By Michael David Smith
FootballOutsiders.com
October 7, 2006
Dave Pear was in pain when he called me this week. Pain is something he's felt a lot of in the quarter-century since he retired from professional football.
Pear, who played nose guard for six years in the NFL, suffered a herniated disk in his neck in 1979. He has lived with pain ever since that injury, which would force him to retire a year later. Pear played hurt in Super Bowl XV. On the Raiders' official Web site, his efforts are credited as a big reason the team won. That was the last game he ever played.
Pear called me this week to let me know that he disagreed with the kind words I had for Al Davis in last week's column.
"I continued to play with a herniated disk in my neck," Pear said. "Al Davis encouraged me to play. He told me I was an all-pro and that I could play better hurt than the other players could play healthy. With that injury, I went from all-pro to being cut in two years, and during that time I continually asked Davis for help, and the response was that I wasn't injured, I was a hypochondriac.
"I went to see Al in his office and said, 'I came to you as an all-pro two years ago and now I'm leaving to have a neck operation and I've lost my job. I broke my neck playing for you. You can't turn your back on me.' He told me he would call me. That was 25 years ago and I still haven't heard from him."
I don't know what happened in closed-door conversations between Pear and Davis. But I do know, and my conversation with Pear made me even more acutely aware, that the NFL has a real problem with retired players who suffered serious injuries and now feel that the league has turned its back on them.
"It's just wrong," Pear said. "If I sound bitter, it's in the sense that the NFL goes on TV and tells us what good they do with the United Way, and they spend money trying to help other causes, and they do that to take the focus off themselves and the way they treat their former players."
Pear is far from alone in feeling that way. Former Buffalo Bills safety Jeff Nixon urged his fellow ex-players to withhold NFL Players Association Retired Players Chapter dues to protest what he called a lack of attention to issues relating to retired players in the most recent collective-bargaining agreement negotiations. Chuck Bednarik, the Philadelphia Eagles Hall of Famer, said of his pension two years ago, "It stinks. It's nothing." Former Colts and Chargers safety Bruce Laird started a blog where he posts articles about retired players who have gone through tough times since leaving the game.
Many ex-players who are doing well financially have taken it upon themselves to provide the assistance that the league and the union won't. Former Green Bay Packers lineman Jerry Kramer has organized fundraisers to, as he says on his web site, "provide direct financial assistance to those retired players who are disadvantaged or indigent due to the inadequate pension and disability compensation the league provides to older players." Former Miami Dolphins and Cleveland Browns quarterback Arthur Roberts, a cardiologist, provides free heart screenings to ex-players. Mike Ditka hosts a golf tournament in Chicago each year to raise money for indigent retired players.
At his Hall of Fame induction speech in August, former New York Giants linebacker Harry Carson said the league needs to do more to help retired players. "I would hope that the leaders of the NFL, the future commissioner, and the players association do a much better job of looking out for those individuals," Carson said. "If we made the league what it is, you have to take better care of your own."
The league and the players association maintain that they do plenty. In July they jointly announced a host of improvements to current and retired players' benefits. NFL player benefits total $700 million a year, and benefits have been improved for both current and retired players four times since 1993. Retired players receive almost $60 million a year from the Bert Bell/Pete Rozelle Retirement Plan. The union's Players Assistance Trust, the NFL Alumni Association's Dire Need Fund and the Pro Football Hall of Fame's Enshrinee Assistance Fund all give more than $1 million a year in financial assistance to retired players. Harold Henderson, NFL executive vice president of labor relations and chairman of the NFL Management Council, called the NFL's package "the most extensive benefits package in professional sports."
But Pear, like many other ex-players, says those benefits need to be distributed more equitably, so that former players who paved the way for the current generation of multimillionaires and are now living with serious football-related injuries can reap some of the rewards from the $6 billion a year industry that pro football has become. Players who retired before salaries exploded with the dawning of free agency in 1993 say it annoys them that people assume that they're rich just because they once played pro football.
Many retired players blame NFL Players Association Executive Director Gene Upshaw for their inadequate pensions. Pear, his former teammate, said, "Gene Upshaw has definitely sold out his players." But under labor law, Upshaw works for the current players, not the retired players. You can't blame the players who helped build the league for feeling that they deserve a bigger slice of that $6 billion pie, but you also can't blame Upshaw for making the current players his top priority.
So if the union's priority is the current players, who can help retired players? I believe individual teams should do more. Before he joined the Raiders, Pear was the first member of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers to make the Pro Bowl. I'd like to see the Bucs do something to honor him, and I'd like to see every NFL team reach out to its former players, the ones who played before MRIs and eight-figure signing bonuses. Most of those players still love the game, but many of them wonder whether the sacrifices they made to play football were worth it.
"I don't want to sound like it's sour grapes, because football was my passion. It was something that I loved to do," Pear said. "But it leaves a bitter taste in your mouth toward your former employer."
FootballOutsiders.com
October 7, 2006
Dave Pear was in pain when he called me this week. Pain is something he's felt a lot of in the quarter-century since he retired from professional football.
Pear, who played nose guard for six years in the NFL, suffered a herniated disk in his neck in 1979. He has lived with pain ever since that injury, which would force him to retire a year later. Pear played hurt in Super Bowl XV. On the Raiders' official Web site, his efforts are credited as a big reason the team won. That was the last game he ever played.
Pear called me this week to let me know that he disagreed with the kind words I had for Al Davis in last week's column.
"I continued to play with a herniated disk in my neck," Pear said. "Al Davis encouraged me to play. He told me I was an all-pro and that I could play better hurt than the other players could play healthy. With that injury, I went from all-pro to being cut in two years, and during that time I continually asked Davis for help, and the response was that I wasn't injured, I was a hypochondriac.
"I went to see Al in his office and said, 'I came to you as an all-pro two years ago and now I'm leaving to have a neck operation and I've lost my job. I broke my neck playing for you. You can't turn your back on me.' He told me he would call me. That was 25 years ago and I still haven't heard from him."
I don't know what happened in closed-door conversations between Pear and Davis. But I do know, and my conversation with Pear made me even more acutely aware, that the NFL has a real problem with retired players who suffered serious injuries and now feel that the league has turned its back on them.
"It's just wrong," Pear said. "If I sound bitter, it's in the sense that the NFL goes on TV and tells us what good they do with the United Way, and they spend money trying to help other causes, and they do that to take the focus off themselves and the way they treat their former players."
Pear is far from alone in feeling that way. Former Buffalo Bills safety Jeff Nixon urged his fellow ex-players to withhold NFL Players Association Retired Players Chapter dues to protest what he called a lack of attention to issues relating to retired players in the most recent collective-bargaining agreement negotiations. Chuck Bednarik, the Philadelphia Eagles Hall of Famer, said of his pension two years ago, "It stinks. It's nothing." Former Colts and Chargers safety Bruce Laird started a blog where he posts articles about retired players who have gone through tough times since leaving the game.
Many ex-players who are doing well financially have taken it upon themselves to provide the assistance that the league and the union won't. Former Green Bay Packers lineman Jerry Kramer has organized fundraisers to, as he says on his web site, "provide direct financial assistance to those retired players who are disadvantaged or indigent due to the inadequate pension and disability compensation the league provides to older players." Former Miami Dolphins and Cleveland Browns quarterback Arthur Roberts, a cardiologist, provides free heart screenings to ex-players. Mike Ditka hosts a golf tournament in Chicago each year to raise money for indigent retired players.
At his Hall of Fame induction speech in August, former New York Giants linebacker Harry Carson said the league needs to do more to help retired players. "I would hope that the leaders of the NFL, the future commissioner, and the players association do a much better job of looking out for those individuals," Carson said. "If we made the league what it is, you have to take better care of your own."
The league and the players association maintain that they do plenty. In July they jointly announced a host of improvements to current and retired players' benefits. NFL player benefits total $700 million a year, and benefits have been improved for both current and retired players four times since 1993. Retired players receive almost $60 million a year from the Bert Bell/Pete Rozelle Retirement Plan. The union's Players Assistance Trust, the NFL Alumni Association's Dire Need Fund and the Pro Football Hall of Fame's Enshrinee Assistance Fund all give more than $1 million a year in financial assistance to retired players. Harold Henderson, NFL executive vice president of labor relations and chairman of the NFL Management Council, called the NFL's package "the most extensive benefits package in professional sports."
But Pear, like many other ex-players, says those benefits need to be distributed more equitably, so that former players who paved the way for the current generation of multimillionaires and are now living with serious football-related injuries can reap some of the rewards from the $6 billion a year industry that pro football has become. Players who retired before salaries exploded with the dawning of free agency in 1993 say it annoys them that people assume that they're rich just because they once played pro football.
Many retired players blame NFL Players Association Executive Director Gene Upshaw for their inadequate pensions. Pear, his former teammate, said, "Gene Upshaw has definitely sold out his players." But under labor law, Upshaw works for the current players, not the retired players. You can't blame the players who helped build the league for feeling that they deserve a bigger slice of that $6 billion pie, but you also can't blame Upshaw for making the current players his top priority.
So if the union's priority is the current players, who can help retired players? I believe individual teams should do more. Before he joined the Raiders, Pear was the first member of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers to make the Pro Bowl. I'd like to see the Bucs do something to honor him, and I'd like to see every NFL team reach out to its former players, the ones who played before MRIs and eight-figure signing bonuses. Most of those players still love the game, but many of them wonder whether the sacrifices they made to play football were worth it.
"I don't want to sound like it's sour grapes, because football was my passion. It was something that I loved to do," Pear said. "But it leaves a bitter taste in your mouth toward your former employer."
0 comments:
Post a Comment