stance. Or that it truly prevents a lockout legally. However, at least theoretically it should prevent a lockout because the owners would be in breach of contract as to every multi-year contract they have currently in force because there would be no union to lockout. This is part of the super power that decertification gives the players.
"Lockout is a judicially recognized corollary to a' union's right to strike which is explicit in the National Labor Relations Act. Lockout doctrine essentially says that since workers are likely to go on strike to cause the most economic damage, an employer has the right to lock them out once a CBA expires to prevent the harm of an unplanned strike.
"It may be practically harder to sue under these circumstances jurisdictionally as you would be suing pension board members and not a union for failure to represent or breach of fiduciary duty."
There is always a question of pensions and whether former players can get more money out of the league/players association in the upcoming bargaining sessions. It appears that the NFLPA doesn't really care about the former players, players who helped build the association and went through labor battles with the owners going back to 1956. Former players want a say in how the association is run and want a vote in the association's affairs with respect to the retirement benefits. The former players want the same rights that retired United Auto Workers, which includes the right to vote on strikes and contract ratifications.
There is far more to football than a game that is played on the field. Once the cheering stops for many players, the real physical problems of taking a beating on a daily basis between playing games and practice begins. Once the cheering ends, the player fades into oblivion and it appears that the players association has that viewpoint. The players association under Upshaw just looked to get as much money as possible for active association members. Players still don't have guaranteed contracts and there are many questions about retirement and disability benefits.
The labor battles of the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s and 1980s were all about money and not about long time ramifications of playing football. Get the most money was the theme but little attention was paid to severance pay, medical benefits and future pensions. The players association made a major blunder in strategy and the players of the 1960s, 70s, and 80s are seeing the fruitlessness of the CBAs of those days now.
There are a number of former players getting government assistance flying under the radar screen. Congress is asking questions but no one from either party in Washington has answers.
Football is a violent game and players know that the next play could be their last. The players signed contracts and promised to go through a wall for a team. The teams and the players association have not lived up to their part of the bargain and that should be the underlying theme of the next collective bargaining agreement not just a grab for the biggest part of the money pie.
Evan Weiner is an award winning author, radio-TV commentator and speaker on "The Business and Politics of Sports." He can be reached at evanjweiner@yahoo.com
Showing posts with label head injuries. Show all posts
Showing posts with label head injuries. Show all posts
Friday, September 24, 2010
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
The football culture needs to be changed
The football culture needs to be changed
TUESDAY, 06 JULY 2010 16:36
HTTP://WWW.NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM/PROFESSIONAL/THE-FOOTBALL-CULTURE-NEEDS-TO-BE-CHANGED#
BY EVAN WEINER
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
THE POLITICS OF SPORTS BUSINESS
George Visger thought he had it all when he was drafted by the New York Jets in the sixth round of the National Football League draft in 1980. Visger had it all mapped out. He was going to play for five years and then hunt and fish for the rest of his life.
It would be an ideal life. But to players the initials NFL don't stand for National Football League. They mean "Not For Long" and Visger, like many others, didn't understand that aspect of pro football when he started his journey to make the Jets squad.
The Jets coaching staff seemed to like Visger. But there was a problem; Visger was an undersized defensive lineman at 259 pounds when he arrived at mini-camp. But there was a solution called steroids, which were legal and easily obtainable. When Visger returned for Jets training camp at Hofstra University he was 275 pounds. The supplements which included Dianabol, Anavar helped an awful lot and Visger started one pre-season game against the Pittsburgh Steelers where he lined up against his idol, Steelers center Mike Webster. But Visger wasn't good enough and Jets coach Walt Michaels sent him packing.
It is the beginning of the end for Visger's dream, life and the start of a nightmare that continues to this day. Visger eventually signed with the San Francisco 49ers a number of weeks into the season. He suffered a concussion in his first game on the first play of the day. It wasn't Visger's first concussion in his life; he had many before going back to his days in Pop Warner football. But this one was bad. It took somewhere between 25 and 30 smelling salts to get Visger's head clear enough to play the rest of the game. During the game there were more smelling salts.
The training staff and Visger laughed it off. After all, he was in the NFL, where playing with pain is part of the testing of your manhood, which is very important in the NFL. But this concussion was no laughing matter. Visger developed hydrocephalus (water on the brain) and within a year, he had the first of his eight brain surgeries.
In mini-camp in May 1981, Visger blew out his knee. The 49ers doctors patched it up and he made it to training camp. The knee went again but that was the least of Visger's problems. The 1980 concussion caught up to him.
In August, Visger developed major headaches, projectile vomiting and a loss of vision. "I had a bright ball of light in the middle of my vision like in front of each eye, and the edge of my vision would light up like someone was holding a spot light on the back of my head," he said. "Each time I had the headaches at night. I discovered through my own investigations that these are common symptoms of brain swelling where it puts pressure on the optic nerves. My hearing would come and go with the beat of my heart during the headaches each night (also caused by swelling to the brain). One of them (a 49ers team doctor) said I had high blood pressure and prescribed high blood pressure medication.
"Headaches began a few weeks after the knee surgery and got progressively worse. (I) saw the team doctors a few more times on the headaches, as I was doing rehab on my knee several times a day, and would see them on a regular basis. (The) Headaches culminated in focal point paralysis of left (or right) arm the night of the Chicago game."
By September, Visger had emergency VP shunt brain surgery at Stanford Hospital and spent two weeks in intensive care. The 49ers organization was more concerned about winning football games than the health of a player who was useless to the team. Football teams move on, it is a cold reality of the business.
"No players or coaches visited during this time other than my two roommates Terry Tautolo and Scot Stauch," said Visger. "They cut Terry a day before I was released from the hospital, and Scott was packing his bags as I walked in the door after my hospital stay. He was sent to New Orleans. The doctor stated the surgery would only take a couple hours and I was in for over 4 hours. He had mentioned to my family in the waiting room, before the surgery, that my aqueductal stenosis (blockage of the aqua duct of Silvius, which was causing fluid to build up in my back two ventricles as apparent by the CAT scans), could be caused by a tumor. When I was in surgery for so long the family guessed they found a tumor. (They) Asked the doctor about it after surgery and he said he never stated the surgery would only take a couple hours. They said he got very defensive. To this day (they) don't know what took so long, but I immediately began having brain seizures from alcohol right after the surgery."
Visger was gone from the NFL but the wreckage heaped on his body from playing football remained. Besides the head injuries, there were the knee injuries, broken vertebrae and then anger management issues. He would have seven more brain surgeries and nearly died in 1982 from his brain injuries. He was also arrested. Yet at the age of 51, Visger is still around to talk about life after football and even is suggesting ways of improving the working conditions of football. But Visger is one of those players that both the NFL and the National Football League Players Association would like to forget. Visger's career was short; he didn't qualify for retirement benefits and is begging the league for help with his health and his family's sanity.
Visger is one of the thousands upon thousands of NFL players who fall through the cracks. The National Football League Players Association wanted no part of these players and received no help from Gene Upshaw and Doug Allen when they ran the association. Since going public with his plight, Visger has heard from the new Executive Director DeMaurice Smith but there is no money coming from the NFLPA. Visger is working with NFL Head, Neck and Spine Committee co-chair Dr. Richard Ellenbogen in an attempt to change the culture of football.
Visger wants to see changes in medical testing, in training procedures in terms of diagnosing and the treatment of concussions, along with changes in equipment including the elimination of helmets (unlikely) because helmets are used as weapons. Visger would change some rules and hopes that players start speaking up about injuries.
The "culture of football" can best be described by Jim Burt's reaction as he was walking into the New York Giants locker room at Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey. This was just after the 1987 NFL strike ended when the players caved and went back to work. Burt said, "we are used to being beaten over the head" and went back to work after the owners strategy prevailed.
Visger is not surprised with the findings that one time Cincinnati Bengalis receiver Chris Henry, who died in a traffic accident last year, had chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) — a form of degenerative brain damage caused by multiple hits to the head — at the time of his death, according to scientists at the Brain Injury Research Institute, a research center affiliated with West Virginia University. Henry, Visger's idol Mike Webster, Tom McHale, Justin Strzelczyk and Andre Waters also were found to have damaged brains during their autopsies. Visger himself is amazed that he is still alive.
The brain is not designed to stand up to high speed collisions which take place on the field.
Visger is a test case of sorts for doctors. He will be visiting Dr. Daniel G. Amen this week in Newport Beach, California and go through a series of tests on his brain. Visger is hoping that Dr. Amen would provide some help to him and his family. But he also wonders, how many former players there are who are in bad shape and no one really knows it.
Conrad Dobler is very visible talking about his knees and how one of his legs needs to be amputated. The former President of the National Football league Players Association John Mackey, the Hall of Fame tight end, has dementia and lives in a full time assisted adult program. The National Football League Players Association Executive Director a number of years ago, the late Gene Upshaw, refused to help Mackey and pay him disability because Upshaw and the NFLPA claimed there was no direct link between playing football and players who suffered brain injuries. But there is a University of North Carolina study of 2,500 former NFL players that showed they faced a 37 percent higher risk of Alzheimer's disease than other men their age group. Eventually the players and the league came up with the "88 plan" which provides $88,000 for home nursing care and $50,000 for assisted living.
Mike Ditka has a Facebook page called Mike Ditka's Official Gridiron Greats Assistance Fund. Ditka has been a tireless worker on behalf of the football playing community to help out players who are like Visger. The page outlined the problem — "the Gridiron Greats Assistance Fund. Gridiron Greats is a 501(c)(3) humanitarian organization providing financial and medical services to retired NFL players in DIRE need, most, if not all — who contributed greatly to NFL's national past time status, popularity and appeal. Due to inadequate disability, health care and insurance and no established retired player pension program, these men face dire daily challenges to sustain a quality of life and due to the amount of trauma their bodies endured during their careers, are either unable to work or face financial hardships since their careers ended. Gridiron Greats mission is to assist these men financially and provide them with medical assistance through their pro-bono medical program to provide these men with the dignity they so deserve."
"Iron" Mike Webster's bust stands in the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio. Webster might have been the greatest center of all time but his post-career was anything but Hall of Fame grandeur. Webster had brain damage and lived out of truck in both Wisconsin and Pittsburgh, begging for Kentucky Fried Chicken leftovers.
People do ask whatever happen to so and so? In some cases, the stories are far less than storybook endings. A good number of rookies are eagerly awaiting the beginning of training camp and getting on an NFL roster. Would Visger do it all over again if he could?
The answer is quick and to the point.
"No."
Evan Weiner is an author, radio-TV commentator and a speaking on "The Politics of Sports Business" and can be reached at evanjweiner@yahoo.com
TUESDAY, 06 JULY 2010 16:36
HTTP://WWW.NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM/PROFESSIONAL/THE-FOOTBALL-CULTURE-NEEDS-TO-BE-CHANGED#
BY EVAN WEINER
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
THE POLITICS OF SPORTS BUSINESS
George Visger thought he had it all when he was drafted by the New York Jets in the sixth round of the National Football League draft in 1980. Visger had it all mapped out. He was going to play for five years and then hunt and fish for the rest of his life.
It would be an ideal life. But to players the initials NFL don't stand for National Football League. They mean "Not For Long" and Visger, like many others, didn't understand that aspect of pro football when he started his journey to make the Jets squad.
The Jets coaching staff seemed to like Visger. But there was a problem; Visger was an undersized defensive lineman at 259 pounds when he arrived at mini-camp. But there was a solution called steroids, which were legal and easily obtainable. When Visger returned for Jets training camp at Hofstra University he was 275 pounds. The supplements which included Dianabol, Anavar helped an awful lot and Visger started one pre-season game against the Pittsburgh Steelers where he lined up against his idol, Steelers center Mike Webster. But Visger wasn't good enough and Jets coach Walt Michaels sent him packing.
It is the beginning of the end for Visger's dream, life and the start of a nightmare that continues to this day. Visger eventually signed with the San Francisco 49ers a number of weeks into the season. He suffered a concussion in his first game on the first play of the day. It wasn't Visger's first concussion in his life; he had many before going back to his days in Pop Warner football. But this one was bad. It took somewhere between 25 and 30 smelling salts to get Visger's head clear enough to play the rest of the game. During the game there were more smelling salts.
The training staff and Visger laughed it off. After all, he was in the NFL, where playing with pain is part of the testing of your manhood, which is very important in the NFL. But this concussion was no laughing matter. Visger developed hydrocephalus (water on the brain) and within a year, he had the first of his eight brain surgeries.
In mini-camp in May 1981, Visger blew out his knee. The 49ers doctors patched it up and he made it to training camp. The knee went again but that was the least of Visger's problems. The 1980 concussion caught up to him.
In August, Visger developed major headaches, projectile vomiting and a loss of vision. "I had a bright ball of light in the middle of my vision like in front of each eye, and the edge of my vision would light up like someone was holding a spot light on the back of my head," he said. "Each time I had the headaches at night. I discovered through my own investigations that these are common symptoms of brain swelling where it puts pressure on the optic nerves. My hearing would come and go with the beat of my heart during the headaches each night (also caused by swelling to the brain). One of them (a 49ers team doctor) said I had high blood pressure and prescribed high blood pressure medication.
"Headaches began a few weeks after the knee surgery and got progressively worse. (I) saw the team doctors a few more times on the headaches, as I was doing rehab on my knee several times a day, and would see them on a regular basis. (The) Headaches culminated in focal point paralysis of left (or right) arm the night of the Chicago game."
By September, Visger had emergency VP shunt brain surgery at Stanford Hospital and spent two weeks in intensive care. The 49ers organization was more concerned about winning football games than the health of a player who was useless to the team. Football teams move on, it is a cold reality of the business.
"No players or coaches visited during this time other than my two roommates Terry Tautolo and Scot Stauch," said Visger. "They cut Terry a day before I was released from the hospital, and Scott was packing his bags as I walked in the door after my hospital stay. He was sent to New Orleans. The doctor stated the surgery would only take a couple hours and I was in for over 4 hours. He had mentioned to my family in the waiting room, before the surgery, that my aqueductal stenosis (blockage of the aqua duct of Silvius, which was causing fluid to build up in my back two ventricles as apparent by the CAT scans), could be caused by a tumor. When I was in surgery for so long the family guessed they found a tumor. (They) Asked the doctor about it after surgery and he said he never stated the surgery would only take a couple hours. They said he got very defensive. To this day (they) don't know what took so long, but I immediately began having brain seizures from alcohol right after the surgery."
Visger was gone from the NFL but the wreckage heaped on his body from playing football remained. Besides the head injuries, there were the knee injuries, broken vertebrae and then anger management issues. He would have seven more brain surgeries and nearly died in 1982 from his brain injuries. He was also arrested. Yet at the age of 51, Visger is still around to talk about life after football and even is suggesting ways of improving the working conditions of football. But Visger is one of those players that both the NFL and the National Football League Players Association would like to forget. Visger's career was short; he didn't qualify for retirement benefits and is begging the league for help with his health and his family's sanity.
Visger is one of the thousands upon thousands of NFL players who fall through the cracks. The National Football League Players Association wanted no part of these players and received no help from Gene Upshaw and Doug Allen when they ran the association. Since going public with his plight, Visger has heard from the new Executive Director DeMaurice Smith but there is no money coming from the NFLPA. Visger is working with NFL Head, Neck and Spine Committee co-chair Dr. Richard Ellenbogen in an attempt to change the culture of football.
Visger wants to see changes in medical testing, in training procedures in terms of diagnosing and the treatment of concussions, along with changes in equipment including the elimination of helmets (unlikely) because helmets are used as weapons. Visger would change some rules and hopes that players start speaking up about injuries.
The "culture of football" can best be described by Jim Burt's reaction as he was walking into the New York Giants locker room at Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey. This was just after the 1987 NFL strike ended when the players caved and went back to work. Burt said, "we are used to being beaten over the head" and went back to work after the owners strategy prevailed.
Visger is not surprised with the findings that one time Cincinnati Bengalis receiver Chris Henry, who died in a traffic accident last year, had chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) — a form of degenerative brain damage caused by multiple hits to the head — at the time of his death, according to scientists at the Brain Injury Research Institute, a research center affiliated with West Virginia University. Henry, Visger's idol Mike Webster, Tom McHale, Justin Strzelczyk and Andre Waters also were found to have damaged brains during their autopsies. Visger himself is amazed that he is still alive.
The brain is not designed to stand up to high speed collisions which take place on the field.
Visger is a test case of sorts for doctors. He will be visiting Dr. Daniel G. Amen this week in Newport Beach, California and go through a series of tests on his brain. Visger is hoping that Dr. Amen would provide some help to him and his family. But he also wonders, how many former players there are who are in bad shape and no one really knows it.
Conrad Dobler is very visible talking about his knees and how one of his legs needs to be amputated. The former President of the National Football league Players Association John Mackey, the Hall of Fame tight end, has dementia and lives in a full time assisted adult program. The National Football League Players Association Executive Director a number of years ago, the late Gene Upshaw, refused to help Mackey and pay him disability because Upshaw and the NFLPA claimed there was no direct link between playing football and players who suffered brain injuries. But there is a University of North Carolina study of 2,500 former NFL players that showed they faced a 37 percent higher risk of Alzheimer's disease than other men their age group. Eventually the players and the league came up with the "88 plan" which provides $88,000 for home nursing care and $50,000 for assisted living.
Mike Ditka has a Facebook page called Mike Ditka's Official Gridiron Greats Assistance Fund. Ditka has been a tireless worker on behalf of the football playing community to help out players who are like Visger. The page outlined the problem — "the Gridiron Greats Assistance Fund. Gridiron Greats is a 501(c)(3) humanitarian organization providing financial and medical services to retired NFL players in DIRE need, most, if not all — who contributed greatly to NFL's national past time status, popularity and appeal. Due to inadequate disability, health care and insurance and no established retired player pension program, these men face dire daily challenges to sustain a quality of life and due to the amount of trauma their bodies endured during their careers, are either unable to work or face financial hardships since their careers ended. Gridiron Greats mission is to assist these men financially and provide them with medical assistance through their pro-bono medical program to provide these men with the dignity they so deserve."
"Iron" Mike Webster's bust stands in the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio. Webster might have been the greatest center of all time but his post-career was anything but Hall of Fame grandeur. Webster had brain damage and lived out of truck in both Wisconsin and Pittsburgh, begging for Kentucky Fried Chicken leftovers.
People do ask whatever happen to so and so? In some cases, the stories are far less than storybook endings. A good number of rookies are eagerly awaiting the beginning of training camp and getting on an NFL roster. Would Visger do it all over again if he could?
The answer is quick and to the point.
"No."
Evan Weiner is an author, radio-TV commentator and a speaking on "The Politics of Sports Business" and can be reached at evanjweiner@yahoo.com
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