Monday, August 07, 2006
The Oregonian
The victims don't want you to see faces, they want you to see issues. The NFL old-time players, guys in their 60s and 70s, don't want to make the con job that's been perpetuated against them into some sympathetic hard-luck story. But every time I think about professional football's dirty little secret, I see a face.
It belongs to Mike Webster.
Webster won four Super Bowl rings, but after he retired, the former Pittsburgh Steelers center went into debt, depression, and suffered medical problems related to his playing career. He eventually became homeless, and at one point, was living in the Kansas City Chiefs' equipment room.
Webster died in 2002. And maybe some of what happened to him has to do with bad luck and mental illness, but also, it was an indictment of the NFL Players Association, which let him down and left him to rot because he wasn't any use to it anymore.
Ain't it the truth, man.
That's the chorus that's been hitting my inbox with increased regularity in the last two weeks. Gern Nagler, 74, who lives in Portland and played eight seasons in the 1950s for the Cardinals, Steelers and Browns, included me on a group e-mail list that includes old-time players from around the country.
These guys are angry, frustrated and disappointed. They feel as though they've lost their voice, and that Gene Upshaw, the head of the union, stopped representing their interests a long time ago. Recently, the union and the NFL boasted that it was giving a 25 percent increase to the pensions of old-time players, which prompted a group e-mail with a subject line reading: ". . . unacceptable 'peanuts'. . . the fight has just begun."
Except, the former players, and their widows, are running out of time to fight.
Former Green Bay Packers lineman Jerry Kramer, whose pension is $358, said that as many as 400 former players get less than $400 a month from their NFL pensions.
"There is something wrong with those who fought and won the pension (to) have their continued benefit from that pension plan dependent on an ever-changing, easily manipulated bunch of 20-year-olds just out of college," wrote former Cleveland (1959-66) defensive back Bernie Parrish in an e-mail to his fellow former players.
"(Those young players) are deciding on the living standards of retired players, their widows and survivors."
Ask the NFL about the pension plan, and they'll refer you to the players association. Ask the players association, and it will point out that every former player got at least a $50-a-month increase in the recent pension raise.
Said Nagler via telephone: "Thank goodness I worked after football."
Between cashing their million-dollar signing bonuses and deciding which rookie brought the coolest car to camp, the current players just don't get it. It's why Harry Carson used his Hall of Fame induction speech to urge the union to take better care of the league's former players. What's happening to the former players borders on neglect, and something about that doesn't feel right.
Nagler and Parrish were there in 1959 when Billy Howton, the head of the union, tossed an anti-trust suit on the hotel conference room table in front of then-NFL commissioner Bert Bell. Howton said, "We'll be filing this suit if we don't have a player pension plan in a half hour."
In thirty minutes, the union had a promise from Bell. And three years later, the pension plan was put in writing, solidifying the union's power. Except that pension plan now pays nearly 70 percent of its benefits to active players.
The old-time players don't want to cast a sympathetic figure. They don't want you to see faces. They want you to see issues. But I see faces. Too many of them like Webster.
Forgive me, fellas. I just can't help it.
John Canzano: 503-294-5065; JohnCanzano@aol.com; to read his Web log, go to www.oregonlive.com/canzano Catch him on the radio on "The Bald-Faced Truth," KFXX (1080), weekdays at 5:25 p.m.
©2006 The Oregonian
The Oregonian
The victims don't want you to see faces, they want you to see issues. The NFL old-time players, guys in their 60s and 70s, don't want to make the con job that's been perpetuated against them into some sympathetic hard-luck story. But every time I think about professional football's dirty little secret, I see a face.
It belongs to Mike Webster.
Webster won four Super Bowl rings, but after he retired, the former Pittsburgh Steelers center went into debt, depression, and suffered medical problems related to his playing career. He eventually became homeless, and at one point, was living in the Kansas City Chiefs' equipment room.
Webster died in 2002. And maybe some of what happened to him has to do with bad luck and mental illness, but also, it was an indictment of the NFL Players Association, which let him down and left him to rot because he wasn't any use to it anymore.
Ain't it the truth, man.
That's the chorus that's been hitting my inbox with increased regularity in the last two weeks. Gern Nagler, 74, who lives in Portland and played eight seasons in the 1950s for the Cardinals, Steelers and Browns, included me on a group e-mail list that includes old-time players from around the country.
These guys are angry, frustrated and disappointed. They feel as though they've lost their voice, and that Gene Upshaw, the head of the union, stopped representing their interests a long time ago. Recently, the union and the NFL boasted that it was giving a 25 percent increase to the pensions of old-time players, which prompted a group e-mail with a subject line reading: ". . . unacceptable 'peanuts'. . . the fight has just begun."
Except, the former players, and their widows, are running out of time to fight.
Former Green Bay Packers lineman Jerry Kramer, whose pension is $358, said that as many as 400 former players get less than $400 a month from their NFL pensions.
"There is something wrong with those who fought and won the pension (to) have their continued benefit from that pension plan dependent on an ever-changing, easily manipulated bunch of 20-year-olds just out of college," wrote former Cleveland (1959-66) defensive back Bernie Parrish in an e-mail to his fellow former players.
"(Those young players) are deciding on the living standards of retired players, their widows and survivors."
Ask the NFL about the pension plan, and they'll refer you to the players association. Ask the players association, and it will point out that every former player got at least a $50-a-month increase in the recent pension raise.
Said Nagler via telephone: "Thank goodness I worked after football."
Between cashing their million-dollar signing bonuses and deciding which rookie brought the coolest car to camp, the current players just don't get it. It's why Harry Carson used his Hall of Fame induction speech to urge the union to take better care of the league's former players. What's happening to the former players borders on neglect, and something about that doesn't feel right.
Nagler and Parrish were there in 1959 when Billy Howton, the head of the union, tossed an anti-trust suit on the hotel conference room table in front of then-NFL commissioner Bert Bell. Howton said, "We'll be filing this suit if we don't have a player pension plan in a half hour."
In thirty minutes, the union had a promise from Bell. And three years later, the pension plan was put in writing, solidifying the union's power. Except that pension plan now pays nearly 70 percent of its benefits to active players.
The old-time players don't want to cast a sympathetic figure. They don't want you to see faces. They want you to see issues. But I see faces. Too many of them like Webster.
Forgive me, fellas. I just can't help it.
John Canzano: 503-294-5065; JohnCanzano@aol.com; to read his Web log, go to www.oregonlive.com/canzano Catch him on the radio on "The Bald-Faced Truth," KFXX (1080), weekdays at 5:25 p.m.
©2006 The Oregonian
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