Life After Football (1 Viewer)

[Klimtology]

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2007/11...l?ref=football#

 

[32 Counter Pass]

Very sad.

It is a tough way to make a living and these issues need to be address by the league or the government may get involved.

 

[netnalp]

Hats off to Kyle Turley and Matt Birk, they've donated game checks to the Gridiron Greats charity. Mike Ditka, Harry Carson, Michael Irvin, and Daryl Johnston are a few that I've read have been working to help disabled players.

I'd like to see owners doing something, if they have been it'd be nice to hear about it. Paraphrasing Chris Rock, "Players are rich, but the guys that sign their checks have wealth" they need to take care of those that built the legacy of NFL franchises to the detriment of their bodies.

 

[Neil Beaufort Zod]

This is where a union and league management needs to step up and take care of the players who paved the way for them to have the bargaining power each enjoys today.

There's too much money in the NFL to allow this.

 

[weasel3515]

Wait a minute. I'm supposed to feel sorry for guys who got paid money to play a game?! I know that the NFL is a multi-billion dollar business. And don't get me wrong, I am not sympathetic to owners who make millions. But this is a GAME. Why didn't these players have any kind of back-up-plan, like a college degree in ANYTHING? Did they think they were all going to play football until they were in their 50's? They don't realize how lucky they are to get paid to play a game most of us enjoy playing for free...and a great amount of money at that! Most of them squander it away with no plan for the future. For the average Joe like the rest of us working each day for a set wage, it's hard to feel sympathetic for them.

 

[Matt Waldman]

I understand what you're saying weasel, but not sure if you're aware of the fact that the players from many of these earlier eras didn't make nearly the kind of money current players do. The average Joe retires in his mid 60s and has another 15-20 years, tops before he's dead. He's saving to live on a fixed income and the cost of living will continue to rise. Think about a guy who retires at 27 or 28 who didn't make millions a year or even get a sniff within a half a million and he has to live on a fixed income for two to three times as long as the guy retiring at 65. Then there's the fact that many of these players you're not feeling sorry for have physical issues so debilitating that they cannot work.

Throw in the fact that surgeries are astronomically expensive and if they can't work, they either don't have insurance or even good insurance. That can eat the retirement funds up quickly.

Maybe you do understand these points and just don't feel sorry for them, but personally I think it's shameful that the NFL is not addressing this issue. Yes, pension funds are troublesome issues for corporations and when you look at huge manufacturing companies that thrived in in the 40s-70s, they have huge issues because of pensions.

But the main point is that I do feel sorry for these players. I'm sure some made poor decisions, but most of the guys in this kind of trouble didn't throw away the kind of money Travis Henry, Mike Vick, or Rocket Ismail tossed away with poor decisions. Most of the guys are older who played for much less, took more punishment in a game that wasn't regulated to protect players as it is now, and the NFL was ignorant to the long term effects their sport had on their employees.

 

[JohnnyU]

Wait a minute. I'm supposed to feel sorry for guys who got paid money to play a game?! I know that the NFL is a multi-billion dollar business. And don't get me wrong, I am not sympathetic to owners who make millions. But this is a GAME. Why didn't these players have any kind of back-up-plan, like a college degree in ANYTHING? Did they think they were all going to play football until they were in their 50's? They don't realize how lucky they are to get paid to play a game most of us enjoy playing for free...and a great amount of money at that! Most of them squander it away with no plan for the future. For the average Joe like the rest of us working each day for a set wage, it's hard to feel sympathetic for them.

You're one cold fish if you can't feel sorry for these guys who are in great pain, both physically and financially. Most of these guys didn't make bucket loads of money back then either.

 

[teamramrod]

Ummm...Listen to Dikta

The problem is the union. If every active player chipped in in 1% to a pre-pension fund, these guys who built the league would be taken care of.

So tell me why a union that files a grievance on the behalf of Pac-man, Plaxico and Leonard Little will not support past players?

Dikta and Temaramrod want to know.

Peace

 

[msommer]

I understand what you're saying weasel, but not sure if you're aware of the fact that the players from many of these earlier eras didn't make nearly the kind of money current players do. The average Joe retires in his mid 60s and has another 15-20 years, tops before he's dead. He's saving to live on a fixed income and the cost of living will continue to rise. Think about a guy who retires at 27 or 28 who didn't make millions a year or even get a sniff within a half a million and he has to live on a fixed income for two to three times as long as the guy retiring at 65. Then there's the fact that many of these players you're not feeling sorry for have physical issues so debilitating that they cannot work. Throw in the fact that surgeries are astronomically expensive and if they can't work, they either don't have insurance or even good insurance. That can eat the retirement funds up quickly. Maybe you do understand these points and just don't feel sorry for them, but personally I think it's shameful that the NFL is not addressing this issue. Yes, pension funds are troublesome issues for corporations and when you look at huge manufacturing companies that thrived in in the 40s-70s, they have huge issues because of pensions. But the main point is that I do feel sorry for these players. I'm sure some made poor decisions, but most of the guys in this kind of trouble didn't throw away the kind of money Travis Henry, Mike Vick, or Rocket Ismail tossed away with poor decisions. Most of the guys are older who played for much less, took more punishment in a game that wasn't regulated to protect players as it is now, and the NFL was ignorant to the long term effects their sport had on their employees.

The ones who retired with a disability or got one while playing should be taken care of by the players or owners or both in unison. The ones that retired without such have every opportunity to find gainful employment elsewhere in the job market.If you work five years as a bricklayer and then never again, who pays a pension to you?The most likely reason the NFLPA does not stand up for this is that the current players do not support it sufficiently.

 

[Neil Beaufort Zod]

I understand what you're saying weasel, but not sure if you're aware of the fact that the players from many of these earlier eras didn't make nearly the kind of money current players do. The average Joe retires in his mid 60s and has another 15-20 years, tops before he's dead. He's saving to live on a fixed income and the cost of living will continue to rise. Think about a guy who retires at 27 or 28 who didn't make millions a year or even get a sniff within a half a million and he has to live on a fixed income for two to three times as long as the guy retiring at 65. Then there's the fact that many of these players you're not feeling sorry for have physical issues so debilitating that they cannot work.

Throw in the fact that surgeries are astronomically expensive and if they can't work, they either don't have insurance or even good insurance. That can eat the retirement funds up quickly.

Maybe you do understand these points and just don't feel sorry for them, but personally I think it's shameful that the NFL is not addressing this issue. Yes, pension funds are troublesome issues for corporations and when you look at huge manufacturing companies that thrived in in the 40s-70s, they have huge issues because of pensions.

But the main point is that I do feel sorry for these players. I'm sure some made poor decisions, but most of the guys in this kind of trouble didn't throw away the kind of money Travis Henry, Mike Vick, or Rocket Ismail tossed away with poor decisions. Most of the guys are older who played for much less, took more punishment in a game that wasn't regulated to protect players as it is now, and the NFL was ignorant to the long term effects their sport had on their employees.

The ones who retired with a disability or got one while playing should be taken care of by the players or owners or both in unison. The ones that retired without such have every opportunity to find gainful employment elsewhere in the job market.If you work five years as a bricklayer and then never again, who pays a pension to you?

The most likely reason the NFLPA does not stand up for this is that the current players do not support it sufficiently.

I think many, many guys who play in the league for any significant length of time are likely to have body damage that can be traced to playing. Earl Campbell looked okay when he was playing. He's in a wheelchair now. How many of these guys look fine now but will need new hips/knees over time? Not as "old men" but in their 50s? That doesn't count the pain, etc. they go through in their late 30s and 40s, which would impede their ability to work other jobs. The damage is unreal, and that doesn't even factor concussions. I'm not saying we should feel sorry for all the millionaires for the choices they make. But they're literally trading years of their life for their career, and the guys before them did it for a heck of a lot less than the players today.

 

[Matt Waldman]

Excellent point about the player's union having a shameful role in this mess as well. It's interesting to me that a lot of this stems from a "living for today" mentality that I believe many players have when they come into the league. It's probably tough to unlearn, but the NFLPA needs to have better leadership in that area. Athletes often see themselves as invincible when they're younger. It's like telling someone to who smokes that they're going to wind up with a host of debilitating ailments in 20-30 years. That person may believe it in theory, but it often doesn't sink home until it is too late.

It's difficult to have vision and to convince other people that your vision is what is best. I'm sure Ralph Wilson ad Lamar Hunt had difficulty convincing the other NFL owners that there needed to be a revenue sharing model. I read that some of them saw it as a socialist measure, but if it weren't for their vision that the teams needed to put the league first and the individual wants of the teams second, it would help all the teams in the long run. And that's what happened.

If I had a position of authority in the NFLPA, I would distribute photo essays like this NY Times piece, I would have PR staff interview these former players as they currently are on a split screen of what they used to do. Then I would have current players filmed doing the same things on the field in the third panel to show the parallel visually. I'd want these guys to identify with Earl Campbell, Donnie Greene, and Conrad Dobler. I'd get every union rep for every team together and have them visit these former players and I'd try to convince the players to have a percentage of their check automatically placed in the fund.

I'd try to get people who know about government pension funds and organize a massive effort to develop a stronger pension fund. With all this money that could be invested upfront, there is no excuse that the NFL players shouldn't have a great pension plan.