NFL fails on disability issue, House panel told

http://www.latimes.com/sports/la-sp-nfl27jun27,1,2430436.story?coll=la-headlines-sports

From the Los Angeles Times

Ex-athletes testify retiree benefits plan is stacked against them. Ditka says, 'It's right versus wrong.'
By Claudia Lauer
Times Staff Writer

June 27, 2007

WASHINGTON — Four former football players Tuesday told a House panel that the NFL's disability retirement system is broken, and Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles) chastised league and union leaders for failing to treat injured retirees and their families in a dignified manner.

"The [retiree disability] system does not work," Mike Ditka, a Hall of Fame player and coach with the Chicago Bears, told the lawmakers. "There's a difference between perception and reality. I don't understand why it's so hard to go back and take care of these players…. It's right versus wrong, period."

Tuesday's House Judiciary subcommittee hearing came after growing public protests from former players who allege that the league has been negligent in dispensing disability benefits to retirees who suffer from such problems as hip injuries and early onset dementia linked to on-the-field concussions.

Waters, who serves on the full Judiciary Committee, spoke from personal experience about the case of former Washington Redskins player Jim Shorter, a friend of her husband, Sidney Williams, a retired NFL player himself.

"Jim Shorter died an awful death," Waters told the panel. "He was blind, on dialysis…. He had several amputations."

Waters, who intervened on Shorter's behalf, said that other NFL retirees had warned her that the benefits application process for Shorter would be grueling. Ultimately, she said, Shorter was unsuccessful.

"He had taken early retirement, so they said he wasn't eligible for disability benefits," Water said.

After the hearing, Waters and the subcommittee's ranking Republican, Utah's Chris Cannon, questioned whether it is time for Congress to reconsider the NFL's antitrust breaks to make sure aging football players are treated fairly. The breaks were granted through the Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961.

Rep. Linda T. Sanchez (D-Lakewood), who chairs the subcommittee, questioned how only 3% of the NFL's past and present players are receiving disability payments despite playing in a league where "half of all players retire because of injury [and] 60% of players suffer a concussion."

Dennis Curran, the NFL senior vice president who oversees player benefits, said the league dispensed about $20 million in disability payments last year to 317 players. Until Tuesday's hearing, the league had said about $19 million had been paid out to 284 players. No explanation was given for the increases.

In addition, Curran said, the league voluntarily increased pension benefits by 25% for athletes who played before 1982 and has increased charitable donations to former players who have fallen upon hard times.

But former athletes who appeared during the hearing said the NFL's retiree medical benefits plan is stacked against them.

Former Oakland Raider Curt Marsh, who played for seven years, testified that a wrongly diagnosed injury resulted in his right foot and ankle eventually being amputated. Marsh said that, despite the amputation, back surgeries and hip-replacement surgery, the NFL union's disability plan still required him to see three doctors before he was ruled eligible for benefits.

"It took nearly a year and a half," said Marsh. "The whole time I thought to myself, 'If I don't qualify, then who does?' "

He also said that after publicly talking about his ordeal, NFL officials tried to correct his account. "I am a football player, but I'm not stupid … and I have no problem with my memory," he said.

Marsh's complaints were similar to what other former NFL players said Tuesday morning at a news conference sponsored by the Gridiron Greats Assistance Fund, a nonprofit group formed to aid players with medical and financial problems.

Retirees and family members of deceased players, many choking back tears, told of having to fight the system set in place by the NFL and the NFL Players Assn.

"This is a span of an entire generation of players being affected by this," said Eugene "Mercury" Morris, a former star running back for the Miami Dolphins who has been fighting for disability payments for years.

Morris pointed to 35-year-old Brian DeMarco, who needed the assistance of two other players to sit and stand because of back injuries that required doctors to insert titanium rods and screws.

A former offensive tackle for the Cincinnati Bengals, DeMarco said that even though he has lost the use of one leg and has extreme nerve pain in his elbows, he has not been approved for disability payments from the league.

"I came because I was asked to represent modern-day players," he said while fighting back tears. DeMarco said he and his wife had been homeless three times in the last four years, including a five-month stint spent living in a storage unit. "This is not just affecting the players. It's affecting entire families. My wife has to take care of our children … [and] her 35-year-old husband too."

A few days ago, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell set a meeting for July 24 to try to resolve the dispute. Retirees and union chief Gene Upshaw will attend. And last week, the NFL and the NFLPA said the disability plan would now use Social Security standards to define disabilities, a move that is expected to speed the decision-making.

In his testimony Tuesday, Curran said that would mean those players who qualify for Social Security disability would also qualify for NFL disability, but it was unclear whether more retirees would qualify for football-related disability checks, which generally are higher.

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Times staff writer Greg Johnson contributed to this report.

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NFL, union drops ball with callous attitude

By Bill Begley
The (Kerrvile, Texas) Daily Times

Published June 28, 2007

The millions and millions of dollars — which have evolved into the billions and billions of dollars — were all built on the backs of men that these days often find themselves too bent and broken to stand upright.

That the NFL and the myopic leadership of its players’ union don’t recognize that — and feel compelled to do something about it — is criminal.

Right now, NFL players enjoy riches that their predecessors would not have dared to dream of.

The signing bonus alone of a top-flight free agent could have purchased an entire franchise not so long ago.

And still, former players and coaches were forced to parade before a House Judiciary subcommittee on Tuesday, spinning tales of multiple surgeries, dementia and homelessness afflicting many of the pioneers of the NFL — players who turned the outlaw sport of the 40s into the multi-media giant of today, but ignored by the wealthy denizens of today’s games.

Players like former Steelers great Mike Webster — a block of granite in black and yellow who rarely missed a game despite a career riddled with horrific physical trials — who battled mental illness and died homeless in 2002.

Players like John Unitas — the quarterback long recognized as the greatest to ever take a snap — who was all but crippled in the later years of his life, a victim of thousands of stand-tall blows while delivering passes in a collapsing pocket. It got so bad, Unitas had to use rubber bands to help hold a pen as he signed autographs.

And those are just a couple of the stories about former players with names even the less-than-average fan can recognize. There are thousands of others — not stars, but the faceless many who have had limbs amputated and suffer from the ravages of a collection of concussions.

Players who should be revered for their sacrifice and courage and hailed as the rock the league was built upon.

Instead, they have to battle the very league — and the very union that is supposed to protect players — for medical benefits, retirement moneys and aid for those no longer able to take care of themselves.

The league says $126 million a year goes into pension and post-career disability benefits for retired players and their families. The accounts pay out $60 million a year to those players, $20 million of it for disability payments.

But only 317 out of more than 10,000 eligible players are getting disability payments out of that fund, according to league officials.

That still breaks down to $63,000 a year from an industry that generates more the $7 billion a year.

The NFL says its done its part.

The union says it has done what it can. Upshaw — on vacation in Italy, so he did not attend Tuesday’s hearing — has pretty much washed his hands of the group, saying the NFLPA is in place to champion the cause of the current players.

Yep ... lots of millionaires need your support.

Shame on all of you. Not one of you has the guts to stand up and do the right thing. Not one of you is willing to look into your soul — and dig into your well-attended coffers — and come up with a bit of charity.

These former players gave of themselves — at a time when the game mattered more than a paycheck — and they should get what they have earned.

And, if there is justice in this world, the stingy NFL, the tight-fisted NFLPA and cold-hearted Upshaw, will get what they deserve, too.

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Congress Considers Action to Help Former N.F.L. Players

June 28, 2007
By ALAN SCHWARZ
New York Times

A House of Representatives subcommittee hearing on the N.F.L.’s divisive player-disability plan in Washington on Tuesday afternoon included one particularly ominous exchange.

Representative William Delahunt, Democrat of Massachusetts, asked Douglas W. Ell, the lead lawyer for the plan, whether retired players are represented by the N.F.L. players union. Ell replied, “Understand that legally, under the law ... ” before Delahunt interrupted.

“I understand ‘legally,’ ” Delahunt shot back. “We can change the law. We can change the law here. That’s what we’re doing.”

Whether Congress will ultimately consider action, or whether the hearing served merely as its public relations warning to the league and union to improve a disability system that the panel depicted as drawn-out and draconian, remained unclear one day after the hearing. But three members of the committee reasserted in telephone interviews yesterday that they would consider legislation should they not see improvements to the treatment of retired players, of whom 317 received disability payments of about $63,000 apiece last year.

Asked about Delahunt’s remarks during Tuesday’s hearing, the N.F.L. spokesman Joe Browne wrote in an e-mail message: “We did not take the congressman’s words as a warning. If he and other members want to change the National Labor Relations Act for retired N.F.L. players and retired employees in other industries, that is their prerogative.”

Representative Linda T. Sanchez, Democrat of California, who called the hearing as chairwoman of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Commercial and Administrative Law, replied that Congress was prepared to stage more hearings and take legislative action if the N.F.L. and the players union did not agree on a “fair and compassionate plan” on their own.

“I think they do need to be worried that they’ve got someone looking over their shoulder,” Sanchez said. “I don’t want to threaten them and say we’ve got this legislation lined up, because that’s not the case at this point. We’re still in a very preliminary stage. We’re giving them the opportunity, and I hope they’re taking it.”

In an interview after the hearing Tuesday, Ell said that he was concerned that the two-hour forum, which included commentary from 8 witnesses and 12 committee members, could not properly address the legal and practical reasons for the plan’s policies.

“I don’t think you can capture this issue in a 15-second sound bite,” he said.

Ell declined to predict what effects the hearing might have on the plan, other than to say that changes would need to derive from collective bargaining between the league and the union.

Browne said that the pension plan had improved over the years and would continue to without the involvement of Congress.

“In the past year, we have begun to offer new types of benefits and have streamlined the process to get those benefits,” he said.

Browne added that Gene Upshaw, executive director of the union, “is meeting with Hall of Famers and other prominent retired players on July 24 to discuss even additional types of benefits.”

Delahunt said yesterday that he “was really taken aback” by what he called the league’s and the union’s legalistic, rather than humanitarian, approach to the matter.

Representative Tom Feeney, Republican of Florida, said that he and other members of the subcommittee wanted retired players to have a stronger voice in decisions regarding the plan structure and specific benefit claims. Feeney said Congress could act through its oversight of workplace health issues and interstate commerce, as well as its grant to the N.F.L. of a partial exemption from federal antitrust laws.

“Imagine if Congress decided that in order to ensure the safety of players, we would have OSHA inspectors show up for every practice, every pregame, workouts and weight training, etc. — and make sure like we do in other workplaces that the environment is safe and sound and nobody’s health is threatened,” Feeney said, referring to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

Feeney added, “I believe that we could mandate almost any conditions that we wanted to,” but he predicted that a more immediate impact would come in the form of continued bad publicity to the league and the players union. Congress appeared to have significant influence in encouraging Major League Baseball and its players union to strengthen its policies toward performance-enhancing drugs after hearings in March 2005.

“Congress is more likely to use the bully pulpit and to rattle sabers as long as it perceives a problem,” Feeney said. “I can guarantee you that there are more than a few people up here who, if there are another few high-profile cases, who are ready to kill a gnat with a sledgehammer.”

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NFL testimony is stark, disturbing

Arkansas News Bureau
Thursday, Jun 28, 2007

By Harry King

LITTLE ROCK - Normally, ESPN clips don't move me. This one did.

It was a 63-year-old woman detailing the lengths her late husband had to go through to sign an autograph; Sandra Unitas talking about John Unitas.

Her stark and disturbing words were much more riveting than the normal montage of long home runs, diving catches and wicked sliders that show up at 10 p.m. in late June. She was in Washington on Tuesday, along with former Chicago Bears coach Mike Ditka, Garrett Webster, son of former Pittsburgh center Mike Webster, and others for a congressional hearing.

They are upset with the NFL Players Association's disability benefit system for retired NFL players.

Rep. Linda Sanchez, D-Calif., pushed for the hearing by the House Judiciary Subcommittee, including a plea in which she was quoted as saying, "The NFL is a billion-dollar organization built on the backs of individuals who have, in many cases, sacrificed their mobility, suffered traumatic brain injury, or worse."

Not into diplomacy on or off the field, Ditka made it clear that he wasn't interested in explanations, only action. Congress is often slow-moving and blunt might work in this case, but it was the widow's words that were touching.

To set up those words and to be fair, know that NFL spokesman Greg Aielllo said Unitas' application for total and permanent disability was denied. "In other words," he said, "he was able to work."

Unitas, who left the NFL in 1974, had two knee replacements and heart bypass surgery. He was involved in a variety of businesses, but his wife said she used rubber bands to strap pens to his right hand and that he employed a similar tactic to play golf.

"He would take a glove to a shoe repairman and they would put Velcro in and he would wrap it around the club so the club wouldn't go flying," she told the Baltimore Sun.

I did not see the testimony of former Minnesota guard Brent Boyd, who suffered concussions during his playing days, but he asked the subcommittee to be patient with him.

"I do have brain damage, when under stress, my brain gets less blood," he said.

His testimony and that of others are jolts about the violence of the game. Eyes wide open, players sign up for the mayhem, but they are uniform in their belief that they will escape long-term damage or that the pain is worth the pay.

To me, the legal issues are mumbo-jumbo, but humane treatment of the people who sacrificed their bodies for the NFL should be automatic.

It also seems that Gene Upshaw, executive director of the NFL Players Association, and NFL commissioner Roger Goodell could have found their way to Washington for the hearing. Both cited scheduling conflicts.

In their stead, Douglas Ell, counsel for the players association and the disability plan, told Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., that 317 former players receive disability payments.

Pressed by Waters, Ell said there are about 8,000 retired players. "In one of the most dangerous sports in the history of mankind, only 300 players are receiving disability payments?" she said.

Supposedly, applying for benefits is a tedious process. On the other side, Ell defended the process, saying skilled lawyers are misrepresenting the facts.

Don't confuse me with the facts on either side. Surely, there is money available for the gladiators who sacrificed their bodies and their future to lay the groundwork for a league that is so big it has created its own network.

For instance, the Washington Redskins franchise is supposed to be worth more than $1.1 billion and the Dallas Cowboys franchise is worth more than $920 million. Franchises in Houston, New England, Philadelphia and Denver are worth $815 or more.

Players, too, have reaped benefits. Peyton Manning, Reggie Bush and others make megabucks, but a fourth-year player who does nothing but cover kicks received a minimum of $510,000 last year.

Sadly, some of those players probably don't have a clue about Unitas or what he meant to their bank accounts.



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Harry King is sports columnist for Stephens Media's Arkansas News Bureau. His e-mail address is hking@arkansasnews.com.

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Ex-49er suing over league's disability plan

by Kevin Lynch, San Francisco Chronicle Staff Writer
Thursday, June 28, 2007

Ex-49ers and Cal offensive lineman Ben Lynch is suing the NFL's and player union's joint disability plan. Lynch and his attorney, Cy Smith, filed the suit Wednesday, one day after four former NFL players testified about the board's inadequacies in Congress.

The former center/guard, who played mainly as a backup for the 49ers from 1999 through 2002, sustained an anterior cruciate ligament tear Aug. 23, 2003, while in the Houston Texans' training camp.

During a subsequent surgery to replace the torn ligament, Lynch developed a staph infection.

The infected ligament was removed, and in the five surgeries that followed, Lynch contracted complex regional pain syndrome.

"I would get this wild, burning pain just sitting around watching television," Lynch said. He had his sixth surgery in an effort to relieve the pain Wednesday. Lynch feels excruciating pain and can walk only about 200 yards at a time.

On Sept. 29 of last year, Lynch sent an appeal to the NFL and the players' union joint disability board for benefits. As of Wednesday morning, he hadn't heard from the board. Lynch and his attorney are filing the suit under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, which requires the board to respond in a timely manner.

"They haven't made a decision," Lynch said. "We just wanted to turn to the courts to see if we have a valid disability claim."

Former Viking Brent Boyd, who has brain damage, former Raiders lineman Curt Marsh, who had his leg amputated after a botched surgery, former Giants Hall of Fame linebacker Harry Carson, who has post-concussion syndrome and former Bears coach Mike Ditka, an advocate for retired players, testified Tuesday before a congressional committee.

Most of their complaints were against the disability board, which often rejects claims for benefits. The six-member Pete Rozelle/Bert Bell Retirement Board has three representatives from the union and three from the NFL.

The NFL and the players' union couldn't be reached for comment.

E-mail Kevin Lynch at klynch@sfchronicle.com.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/06/28/SPGQPQN8QO1.DTL

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Column: Who's At Fault For NFL Injuries?

AP Sports
Thursday, 28 Jun 2007, 7:08 AM EDT

By the time former NFL players got done telling their stories of pain and poverty to Congress, there was barely a dry eye in the House. With good reason.

It's easy to feel sympathy for someone like Curt Marsh, the former Oakland Raider offensive lineman who said playing in the NFL led to 31 surgeries, including the amputation of his right leg eight inches above the ankle.

Marsh has a Super Bowl ring on his finger, a metal plate in his neck and screws holding most everything else together.

Then there's Brent Boyd, the former Minnesota Viking who has struggled with depression and other mental problems from the battering his brain took while playing in the 1980s. Unlike Marsh, Boyd lost his case for permanent disability benefits.

Boyd is bitter and not afraid to show it. The NFL and its player's union, he told members of Congress, have been "using their tactics of delay and deny and hope I put a bullet through my head to end their problem."

Sad cases, indeed. Sad enough for some politicians to suggest there ought to be a law against the way ex-players have been treated.

There won't be.

Those gathered before the House Judiciary Subcommittee the other day understood that. For them, the hearing was a chance to argue their case in a very public forum, and an equally good chance for our elected officials to show they care.

The sad stories are sure to continue, if only because there are so many. The question then becomes how much can be blamed on the NFL and how much is the fault of the players themselves?

Football is a violent, brutal sport. It's even more violent and more brutal when played by the biggest and best players.

The retired players should have understood that when they joined the league. They didn't. Because when you're 25 you think you're indestructible, and the future seems a long way away.

That future is now for some 10,000 former players, and it's more painful than they ever imagined. Just 317 are receiving disability payments, and most of the others believe they should be getting far more in pension pay than they do.

This week's hearing did help turn up the pressure on the league and the NFL Player's Association, who decide how much of the $1.1 billion fund for pensions and disability will be paid out and to whom it will be paid. What they haven't been able to win in courts and arbitration hearings, the former players are trying to win by rallying public support.

The campaign is starting to have an effect. NFL commissioner Roger Goodell has set a summit next month to try and work things out between the league, the union and the retirees. And the NFL and NFLPA said last week they will use Social Security standards to define disabilities, which should make it easier to qualify.

Hall of Famer Mike Ditka says it's a simple matter of right versus wrong. The league, he says, is rich and getting richer, and should take care of those who played a part in making it what it is today.

Union chief Gene Upshaw believes it's not so simple. He said last month that benefits have increased, but that he was tired of explaining it to Ditka and others.

"I'm not sure he would understand it if I did," Upshaw said, adding: "Yes, I'm calling him stupid."

Upshaw's been doing a lot of name-calling lately. Just last month he reacted angrily to comments about paltry pensions by Hall of Famer Joe DeLamielleure by saying he would like to "break his ... damn neck."

Upshaw knows where his loyalties lie, even though he falls in the same group of retired players the union is so wary of giving money to. He's employed by current players, who have made it clear they are more concerned with keeping money in the fund for their future than paying it out for those who went ahead of them.

The NFL, though, is more sensitive to public opinion and would rather part with a few million dollars than be accused of not caring about its players. Since the league and the union administer the plan jointly, they must find some middle ground.

The retired players, too, must share in taking responsibility.

While others their age went to work in offices and factories and began planning their lives, they chose to play football for a living.

The money's good while it lasts, but then it's suddenly gone. And many never bothered to learn other skills or get a degree that might mean something in the job market.

Some end up with broken bodies; others just end up broke.

In the end, though, they all have one thing in common, something that should frame the debate about what they're due.

No one ever forced them to play the game.

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Tim Dahlberg is a national sports columnist for The Associated Press.

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Opinion: Santa Cruz (Calif.) Sentinel

June 28, 2007

As We See It: NFL, union need to help ex-players.

Talk about some strange bedfellows: Republicans and Democrats seem to agree that more should be done to get disability help for needy former National Football League players.

And both the league itself and the NFL players' union are in agreement that the league and current players are doing enough.

This story played out earlier this week in Congress as the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Commercial and Administrative Law heard from NFL officials, lawyers, player representatives and, most notably, former players like Mike Ditka.

The fiery Ditka, known for his hard play back in the '60s, his sideline presence as a coach in the '80s and '90s and his animated television presence in the '00s, was particularly outspoken.

It's not clear whether Congress would actually take any sort of action to help former players clearly in need. But Ditka and others seized on the hearing as a way to publicize the plight of former players suffering from football-related injuries like dementia and other physical ailments.

While representatives of the league and of current players told Congress of the many measures taken to help ailing former players, a group of former players said it wasn't true. "Now that they have put the lipstick on the pig," said former Minnesota Viking lineman Brent Boyd, "I want to tell you what reality is" Boyd then explained, according to the Chicago Tribune, how the NFL Players Association retirement disability board rejected his claim for benefits. Two doctors confirmed a diagnosis of a football-related brain disorder. The players' association board sent him to a third doctor, who rejected the claim.

In fact, the Tribune reported, Boyd said he's received more assistance from former Major League Baseball players like Mark Grace and Rick Sutcliffe than from anyone associated with the NFL or the players' union.

Football is a great spectator sport, but it's a dangerous game. The creators of the sport never intended it to be played by 300-pound men with blazing speed.

We agree with Ditka that "something's wrong and it can be fixed"

The first step is for the league, team owners and the players to make a commitment to the former players, the ones who never made much money while building the sport into what it is. That commitment ought to be a significant amount of dollars to help in their support and treatment.

You can find this story online at:
http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/archive/2007/June/28/edit/stories/01edit.htm

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NFL no match for aging vets

Image-minded league can't put positive spin on retirees' deal

by Paul Daugherty
Cincinnati Inquirer
Thursday, June 28, 2007

The NFL is the master league at spin. Not only does it put out public relations fires before they roar, it anticipates the flames before they spark. Is it any wonder commissioner Roger Goodell stressed proper conduct at a rookie symposium this week?

No pro league is more aware of its image and how it relates to the bottom line. The NFL never loses a PR war.

Until now. The league and its players association are being whipped so decisively in an image contest, their only option is unconditional surrender.

The NFL people arrive at a hearing Tuesday before a House Judiciary subcommittee. The subject is the league's treatment of its former players. They bring their charts, their numbers and their lawyers in dark suits. Look at all this money we have for these old guys!

The old guys bring themselves. They limp, they walk with crutches. They excuse themselves in advance for any lapses during testimony. Their brains, they explain, are scrambled from playing professional football.

Whom are you going to believe?

Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) asks NFL Players Association counsel Douglas Ell how many retired players are currently receiving disability payments.

"Three hundred seventeen," he answers.

How many are eligible?, Waters asks.

Roughly 8,000, Ell answers.

Whom are you going to believe?

One former NFL gladiator, a lineman named Curt Marsh, told the subcommittee he has had 31 surgeries, including 14 on a leg that eventually was amputated.

Another guy is still so popular, 22 years after he coached in a Super Bowl and at least 30 years after he played, he signs autographs when he's done trashing the league and its players association. Mike Ditka never was short with his opinions.

The NFL can't win this one. If it says pensions and disability coverage had to be agreed to by the players in every new collective bargaining agreement, it looks petty and small. If it says the pension for some players now exceeds what they earned while playing, it looks cheap. It can't say that the current rank and file should pay more attention to the deals it signs.

That'd be true. It also would be skirting the issue. Which, today, looks a lot like Brian DeMarco, a former lineman. He walks with a cane. In some sort of contorted exercise in modern medical science, his spine has been fused to his hip. He has no health insurance because the deal the players cut with the league says the coverage expires three years after you retire. He can't work. Medical bills wiped him out. He told The Enquirer and other media outlets that he has been homeless three times in the last four years.

The NFL says it's taking better financial care of its old players than ever before. It says this at a hearing without its two best spokesmen. NFLPA chief Gene Upshaw was out of the country; Goodell was with the rookies. Wasn't the hearing important?

Of course players should study the deals they approve. Of course they make lots of money - now. What company these days pays fully for the health care of its retirees? How many companies still have pension plans?

What you choose to do to your knees - and hips and shoulders and brain - in the performance of your job is your business. Which would be true, in most jobs. Football isn't one of those.

Nobody who helped make billions for his company should be without a home because he can't get help from his company.

Former Bengal Bob Trumpy says the players association has ripped off its rank and file. He says Upshaw is too cozy with the league.

"Upshaw has claimed labor peace, but he has done it at the expense of the retired players," Trumpy said. He believes the players association has a moral obligation to the players who made today's wealth possible, but he doesn't know how to make things right.

"Ownership knows that if they get involved in paying the medical bills of ex-players, they'll go broke," he said. "I can't think of some magic bullet to fix this."

Conrad Dobler has a suggestion. For a few years, Dobler, a former NFL offensive lineman, has been the poster man for a system gone wrong. He has so much plastic in his knees, he could open a G.I. Joe factory. Between him and his four former linemates, Dobler said to me, "We don't have enough body parts to make a whole person."

Dobler suggests putting 2 percent of the salary cap into a retirement fund. I'm not an accountant; I wouldn't know how that might work. I'm not a rich, egocentric current player, either, so I don't know if they'd go for it.

But it's a start. Meantime, let's do something for Brian DeMarco, shall we? The way it is now, it just doesn't look good.

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NFL's disability benefits railed on in 2-hour hearing

By David Haugh
Chicago Tribune staff reporter

June 26, 2007, 11:02 PM CDT

WASHINGTON -- At one point during his five-minute testimony in front of a Congressional subcommittee Tuesday, Mike Ditka got so carried away with emotion he had to pause because he lost his place reading from a prepared script.

It didn't matter. Ditka spent most of his time speaking from the heart anyway, a big reason for the debate on NFL retirement benefits ending up on Capitol Hill in the first place.

"I'm not a newcomer in the game as some would like to say," an animated Ditka told the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Commercial and Administrative Law, chaired by Rep. Linda Sanchez (D-Calif.). "All we're here for is for the system to get fixed. The system does not work."

Nattily attired in a blue pinstriped suit, Ditka was one of eight witnesses the subcommittee heard during a two-hour hearing that helped legitimize a cause some have dismissed as just a bunch of old jocks whining.

Besides Ditka, the other former players who testified included Harry Carson, Brent Boyd and Curt Marsh, a former Oakland Raiders lineman who has endured 31 surgeries and the amputation of his foot as a result of his NFL career.

Dave Duerson, a member of the NFL Players Association's six-member retirement disability review board that came under heavy fire, sat in the gallery some 10 feet from Ditka-his former coach and recent adversary during a heated radio exchange.

The league, the game itself and the NFLPA took such a beating during the proceedings that somebody might have thrown a flag for piling on if the discussion had lasted much longer.

"I see disenfranchisement on behalf of retired players," Rep. Bill Delahunt (D-Mass) said. "I think it would behoove the NFL or the NFL [Players Association] to start absorbing retired players to see that they are adequately represented."

Those in the small room of the Rayburn Building hoping to hear fire-and-brimstone from "Da Coach" were not disappointed: Ditka delivered. Even a couple of legislators could be seen suppressing smiles as Ditka, talking demonstrably with his hands, used a tone that implied the sense of urgency he brought with him to the nation's capital.

"If you make people fill out enough forms, if you discourage them enough, make them jump through enough hoops, they're going to say, 'I don't need this,' " the former Bears player and coach said, his voice rising. "This is ridiculous. They're frustrated. These are proud people. ... The people today are not the makers of the game, they're the keepers of the game."

Ditka stopped to look down at his five-page script on the table. Three seconds of silence passed before he regrouped.

"Why are we in front of Congress?" he continued. "We feel something's wrong and it can be fixed. Why can't this be taken care of? That's all we're asking."

Later, during a question period, Rep. Tom Feeney (R-Fla.) asked Ditka about his claim that there were 300 retired players seeking disability benefits but unable to get them. Acknowledging he might not have been correct on his estimate, Ditka quickly changed the subject and broke into a rant about the system.

"The responsibility has to go back to the league and the owners," Ditka said. "Come on, you ... it's a bunch of red tape and bureaucracy."

Noting Ditka's fire, Feeney closed his remarks by saying, "I don't want to quarrel with coach Ditka."

To which Sanchez added, smiling, "I wouldn't recommend it."

This all came after officials from the NFL and NFLPA began the proceedings by methodically stating their claim that the problems have been misrepresented.

Dennis Curran, an NFL Senior Vice President who administers various benefit plans, testified the league had increased its retirement fund from $88 million in 1982 to $1.1 billion today and active players contributed $126 million in 2006.

Stating that the NFL "is proud of its benefits," Curran pointed out how the league has reduced pension qualifications from five years of service to three.

Douglas Ell, a lawyer representing the NFLPA in executive director Gene Upshaw's absence, followed up by reporting the league had increased pensions four times since 1993. Ell also praised the new "Mackey 88" plan helping dementia patients, introduced five former players in the gallery who had no problems obtaining benefits and left an impression the union had done nothing to deserve the flak from
Ditka and Co.

Boyd, a former Vikings lineman who said he still feels the effects of concussions and suffers from clinical depression 25 years later, took the floor to refute the rosy picture Curran and Ell painted.

"Now that they have put the lipstick on the pig, I want to tell you what reality is," he said.

Boyd told how the NFLPA retirement disability board turned down his request for full benefits even though two doctors concluded his brain disorder was football-related. The board sent Boyd to a third doctor at Johns Hopkins, who disagreed.

When he encountered financial hardship as a result of his inability to work, Boyd said he received more help from Major League Baseball players such as Mark Grace, Rick Sutcliffe and other friends of agent Barry Axelrod than anybody in the NFL. He called the league's retirement policy, "delay, deny and hope I put a bullet in my head."

"The NFL was hoping I'd go away and die," he said.

Another compelling tale came from Cy Smith, the lawyer who represented the late Pittsburgh Steelers great Mike Webster. Smith related how the league denied Webster full disability before his death in 2002 despite an NFL-approved physician attributing Webster's head injuries and inability to work to the impact of football.

On behalf of Webster and his family, Smith filed suit in federal court to get a fair disability pension and won a decision that was upheld last December on appeal. When Upshaw was quoted a day later saying he would have done the same thing, it stuck with Smith.

"It would be terrific if I could say to you the NFL has learned a lesson, but sadly, I cannot," Smith told the subcommittee.

He made three recommendations: a 45-day review limit on disability applications that would reduce months and years of waiting, a mutual arbitrator deciding the fate of those applications instead of a hand-picked six-man panel and new union leadership.

Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), whose husband Sid Williams is a former an NFL linebacker, questioned why the NFLPA was only paying 317 retired players disability benefits totaling $20 million.

"In one of the most dangerous sports in history of mankind, only 317 are receiving disability?" Waters asked.

Rep. Hank Johnson (D-Ga.), after hearing all the testimony, called the situation "quite a tragedy."

When the hearing ended with the pounding of a gavel, Boyd leaned over to hug Ditka and said, "Thanks, coach."

Ditka just smiled, looking satisfied that the crusade had reached the lofty heights of Congress. Then he disappeared down a back hallway without comment, having said all he came to say.

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Ex-NFL players address Congress

Retirees seek change in league's disability benefits system

By Jeff Barker
Baltimore Sun Reporter

June 27, 2007

WASHINGTON -- It was a day of tears - but also relief - for retired NFL players who hope their accounts of debilitating football injuries will move Congress to demand reform of a "broken" disability benefits system.

"Thank God for Congress. Maybe they're going to do something," Hall of Fame guard Joe DeLamielleure said after a House of Representatives Judiciary subcommittee heard from four former players, an NFL representative and others.

Members of the Subcommittee on Commercial and Administrative Law listened to former players, including Hall of Famers Harry Carson and Mike Ditka. Some lawmakers expressed sympathy for retired players' plights and said they would study possible reforms. Several lawmakers said they would consider legislation strengthening ex-players' rights to be part of union activities, while others said they wanted the
arbitration process speeded up.

Rep. Maxine Waters, a California Democrat whose husband, Sidney Williams, played in the NFL (including one season with the Baltimore Colts), said she was alarmed to learn that little more than 300 players currently qualify for disability benefits. Since up to 10,000 have played in the league, "that does not compute. Football is a
dangerous game," Waters said.

Douglas W. Ell, counsel to the players' retirement plan, said the system has been unfairly maligned.

"Unfortunately, a great deal of what has been said or written about the benefits available to NFL players has been wrong or misleading," Ell told the panel. "The players association and the NFL have created the most generous disability benefits in professional sports, and possibly the entire business world," he said.

The retirement plan's fund contains $1.1 billion and covers retirement, disability and death benefits. Retired players can receive $110,000 per year if they are declared "totally and permanently disabled" within 15 years after leaving football. There are also various levels of partial disability.

Former players apply for benefits through administrators in Baltimore. The applicant is sent to a retirement board-approved physician. If the player disagrees with the decision, he can appeal to a retirement board composed of three NFL management representatives and three players union representatives.

"The door is then slammed shut on the player," said Rep. Hank Johnson, a Georgia Democrat. "The door is shut and there is no one there."

Of 1,052 initial claims since 1993, 675 have been denied at the initial stage, according to written testimony provided to the panel.

Thirty-two players have sued to try to win benefits, and almost none have succeeded. Seven such lawsuits are pending.

"It's right versus wrong, period," Ditka told the panel. "Do the ethical thing or do the wrong thing. And they've chosen to do the wrong thing."

Dennis Curran, an NFL senior vice president, said the league is open to revisiting the rule that says players have a 15-year window after retirement to file certain claims.

"Fifteen years is really a joke," said Carson, who is 53. "Having been out of the league 19 years, I'm starting to feel things. The whole post-concussion thing has manifested itself over the years."

Earlier in the day, a dozen retired NFL players appeared at a news conference to promote their cause. One by one, they walked or were assisted to the National Press Club lectern.

There was former Jacksonville Jaguars lineman Brian DeMarco, who cleared his throat and apologized for becoming "emotional" as he described being homeless three times in recent years. He said he has rods and screws in his back and can barely walk but that he has been in a long fight over benefits.

There was Garrett Webster, the son of the late Pittsburgh Steelers center Mike Webster, who said his father "died cold, alone, on the floor" and addicted to painkillers. He was dead by the time a federal judge in Baltimore awarded his family significant new pension benefits in 2005.

There was Bernie Parrish, a white-haired former Cleveland Browns defensive back, who said: "We have been betrayed, and we're not going to take it anymore."

And there was Sandra Unitas, the widow of Baltimore Colts legend John Unitas. She held up a hook with a rubberized handle that she said her Hall of Fame husband used to button his shirts because of an injury dating to a 1968 preseason game.

DeMarco, Webster, Parrish and Unitas said they believed there were troubling holes in a system that some called "broken." Parrish said he and others had lost faith in the NFL Players Association's resolve to defend their interests. Gene Upshaw, the union's executive director, declined an invitation to attend the hearing, the committee said.

Sandra Unitas, 63, said her husband was "very, very disappointed" that his disability claim was denied for a tendon injury in his famous right arm - a rejection the NFL says was warranted because Unitas was healthy enough to hold a job.

Former Miami Dolphins running back Eugene "Mercury" Morris said he saw a message in the treatment of Unitas. "If they did that to Johnny Unitas, then they'll do that to anybody," Morris said.

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Ditka Testifies to Congress: 'The system does not work."

Upshaw passes on hearing before lawmakers
By David Haugh
Chicago Tribune staff reporter
June 27, 2007

WASHINGTON -- After two hours of testimony in front of a Congressional subcommittee Tuesday officially ended with the pounding of a gavel, former NFL player Brent Boyd leaned over to hug Mike Ditka and said, "Thanks, coach."

Ditka just smiled, looking satisfied that the crusade for increasing access to benefits for retired players such as Boyd had reached the lofty heights of Capitol Hill.

The House Judiciary Subcommittee on Commercial and Administrative Law, chaired by Rep. Linda Sanchez (D-Calif.), heard from eight witnesses, including Ditka, who detailed the problems and possible solutions related to the NFL's retirement benefits. Proponents of change viewed this forum with lawmakers as an opportunity to legitimize a cause that some have categorized as just a bunch of old jocks whining.

The league, the game, and the NFL Players Association took a beating from former players such as Boyd, an ex-Viking still suffering from concussions sustained 25 years ago, and former Raiders guard Curt Marsh, who had 31 surgeries, including having a foot amputated.

They criticized the bureaucracy that ex-players must navigate to file disability claims and the process by which they are approved by the NFLPA. Representatives on the subcommittee provided a captive audience, with Rep. Bill Delahunt (D-Mass.) at one point remarking, "I can understand the frustration of the retired players here."

Part of the frustration Tuesday stemmed from the absence of NFLPA executive director Eugene Upshaw, who did not attend. The NFLPA was represented by lawyer Douglas Ell.

In typical Ditka fashion, his rhetoric escalated the more he spoke and his tone implied a sense of urgency. For those in the small hearing room of the Rayburn Building hoping to hear fire-and-brimstone from "Da Coach," they got it.

"The system does not work," Ditka said. "If you make people fill out enough forms, if you discourage them enough, make them jump through enough hoops, they're going to say, 'I don't need this.' "

Later, during a question period, Ditka was asked about his claim that there were 300 retired players seeking disability benefits but unable to do so. Ditka acknowledged he might not have been correct on his estimate and then broke into a rant about the system.

"The responsibility has to go back to the league and the owners," Ditka said, his voice raising. "Come on, you. ... It's a bunch of red tape and bureaucracy."

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Latchkey NFL? Vets Appeal to Congress

Hearing on Retired Players Fuels Debate, Solves Little

By LESTER MUNSON
ABC News
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- June 27, 2007-

In a historic room where a nation's elected representatives pondered the impeachment of two presidents, a House subcommittee pondered a different kind of history in a hearing on Tuesday afternoon -- the history of the National Football League's treatment of old players fighting injury and insolvency.

The charges and countercharges were no less intense than the charges and countercharges that flew around the room as Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton faced impeachment. They included talk of "fraud" and "crime" and "corruption," as a small group of retired players ripped into Gene Upshaw, the leader of the NFL Players Association, and the league.

Brent Boyd, who says he suffered concussions and brain damage while playing guard for the Vikings for seven seasons in the 1980s, compared the NFL to the tobacco industry.

"They lie about the NFL and concussions the same way the tobacco companies lied about tobacco and cancer," Boyd said.

Curt Marsh, a first-round draft pick in 1981 who played guard for the Raiders for seven years, described his difficulties in persuading the NFL that he was disabled despite 31 surgeries, 14 of them on his leg, including its amputation. Both of Marsh's hips have been replaced, and he's had seven operations on his back.

"I had no leg," he said. "I had no hips. I had no back. And they thought I was fine."

Representatives of the union and the league, meanwhile, offered lengthy summaries of what the NFL currently does for retired players, trying to convince Subcommittee Chairwoman Linda T. Sanchez that the NFL has been generous and compassionate. A Players Association lawyer, Douglas W. Ell, said the NFL's disability benefits is "the most generous in sports and maybe on the planet."

Just like the presidential impeachment hearings conducted in Room 2141 of the Rayburn Office Building, neither side gave an inch. The players presented compelling and tragic stories, and the NFL and its union furnished powerful numbers and data to back up their assertions that they treat retired players well.

So at the end of the day, what was accomplished? The five House committee members who attended the hearing asked some questions, but they led to nothing that will change any laws or solve any problems. The hearing didn't even determine with any certainty that there is a problem.

However, some of the issues in the controversy are clear, despite Tuesday's adversarial exchanges and the political posturing. Here are six:

The NFL and the Players Association have been increasing benefits for disabled players year after year and collective bargaining agreement after collective bargaining agreement. There was an enormous jump in benefits in the union contract of 1993, after Upshaw led the players through a series of triumphant antitrust lawsuits that resulted in free agency and many other benefits. As former player Tom Keating observed, "What other business increases pensions payments after the
employee is on a pension. I am grateful to Gene Upshaw for the increases he has produced."

There is a small group of players who have suffered indignities and mild abuse in the disability system. But it is a small group. For every player with a sad story, there are dozens who are making more in their pensions and disability benefits than they ever did as players.

It is difficult to understand the rage of some of the older players. Under Upshaw's leadership, the union has produced enormous steps forward for players in salary, medical care, and pensions. Sitting in the audience with other disgruntled players at the hearing was Mike Pyle, the president of the players union in the 60s. He and his leadership team accomplished very little for players, but they now criticize Upshaw and his stewardship of the union.

Hall of Fame tight end Mike Ditka, the celebrity attraction at the hearing (he was mobbed in the hall by autograph seekers), seems to suffer from something akin to attention deficit disorder. He is operating his own fund for older players and he rages away at Upshaw and the union, but he isn't able to provide any specific information. He once claimed that some 300 players have been wrongfully denied
disability benefits. When asked about it at Tuesday's hearing, though, he admitted, "I'm not sure that is correct." But it didn't stop him from preaching to the committee about "what's right and what's wrong" and about a "system that is obviously broken."

The league and the union could do a better job of explaining what they do for disabled players. Neither Commissioner Roger Goodell nor Upshaw chose to appear at the hearing. The league sent its masterful PR wizard, Joe Browne, and one of its top lawyers, Dennis Curran. The union sent attorney Ell and its disability expert, Michele Yaras-Davis, and produced an impressive package of data on its disability
program. But personal appearances by Goodell and Upshaw might have changed both the atmosphere and the substance at the hearing.

Players frequently make bad decisions as they leave the NFL. Despite extensive efforts by union officials to inform players of the legal avenues they must follow to protect themselves, players frequently find themselves taking their pensions too early, losing benefits in divorce litigation, failing to file workers compensation cases that could protect them against future medical bills and disabilities.

The impeachment hearings in Room 2141 didn't stop people from continuing to argue about Nixon and Clinton and the things they did or did not do or cover up. The NFL hearing in the same room likely won't stop old players, the media, and fans from continuing to argue about what the NFL does, doesn't do or covers up about its disabilities and pensions.

You hoped the historic room might have worked some magic and cleared things up for the NFL and its fans. It didn't. Instead, the hearing only seemed to harden positions and add to the arguments.

ESPN.com's Lester Munson is a Chicago lawyer and journalist who has
been reporting on investigative and legal issues in the sports
industry for 18 years.

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NFL Players Say They Struggle to Collect Health Benefits Later in Life

After Careers Packed With Tackles, Football Greats Sidelined and Saddled With Health Bills

ABC News
June 26, 2007 -

The fact that pro football players absorb punishment is no secret, but what happens to many of them after their playing days are over is just now getting some attention.

Former NFL stars testified before a House committee in Washington, D.C. Tuesday and said years after their contracts ended, the pro football league has ignored the injuries that in many cases have left them disabled.

"We've been homeless three times in the last four years and it's a terrifying experience," said Brian DeMarco, who wore number 73 for the Jacksonville Jaguars.

He said he's uninsured and broke and can't get the NFL to hear his claim for disability benefits. He decided to testify for himself and others in his situation.

"Somebody has got to step up to help the guys like me," he said.

Congress questioned the way the $7 billion league and its union run its disability fund, while a representative from the NFL Players Association defended the program.

"We believe these are the most generous disability benefits in professional sports, perhaps in the entire business world," said Dougless Ell of the NFL Players Retirement Fund.

Paperwork, Bureaucracy Muddle Claims

Critics of the benefits say there's a catch, as former players struggle to deal with the system involved in filing a claim.

"The plan is actually a very generous plan but they won't let the players partake of the generous benefits that they offer," said an ex-players attorney, John Hogan.

Former players face an ocean of NFL and government paperwork with little assistance and lots of discouragement, said former player and coach Mike Ditka.

"They don't administrate anything. It's a bunch of red tape and a bureaucracy that's all it is," he told lawmakers.

Others say that's on purpose.

"Delay, deny and hope you die," said Bernie Parish who played for the Cleveland Browns. "Can I say that again? Delay, deny and hope you die."

With roughly 8,000 former players dating back more than half a century, only 300 receive disability benefits from a game that's all about hitting people.

NFL officials admit the system can be improved, and Willie Wood sure hopes it will be.

He was a cornerback for the Green Bay Packers in the 1960s and now lives in a rest home, weary of disability disputes.

"I walked upright when I came into the league and I limped out of there," he explained.

Despite his success in the sport, now he says they "tend to forget about you."

"You know the old saying, 'what have you done for us lately?,'" he said.

If anyone needs a refresher -- a bust of Willie Wood is on display at the pro football hall of fame.

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Congress scolds N.F.L. and union

By ALAN SCHWARZ
New York Times
June 27, 2007

WASHINGTON, June 26 - With a dozen former players nodding and smiling in the audience, members of a House of Representatives subcommittee hearing testimony on the N.F.L.'s controversial player-disability plan said Tuesday that the system was not adequately serving former players and that the committee would explore legislative means to address it.

Using words like "travesty," "broken" and "pitiful," Democrats and Republicans seized upon how an industry that generates approximately $7 billion in annual revenue paid about $20 million in benefits to a total of 317 retirees, about $63,000 apiece.

At one point, Maxine Waters, Democrat of California, asked incredulously, "So in one of the most dangerous sports in the history of mankind, only 317 players are receiving disability from this source - is that correct?"

Douglas W. Ell, the lead lawyer for the disability plan, who testified on behalf of the N.F.L. Players Association, replied, "Only 317 players conformed to meet the plan's eligibility requirements, that's correct."

The House Judiciary Subcommittee on Commercial and Administrative Law heard two hours of testimony, much of it from former players who said they had been wrongfully denied benefits. The hearing was scheduled after months of growing, vocal dissatisfaction expressed by former players.

Curt Marsh, an offensive lineman for the Oakland Raiders from 1981 to 1987, told the committee he had undergone 31 operations, including the amputation of a foot, because of injuries he sustained as a player. Describing his 18-month effort to receive disability benefits, which was ultimately successful, Marsh said, "I felt as though some members of the board reviewing my case were looking for the smallest loophole to not grant disability."

Brent Boyd, a Minnesota Vikings offensive lineman from the 1980s whose doctors have said cannot work because of cognitive problems, depression and lethargy resulting from on-field concussions, was denied at several stages of the disability process and ultimately lost a challenge in federal court.

"The N.F.L. is trying to distance themselves from liability for all the carnage left behind by our N.F.L. concussions - just as tobacco companies fought like hell to deny the links between smoking and cancer," he said. Referring to the suicides of two former players later found to have sustained brain damage from on-field concussions, Terry Long and Andre Waters, Boyd said that administrators of the
disability plan were "using their tactics of delay, deny and hope that I put a bullet through my head to end their problem."

Other testimony was offered by Harry Carson and Mike Ditka, both members of the Pro Football Hall of Fame, as well as the lawyer for Mike Webster, whose efforts to be approved by the plan's six-member board of trustees outlived him - making him the standard-bearer for the issue. Webster died demented and destitute in 2002, but his estate prevailed in federal court last December, with one judge writing that
the plan's behavior "indicates culpable conduct, if not bad faith."

N.F.L. Commissioner Roger Goodell did not attend the hearing because he was at previously scheduled meetings in Germany. Gene Upshaw, the executive director of the N.F.L. Players Association, who said recently that he is "concerned about the red tape" of the disability process, was on vacation in Italy.

The N.F.L.'s representative, the senior vice president Dennis Curran, told the committee, "I don't accept that the process is broken."

While discussing the requirement that players file claims no more than 15 years after their retirement, Curran said, "Perhaps we can revisit that" - to which the chairwoman of the subcommittee, Linda T. Sanchez, Democrat of California, testily interjected, "Perhaps you should revisit that," before moving on to another witness.

After facing the most pointed questions from the committee, Ell said that Upshaw and the players union, who have been widely portrayed as ignoring veterans, had successfully bargained for the plan's existence as well as several subsequent improvements despite having no legal obligation to do so.

"A lot of the players, frankly, who are saying they're not getting enough, they weren't there to help Gene Upshaw make the pie," Ell said. "Now they're saying: 'The pie's big. We want a piece of it.' Gene's very frustrated because it seems like no matter what he does, he can't satisfy the players."

Less convinced were a group of former players who attended the hearing. One of those veterans, the Hall of Famer Sam Huff, afterward got into a pointed exchange with Dave Duerson, the former Chicago Bear who serves on the six-person group that decides disability claims. Huff produced a card identifying himself as a former N.F.L. player and barked, "I paid dues before you were born, sonny boy."

Committee members clearly sided with the former players and said they would consider legislative remedies, perhaps having claims heard by more expeditious arbitration. Several members recommended that ex-players be given a more direct voice in the plan's administration.

Maxine Waters, who is not a member of the committee, was invited to participate because her husband is the former N.F.L. player Sidney Williams.

"When you have the Republicans and the Democrats both coming from the same place, that something's wrong here, it's unusual - and we have a good opportunity to make something happen," she said.

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Voices heard, sides taken

NFL Disability Plan Testimony Stirs Passions on Capitol Hill

By Les Carpenter
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, June 27, 2007

By the time the members of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Commercial and Administrative Law moved to their second round of questioning in Room 2141 of the Rayburn House Office Building yesterday, the lawyers sent by the NFL and the players' union looked ragged.

For almost an hour, lawmakers asked questions about the league's disability plan, listening to former players and a trial lawyer who leveled allegations of a rigged claims system, lengthy waits for news on benefit applications and repeated trips to doctors who seemed determined to reject their applications.

Then Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) a member of the Judiciary Committee but not the subcommittee itself, asked Douglas Ell, counsel for the NFLPA and the disability plan, how many players actually receive disability payments.

"317," Ell replied.

Out of how many, she asked.

Ell said there are roughly 8,000 retired players.

"In one of the most dangerous sports in the history of mankind, only 300 players are receiving disability payments?" Waters said, her voice rising.

Such is how it went for Ell and NFL senior vice president Dennis Curran. Waters wondered how the plan could spend just $20 million out of a $1.1 billion fund for disability and pensions. Rep. Hank Johnson (D-Ga.) repeatedly interrupted Ell's and Curran's answers before telling the men they should not rely on a board of three owner-representatives and three NFLPA-chosen representatives to make final
disability decisions. He said they should instead choose professionals with no ties to either the league or the union.

The issue of retired pro football players and disabilities has been percolating for more than a year after many ex-players were angered by a statement by NFLPA Executive Director Gene Upshaw, who told the Charlotte Observer that he did not represent retired players. Although retired players do not choose the union's leader, the words rankled them.

Soon, stories came out describing players who had been denied benefits despite serious football injuries that left them unable to work, and with the complaints came old allegations that the union under Upshaw has become a pawn for the league.

Former Minnesota Vikings guard Brent Boyd, suffering from the lingering effects of concussions suffered while playing football, testified yesterday that he had been told by NFLPA official Miki Yaras-Davis that his doctors' reports and brain scans would not be considered because "the owners would not open that can of worms" by
approving disability for a brain injury.

Before he began speaking, Boyd asked the subcommittee to be patient as he delivered his comments. "I do have brain damage; when under stress my brain gets less blood," he said, then added that he considered testifying before Congress to be a stressful activity.

Boyd complained that the plan required him to fly across the country to see a doctor in Baltimore, who Boyd said did not examine his brain and then rejected him for disability. "If this is not fraud and corruption, we need to remove fraud and corruption from the dictionary," he said.

In the face of the players' often emotional testimony, Ell and Curran stuck to defending the plan. They were testifying because Upshaw had planned to be out of the country this week and NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, who attended a rookie symposium in Florida on Monday, chose not to come. This left Ell and Curran to take the subcommittee's questions.

Later, Ell said much of the public impressions of the plan are the result of a lack of understanding of the policies. "You have very skilled trial lawyers misrepresenting the facts," he said. He added, for instance, that former Jacksonville Jaguars tackle Brian DeMarco, who attended the hearing despite a severe back injury, has not applied for disability despite the player's pleas for help.

Of the legislators gathered in Room 2141, Waters has perhaps the most interest in the subject of the disability plan. Her husband, Sidney Williams, is a former NFL player and she said she watched one of Williams's friends, former Redskin Jim Shorter, waste away several years ago. She said she called the NFLPA several times for help but was treated rudely. As his disability application was being considered
she stormed into the retirement board's meeting in Santa Cruz, Calif., to plead his case. But he was turned down because he had taken early retirement, making him ineligible for the disability.

"I think the process is rigged and made to be confusing," Waters said after the hearing. She said she is looking into whether the NFL's antitrust exemption could be modified to let Congress control the disability plan.

As the room nearly cleared, Waters was approached by former Chicago Bear Dave Duerson, who is one of the union-appointed board members who makes decisions on disability claims. He told her the NFLPA was trying to create programs to help retirees. As he spoke, Bernie Parrish, the unofficial leader of the retired players seeking assistance, stepped in and alleged that the programs were doing little more than creating more money for Ell.

The 46-year-old Duerson and the 71-year-old Parrish began shouting at each other and were soon separated. As they were tugged into the hallway, Duerson wagged his finger at Parrish and said "you were probably one of those guys who never showed up for the [union] meetings."

Parrish, an NFLPA executive in the 1960s, was pulled away before he could respond.

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"This is about watching loved ones die."

Mark Kriegel / FOXSports.com
Posted: June 27, 2007

As warnings go, this one was as heartbreaking as it was ominous. At a news conference organized by the Gridiron Greats Assistance Fund - a group whose very existence shames the NFL Players Association - Garrett Webster spoke of his father's death.

Mike Webster played 17 seasons in the pros, most of them for the Pittsburgh Steelers, and is considered by many to be the game's greatest center. In 1997, he delivered an alarmingly confused speech at his Hall of Fame induction. Five years ago, at the age of 50, he died: broke and alone, addicted to painkillers and suffering from dementia believed to be the result of the repeated concussions he
endured as a player. In his last days, Iron Mike Webster - who started 150 consecutive games for the Steelers - would curl up in a ball and cry. As it ended, he couldn't even find the bathroom. His son remembers him urinating in an oven.

"This isn't just about the players," said Garrett Webster. "This is about families watching their loved ones die."

In 2005, a federal judge ruled that the NFL still owed his estate more than $1 million in disability payments. The league appealed the ruling and lost.

Historically, the NFL hasn't made it easy for players who, like Webster, were injured in the line of duty. But then, management and ownership have been doing what management and ownership usually do. That is, what they're allowed to do. The real question: Why have the NFL Players Association and its boss, Gene Upshaw, have been so quiet for so many years. Why has it taken a slew of exposes and an organization like Gridiron Greats - basically a renegade group, fed up with the faux union - to focus attention on issues like post-concussion syndrome, disability, and a $1.1 billion pension fund that seems inaccessible to retired players in the direst of circumstances?

That's what brought Garrett Webster, among others, to Washington, D.C. They were testifying before a Congressional subcommittee. "The system does not work," said former Bears coach Mike Ditka, a standard-bearer for the Gridiron Greats.

Subcommittee members heard some horror stories, many of them already familiar to casual readers of the sports pages. There will be more stories like Mike and Garrett Webster's unless the system is fixed.

What it takes to be in the NFL is often antithetical to what is required for a healthy life. Unlike any other team sport, football destroys players physically and neurologically. As Upshaw should know, ballplayers can't be counted on to protect themselves. Football players get bigger, stronger and faster. But they remain, now as then, cursed with courage.

Consider the case of Upshaw's former teammate, Jim Otto. One might argue, especially if one likes the Raiders, that Otto is really the greatest center ever. He retired in 1974, Webster's rookie year, after playing in 308 consecutive games, a figure that includes preseason and playoff contests. The similarities between Otto and Webster are striking, beginning with a frightening tolerance for pain. They both
hail from Wisconsin. They each went a little over six-feet, 255 pounds in the prime of their careers. Ranking the game's best 100 players, The Sporting News put Otto at 78 and Webster at 75.

Otto has a clear lead, however, in surgeries. "My father has had well over 50 orthopedic procedures," said his son, Jim Otto Jr.

The son, known as Jimmy, had more pressing matters than the Congressional hearings. His father was in a Utah hospital with an infection where his right knee had been. The artificial joint - "it's at least the sixth replacement on that knee," said Jimmy - had been removed and replaced with a "spacer" to deal with the immediate
problem.

"The biggest concern right now is that the infection doesn't take his life," said Jimmy.

By now, Jimmy Otto is accustomed to the ritual. This is the fifth such infection his father has had since 1997. It seems an inexorable cycle: incision, prosthesis, infection. He has lost so much skin, there's no longer enough to stitch him back together. "My father is paying the price for being the best at what he did," said Jimmy.

The son was a football player, too, a pretty good one at Utah State. But he gave up the game after breaking his shoulder. "It wasn't a hard decision," said Jimmy. "I was looking forward to the rest of my life."

He recalls watching team doctors drain the fluid from his old man's knees. But, then, football kept on draining his dad, even after retirement. In his autobiography, The Pain of Glory, Otto writes of his disillusionment with the benefits system and being denied disability in an arbitration hearing: "I discovered how the NFL rewards gladiators who've left their body parts on the field. By
crapping on them."

Jimmy, with four kids of his own, sounds more contemplative than his dad. He's a pastor, currently on sabbatical from his graduate studies in divinity. He understands that this infection could kill his father. He knows, too, that the eventual death, whenever it comes, probably won't be easier for him than it was for Garrett Webster.

"My dad's end," said Jimmy, "is going to be difficult."

But he also knows that despite the surgeries, all the pain and ruin brought on by football, Jim Otto was able to raise his family and make a good living.

Other guys - Mike Webster was one - need more help. Not everyone who played the game is as blessed as Jim Otto.

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Sacking NFL's Stance

Ex-players plead case to Congress

BY MICHAEL O'KEEFFE
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS SPORTS WRITER

Wednesday, June 27th 2007, 4:00 AM

WASHINGTON - The NFL has abandoned the retired players who turned the league into a $6-billion-a-year enterprise, a group of angry former players said yesterday during a congressional hearing on the league's disability and pension plans.

Despite the enormous wealth generated by pro football, the players claimed, the league and the NFL Players Association stonewall players debilitated by brain and spinal injuries suffered during their careers rather than address the health and financial needs that have left many physically broken, depressed, homeless or suicidal.

"We have been betrayed," former Browns cornerback Bernie Parrish said at a news conference before yesterday's hearing. "Our union, Roger Goodell and the owners are operating a system of delay, deny and hope you die."

Players have accused the NFL of treating them as disposable for years, but Hall of Famer Mike Ditka and other retired players have turned up the heat on the league and union in recent months, accusing officials of denying aid to players with overwhelming health and financial problems. At yesterday's hearing, Ditka and former Giants great Harry Carson were among those who got the opportunity to share their
frustrations with those who could do something about it: lawmakers.

"I just think that to go back and pick up these people and take care of them is not that big of a problem," Ditka told the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Commercial and Administrative Law. "It's right versus wrong, period. Don't the owners have some responsibility? Believe me, nobody is going broke. The responsibility has to go back to the league to take care of these people."

Subcommittee chairwoman Linda Sanchez (D-Calif.) said the hearing was scheduled to examine how the NFL's disability and pension plans serve athletes in what she called "the most brutal major American professional sports league."

"Only 284 former players out of nearly 10,000 currently receive long-term disability benefits," Sanchez said. "That translates to less than 3% of retired players, a very small number for any industry, much less one as physically demanding as professional football. The fundamental question then becomes whether this disability process is fair for retired employees of the NFL. The evidence suggests that the vast
majority of former players needing benefits do not receive them."

NFL vice president Dennis Curran told the panel that benefits for disabled players have skyrocketed in recent years: Players who are permanently disabled and out of the league less than 15 years receive benefits worth $110,000 a year, he said, up from $9,000 in 1982. Last year, former players received more than $55 million in pensions, Curran said. About $20million in disability payments were paid.

The NFL's 2006 agreement with its union increased pensions 25% for those who played before 1982. It also created the 88 Plan, which pays up to $88,000 a year to players suffering from dementia. Retiree benefits have increased in every collective bargaining agreement since 1993.

Last week, the NFL announced that it will use the Social Security standards to define disabilities - any retired player who qualifies for Social Security benefits will be automatically approved for NFL disability.

"A great deal of what has been said or written about the benefits available to NFL players has been wrong," said Douglas Ell, the counsel to the players' retirement plan, who represented the union at yesterday's hearing.

But protests by Curran and Ell were drowned out by stories of loss, pain and a cruel bureaucracy.

"Now that they have put the lipstick on the pig, I want to tell you what really happens to retired NFL players," said former Oakland Raider Curt Marsh, who told the panel that the disability plan's administrators dragged out a decision on his case even though he suffered brain damage and his foot and ankle had to be amputated
because of injuries.

Before the hearing, former Jacksonville and Cincinnati lineman Brian DeMarco talked about how his spinal injuries have made it difficult to walk. At 6-6, he is still an imposing figure, but he moves slowly and looks in constant pain. His back is held together by titanium screws and rods, and he needs a cane and assistance from his wife to get around.

DeMarco said the NFL and NFLPA have given him virtually no assistance. At 35, he can't work because of his injuries. Thanks to escalating medical bills, he and his family have been homeless three times in the last four years. "We lived in a storage unit. We lived in cars," DeMarco said. "This is the hardest thing in the world - can you imagine getting up in front of the world to say that you can't work, can't take care of your family? They need to do something about this because guys are dying, and I'm one of those guys."

Sandy Unitas, the widow of Hall of Fame quarterback Johnny Unitas, said her husband had been denied benefits for an injury that left his right arm virtually debilitated. "He couldn't button his shirt, he couldn't sign his name, he couldn't lift more than eight ounces," she said. "He virtually became a lefthanded person. My husband made the NFL what it is today, and when he went to the NFL for disability
benefits, he was rejected."

Mercury Morris, a Dolphins running back in the 1970s, said the NFL was trying to send a message.

"They were saying, 'If we can do that to Johnny Unitas, we can do it to anybody.'"

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Retired NFL players decry 'broken' disability system

http://www.baltimoresun.com/sports/football/bal-nflretire626,0,1217775.story?coll=bal-sports-headlines

Former pros, Sandra Unitas issue emotional appeal to fix benefits program

By Jeff Barker
Baltimore Sun

June 26, 2007, 12:22 PM EDT

WASHINGTON -- There were plenty of tears as a dozen retired NFL players today asked the league and its players' union to fix a "broken" system they said isn't adequately providing disability benefits for football injuries.

The widow of Baltimore Colts legend John Unitas held up a hook with a rubberized handle that she said her Hall of Fame husband once used to button his shirts because of an injury dating to a 1968 preseason game.

"He was rejected (for disability) like many of you here," Sandra Unitas said. She said Unitas wasn't bitter but "he was hurt and very, very disappointed."

Among those appearing at this morning's news conference: former Baltimore Colts defensive back Bruce Laird, former Green Bay Packers safety Willie Wood, former New York Giants and Washington Redskins linebacker Sam Huff, former Miami Dolphins running back Eugene "Mercury" Morris and Garrett Webster, the son of the late Pittsburgh Steelers lineman Mike Webster.

This afternoon, a U.S. House subcommittee will examine the disability system.The hearing will focus on a disability system that many retired players say makes it too difficult even for those with debilitating football injuries to qualify for benefits.

Webster said today that his father "died cold, alone, on the floor" and addicted to painkillers.

"The bottom line is this system is broken," said former Jacksonville Jaguars lineman Brian Demarco, who apologized for "being emotional" as he described being homeless three times in the past four years. He said he has rods and screws in his back and can barely walk.

NFL spokesman Greg Aiello said yesterday that disability decisions aren't made by the league, but by trustees on a board that includes club owners and former players. He said 284 former players are receiving $19 million this year.

"The overwhelming majority of players who leave the NFL are not disabled and don't become disabled," Aiello said.

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Ditka, Former Players Say NFL Needs to Fix Benefits

By Aaron Kuriloff
Bloomburg

Former NFL player Mike Ditka

June 26 (Bloomberg) -- Pro Football Hall of Fame member Mike Ditka told U.S. lawmakers today that the National Football League needs to fix its system for helping retired players suffering from disabilities.

Ditka said that the players union has been derelict in getting help from the league for former players who suffer from health problems such as dementia and short-term memory loss incurred during their time on the field.

The hearing before a House Judiciary subcommittee follows months of criticism by former players that the league and the union have been lax in addressing their medical needs. The NFL said last week that it will speed up the process of getting benefits to disabled former players.

"I just think that to go back and pick up these people and take care of them is not that big a problem," said Ditka, who won Super Bowl titles as a player and a coach. "It's right versus wrong, period." He was joined at the hearing by former players Harry Carson, Curt Marsh and Brent Boyd.

Dennis Curran, who oversees the NFL's collective bargaining agreement's benefits package, said benefits available to a player who is permanently disabled and out of the league less than 15 years increased to $110,000 now from $9,000 in 1982.

"In 1982, players who played before 1959 had no retirement benefits," Curran said in the text of his remarks. "They now receive benefits as participants in the retirement plan."

Distribution

Last year, former players received more than $55 million in pensions, Curran said. About $20 million in disability payments were paid.

The hearing marks the second major test for Roger Goodell, who became NFL commissioner in August and suspended several players for off-the-field conduct that threatened to tarnish the image of a league that draws at least $6 billion in revenue a year. Neither Goodell, nor players union chief Gene Upshaw were at today's hearing.

Eugene "Mercury" Morris, a former running back for the Miami Dolphins and a three-time Pro Bowl selection, said at a press conference today before the hearing that the retirees hope Goodell, Upshaw and other officials are issued subpoenas that require their appearance before lawmakers.

"We have been betrayed," Bernie Parrish, a former defensive back for the Cleveland Browns, said at the press conference. Parrish, who played from 1959 to 1966, helped lobby for today's hearing. "Our union, Roger Goodell and the owners are operating under a system of delay, deny and hope-you-die."

Benefits Process

Last week, the NFL said it will expedite the benefits process for some former players by using the Social Security Administration's standards for defining disabilities. Greg Aiello, spokesman for the league, said that any retired player who qualifies for Social Security benefits will be automatically approved for NFL disability.

"A great deal of what has been said or written about the benefits available to NFL players has been wrong or misleading," Douglas Ell, an attorney who represented the players union at the hearing, testified.

Ell said that from April 2006 to March 2007, active players contributed about $20 million in disability benefits to former players. Another $96.5 million went to fund other retirement benefits. Every collective bargaining agreement has increased benefits, including those for former players, since 1993.

Other Options

The NFL said in May that it's exploring different ideas to address the medical needs of former players. It is considering a system to better identify those in need of assistance, making arrangements with facilities around the country at which retired players can obtain care at a reasonable cost, and ensuring the availability of assisted-living facilities.

Linda Sanchez, the California Democrat who chairs the subcommittee, said she called today's hearing because of recent reports that the benefit plan offered retired players "may be stacked against players who need serious medical care."

Sanchez said in an interview after the hearing that the NFL, the union and players presented several ideas that could enhance the system for retirees. They include changing which doctors determine whether a player is eligible for disability and having an independent arbitrator rule on claims that are denied.

"We'll see what, if anything, changes," she said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Aaron Kuriloff in New York at akuriloff@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: June 26, 2007 16:55 EDT

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NFL Disability Plan Draws Congressional Attention

By Les Carpenter
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, June 26, 2007

For a quarter of a century John Hogan has burrowed through the pages of disability plans, looking for traps, digging for loopholes. His practice as a disability and Social Security lawyer in the Atlanta suburb of Sugar Hill, Ga., pits him against faceless bureaucracies of America's insurance industry almost every day, leaving him to wade through its muck of paperwork and regulations.

Yet asked what organization is the worst at providing disability benefits to its employees, he doesn't hesitate.

The NFL.

"Not that insurance companies are easy," he said one recent morning from a downtown Atlanta conference room. "But insurance companies follow [government] timelines. They are supposed to rule 45 days after a claim is made. The NFL plan completely ignores it."

Today, after months of complaints from retired players, the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Commercial and Administrative Law will hold a hearing to look into the league's pension and disability plans and the way they have been managed. Among those testifying will be former Minnesota Vikings guard Brent Boyd, who was turned down countless times despite a head injury that has left him unable to work, and Cyril Smith, the Baltimore lawyer who helped represent Hall of Fame center Mike Webster's family in a protracted battle against the plan that they finally won in 2005, three years after Webster's death.

But perhaps more significant to the retirees will be Congress's interest in their own union, the NFL Players Association, which -- as a part manager of the plan -- they believe is to blame for their ordeals.

"The way I see it, they're all tied in together," said Hart Lee Dykes, a former New England Patriots wide receiver and Hogan client who has been turned down four times despite being sent to eight doctors, three of whom declared him disabled. "The players association is supposed to be for the players, right? The players are suffering. What is the point?"

Players and their attorneys complain that claims are not only drawn out but they are often turned down with little or no explanation. This, along with the extended time for ruling on benefits requests, could be considered violations of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, the guidelines used in most retirement and disability programs.

Hogan and Smith both say this is highly unusual for disability plans. Normally, when dealing with insurance companies or big corporations, the notice of denial will include a list of missing documents the applicant needs to be reconsidered; for instance, an MRI exam of the spine for claims of a significant back injury. The applicant would then go get the MRI and either reapply or appeal.

They point the finger for this confusion at the NFLPA in part because the players association has one representative on a two-person panel that makes the initial determination of disability. The union also chooses three members for the six-member board that decides on the fates of the players who have made it past the first panel.

"It's typical in collective bargaining for a corporation to take its cue from the union," Smith said. "When you have [NFLPA executive director Gene] Upshaw say he is going to break [former player Joe] DeLamielleure's neck, that shows his interest in the issue since DeLamielleure was a critic of the disability process and Upshaw picks the guys on the board."

Upshaw was quoted in a Philadelphia Daily News story as saying he would break DeLamielleure's neck as a response to the criticism. The union has said the comment was taken out of context.

Hogan, who has taken Dykes's case to U.S. District Court in Atlanta to get degenerative disability benefits, successfully obtained disability benefits for another player a few years ago after filing a lawsuit on the player's behalf. The player has said he does not want to be identified or details of his case to be divulged. But in his battles with the disability plan, Hogan said he is shocked that the union does not provide legal advice to the players who are trying to get benefits and wonders why the players don't have a shop steward.

The NFLPA bristles at the implication it doesn't support its members. Union spokesman Carl Francis said that any player looking for help in getting disability payments would be directed to the benefits department and would be given the proper forms to fill out. They would also be told how to file the application.

"It's ridiculous to think we are denying disability claims to our players," Francis said.

But Dykes, 40, has been fighting for disability pay for nearly a decade. He left football after his second NFL season with a broken kneecap. But as time went on, other ailments surfaced. His hips began to ache with the pain moving to his back. In the late 1990s he went to see a doctor near his Texas home who had treated him before. The doctor ruled him disabled based on his damaged knees.

When he applied for disability, he was told to see a doctor in Chicago who declared him fit to work without even asking him to take off his pants. Another doctor told him he had a stress fracture in his back but said he could do sedentary work. A physician in Seattle also said he could do sedentary work but could not say what kind of work that would be or how many hours a week he could do that work.

"Every time a doctor approves me I get denied and when I get turned down by a doctor I get denied," Dykes said in exasperation.

Finally last year he applied again after the original doctor who examined him said his back was too bad to allow him to work. The plan sent him to a neutral physician they provided. That doctor also said he was disabled. But the claim was still denied -- his fourth denial -- and after the retirement board did not provide a detailed explanation, Hogan sued.

Dykes and his attorney have been told that the claims committee is deadlocked on the issue of his disability and a member of the committee has found the medical evidence inconsistent.

"Hart was not asking for retroactive benefits and they gave him a functional capacity test where the report indicated he couldn't even do sedentary work on a daily basis," Hogan said. The fact that they were not looking for retroactive benefits should have removed all previous examinations from consideration, Hogan said, leaving two doctors both concluding on his most recent application that he is disabled.

The NFLPA concedes there are problems with the disability process. It rejects the demands of retired players who want the football pension to match baseball's, which is significantly higher. But the union's executives say disability must be improved.

Last week, the NFL and the NFLPA quietly agreed to use Social Security guidelines to determine eligibility for the NFL's disability plan. The reason, the union explained, is to streamline the process, making it simpler for a player to get his payments. If a player has been awarded Social Security disability benefits he can apply to the NFL's retirement plan and get a disability benefit.

The biggest advantage for players is that Social Security heavily relies on an applicant's primary physician in determining eligibility. This would seem to eliminate the need for players to travel around the country to be examined.

But the agreement is short on details. For instance, would all Social Security rules apply? If so, the plan and the lawyer it shares with the players association, the Groom Law Group, could be bogged down in mountains of paperwork. Also, in order to be eligible for Social Security an employee usually has to file within five years of leaving the job. Most NFL players who file often don't do so until they have been out of the league closer to 10 years, when old injuries begin to manifest themselves.

Dykes, for instance, would not have qualified for the Social Security disability benefit because he didn't apply until five years after he retired.

Even worse, Social Security has a backlog of cases. Many are taking two to three years to get through the system. The wait with Social Security might even be longer.

"Perhaps [Commissioner Roger] Goodell and Mr. Upshaw are unaware of this fact," Hogan wrote in a letter to the House committee. "As the NFLPA has long taken a stance that Social Security standards should not be applied to their plan, I am all the more skeptical that this may be some sort of ruse to take the heat off of them."

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Unitas fights on in place of legend

http://www.baltimoresun.com/sports/bal-te.sp.retired26jun26,0,572653.story


Widow goes to bat for disabled players

By Jeff Barker
Baltimore Sun reporter

June 26, 2007

WASHINGTON -- Sandra Unitas remembers how her husband, John, late in life could barely sign autographs with his once-powerful right hand, much as he tried.

She used to find rubber bands strapped to pens he had jury-rigged so he could scrawl his name with a limb - "The Golden Arm," it was once called - that was of little use because of a tendon injury the Baltimore Colts legend said dated to a 1968 preseason game.

The quarterback's widow said yesterday that she has decided to tell the Hall of Famer's story - the injuries, the pain and disappointment at having his disability claim denied - because it might help surviving teammates and others qualify for aid from the benefits system endorsed by the National Football League and its players union.

Sandra Unitas, 63, said she will appear today at a news conference for the former players and attend a congressional hearing because "he would have been there if he was here. This is something deep to his heart. He was very disappointed in the league's action - or lack of action."

The House subcommittee hearing will focus on a disability system that many retired players say makes it too difficult even for those with debilitating football injuries to qualify for benefits.

Unitas said it is fitting that today is the 35th anniversary of her marriage to the Baltimore icon, who died of a heart attack in 2002 at age 69. "I don't think I've spoken publicly before about this, but I have tried since my husband passed to carry on in areas I knew he was very much interested in. It makes me feel close to him."

Rep. Linda T. Sanchez, the California Democrat who chairs the Judiciary Subcommittee on Commercial and Administrative Law, said she called the hearing to have "an open discussion on the fairness of the system to severely disabled retired players."

'The NFL is a billion-dollar organization built on the backs of individuals who have, in many cases, sacrificed their mobility, suffered traumatic brain injury or worse," Sanchez said.

Many older players say they did not understand the importance of documenting their medical conditions while they played. They say the system makes it too difficult for them to establish links between football and various health problems.

NFL spokesman Greg Aiello said yesterday that disability decisions aren't made by the league, but by trustees on a board that includes club owners and former players. He said 284 former players are receiving $19 million this year.

"The overwhelming majority of players who leave the NFL are not disabled and don't become disabled," Aiello said.

John Unitas, who came from working-class roots and played before NFL salaries escalated far beyond those of most Americans, was known for his stoicism. His fame and penchant for choosing his causes carefully lends credibility to his widow's statements, said Jennifer Smith, executive director of the Wisconsin-based Gridiron Greats Assistance Fund, which provides social services to retired players in need.

"Johnny Unitas was not a whiner," Smith said.

Aiello said yesterday that John Unitas "applied for total and permanent disability and was employed at the time, and his application was denied. In other words, he was able to work."

Unitas, who had two knee replacements and underwent heart bypass surgery in 1993, was involved in a number of businesses after leaving the NFL in 1974, including bowling alleys, a restaurant and an electronics firm.

He played golf by strapping his hand to the club.

"He would take a glove to a shoe repairman and they would put Velcro in and he would wrap it around the club so the club wouldn't go flying," Sandra Unitas said.

She is not scheduled to testify at the hearing but plans to speak at a news conference with such former players as Green Bay Packer Willie Wood, whom Gridiron Greats characterized as in "dire need."

After speaking to 70,000 fans at Ravens Stadium after her husband's death, she said she is not afraid of making public appearances, even on a controversial issue. She said football provided "a second family" to her husband and that he believed "you should take care of your own."

Among those expected to testify is Hall of Fame tight end and former Chicago Bears coach Mike Ditka, who plans to call for a House investigation into, among other things, the relationship between head injuries and late-onset dementia, and the statute of limitations on disability claims. The NFL says players have 15 years from retirement to file claims, a period that Aiello said was arrived at in collective bargaining between the league and the union.

"I find it incomprehensible that the common man and the common fan knows that these former NFL players are being treated like dogs in a callous and uncaring manner while the NFL players union endlessly debates the issue and does nothing material to help these guys," Ditka said.

National Football League Players Association communications aide Joanna Comfort did not return phone calls seeking comment.

The involvement of Sandra Unitas adds a new voice to an increasingly heated debate. Many retired players, including Hall of Fame guard Joe DeLamielleure, have singled out Gene Upshaw, the union's executive director, for criticism.

In a recent interview with the Philadelphia Daily News, Upshaw said: "A guy like DeLamielleure says the things he said about me; you think I'm going to invite him to dinner? No. I'm going to break his ... damn neck."

Upshaw and NFL commissioner Roger Goodell have scheduling conflicts that will prevent them from attending the hearing, the committee said. Others who are familiar with the system were invited to speak in their place.

"We invited Mr. Goodell and we invited Mr. Upshaw and tried to facilitate the hearing to fit both their schedules," said James Dau, a spokesman for Sanchez, the committee chairwoman.

He said the panel decided not to issue subpoenas, which it reserves for all but the highest priority matters.

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