Is There Life After Football? (21 page)

“How you doin', man? Haven't seen you in a while.”

“I'm OK, doin' well, doin' fine. The knee's holding up. I may not get it replaced for another year or two.”

“That's great man, because if you can make it to 40, you might not have to get it done again when you're 60.”

“How's the shoulder?”

“It's fine—long as I don't have to get nothin' off the top shelf.” [He laughs.]

“I hear Michael got his hip done. About time. Last time I saw him, he couldn't walk. Had to cancel on that golf thing this summer.”

“Well, great to see you. It's been too long. We gotta talk.”

“Right, man. I got your cell. I really miss it, miss the game. Wish we could all do it again.”

These players are more typical than Mike Webster or Jim Otto, living with the nagging reminder of chronic pain that dwell side by side with their fond memories of the game that hurt them. This peculiar ambivalence is not a brand of mixed feelings, uncertainty, confusion, or demoralization. Rather, it's the steadfast, open-eyed affirmation of players' powerful, deep-seated positive
and
negative feelings toward the game's violence. They are genuinely pulled in opposite directions. Players aren't lying, boasting, or dissembling when they claim at the same time that football has ruptured their lives but they would do it all over again without qualm.

The paradox isn't simply the upshot of psychological denial. By the time any player reaches college-level competition, he's probably been injured severely enough to warrant medical attention. An occasional player may entertain the hope that
he
will escape serious injury, even as others go down all around him. But this, too, is rare. Every NFL player expects to be both hurt and injured as part of the normal course of events. If there's any denial, it's in relation to the probability of bouncing back from injury. Knowing that injury is inevitable, most players believe that
when
they are injured,
they
will be able to overcome the pain and damage to get back on the field, even if they've seen hundreds of other careers end on IR. The bottom line: players know that life after football is certainly going to include chronic pain.

Why, then, do they gladly accept it? Why do they insist on jeopardizing their own health and safety at a time when the NFL is trying to legislate and officiate some of the danger out of football? The answer implicates achievement, toughness, respect, pride, and the pursuit of the dream—all aspects of the hypermasculine NFL player ethos. Consider how this plays out in a relatively nondescript on-field encounter during a midseason 2013 game between the Ravens and Steelers—two traditionally tough, physical teams. Their games have long been touted as “wars” between organizations committed to beating up and intimidating opponents. There's more at stake in a Ravens–Steelers game than wins and losses. Of course, these games get a lot of fan and media attention. In this particular instance, the media spotlight focused momentarily on a single play that was touted on the
Mike and Mike
TV and radio show as the most impressive play of the NFL weekend.

The play? Ravens running back Ray Rice broke off a run down the sidelines into the secondary, where a Steelers defensive back drew a bead on him. The DB had the angle and momentum to deliver a solid hit to knock Rice out of bounds. But this is 2013, and for weeks, if not years, the NFL has warned players about situations just like this. As a result of rule changes and zealous enforcement, tacklers are now having second thoughts about delivering a blow. A defender can't target the head and neck. Clothesline tackles are strictly forbidden. A tackler can't lead with his helmet or shoulder in the vicinity of the head. But he can't go low, either, because knees and ankles are protected. He can't grab the shoulder pads or helmet and fling his man to the ground. He can't launch himself at the opposition, leaving his feet to zero in like a guided missile. He can't touch a player once he's out of bounds. If he runs through a sideline tackle, he's going to get flagged. All of these draw penalties, maybe fines or suspensions.

So here comes Rice down the sideline and the DB pulls up, almost imperceptibly. He's not avoiding the tackle, not shunning contact. He simply raises his center of gravity and prepares to shove Rice out of bounds with his hands and arms. No harm, no foul—literally. But Rice
has other intentions. Rather than veer out of bounds, minimizing contact without ceding yardage, Rice lowers his shoulders and drives squarely into the DB's chest, knocking him head over heels. Rice ends up out of bounds on his feet, the play's over, and nobody's hurt. But talk show host Mike Greenberg is enthusiastically proclaiming on America's most widely heard sports talk show that Ray Rice has just made the most remarkable play of the weekend by “lowering the boom” on the onrushing defender and “dishing out the punishment” instead of absorbing it.
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Why is this scenario significant? Did it change the course of the game? No, the Steelers didn't “back down” and eventually won. Did Rice pick up extra yardage, stealing a first down through his aggressive play? Maybe a yard or so. The impact of this particular play was minimal. But the description of the play speaks volumes about perceptions of toughness, safety, and commitment in the NFL. Greenberg said it all. Everyone loves the big hit, safety be damned. Ray Rice was the better man because he dished out the punishment instead of taking it. Hearing the reaction to the play, the next time a DB draws a bead on a running back along the sidelines, what are the chances that he risks the penalty in order to deliver the crushing blow—or more importantly, to avoid the appearance that he doesn't want to “dish out the punishment”? For all the media uproar about player safety, it's moments like this that broadcast the paramount value of toughness in the NFL. The fans want it, the media tout it, and the players live it. Who wants to be that guy who's knocked on his ass because he wasn't willing to risk a 15-yard penalty in order to “lay out” the opponent? In the bigger picture, avoiding injury takes second place to delivering the big hit, even when the big hit is clearly under fire.

In the NFL, nobody can afford to back down. Gary Plummer, a linebacker for 15 years in the 1980s and 1990s, pulls no punches:

There is nothing more revered in football than being a tough guy. I encouraged others to be tough guys. I did some horrendously stupid things in my career—like having surgery on Tuesday and playing on Sunday twice. . . . The coaches have euphemisms. They'll say: “You know, that guy has to
learn the difference between pain and injury.” Or: “He has to learn the difference between college and professional football.” What he's saying is the guy's a pussy and he needs to get tough or he's not going to be on the team. It's very, very clear.
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Football is a tough man's game, with the accent on masculinity. As legendary linebacker Ray Lewis puts it, players “have to be respected as men before anything else.”
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Mike Greenberg doesn't put it in these terms, but clearly he loves the tough guy, the better
man
. By implication, the defensive back that plays within the rules and puts safety first—but is knocked on his butt—is “soft.” He backed down.

While toughness is its own reward, it's also precious currency in professional football. NFL players are living their life-long dream—a violent, exciting, exaggerated version of the “American Dream” where anything seems possible if one is willing to make the sacrifice. Their bodies are part of that sacrifice. Former players lament the game's violence and its aftereffects so rarely because they've knowingly and willingly paid the price to achieve the dream. And they're constantly praised by nearly everyone who watches the game. Despite their zeal in displaying the grotesque physical dangers of football, the media are equally fanatical in glorifying the “big hit.”

Players thrive in this complex cultural milieu that valorizes violence and pain.
⁸⁶
It's an element of the “sport ethic” that drives players to ignore, if not invite, the challenges of pain and injury. Players are expected—and expect themselves—to endure pain and danger without backing down. It's part of a general “culture of risk” whereby players repeatedly lay their bodies on the line in the pursuit of victory. A player demonstrates he's a bona fide NFL player by subjecting his body to danger and pain, thereby establishing his worthiness. Embracing violence and injury is a way of demonstrating one's “love of the game.”
⁸⁷

But the stance vis-à-vis injury isn't simply cultural. Players don't put their bodies on the line just to satisfy psychological urges or to prove they are “real men”; they do it to keep their jobs. Seventeen hundred players
hold roster spots in the NFL. The difference in ability between about half of them and hundreds of aspiring NFL players is pretty scant. Rosters (and millions of dollars) are made by playing through pain. Remember: “You can't make the club in the tub.” Seahawks cornerback Richard Sherman, for example, has played through the disorientation and pain of a concussion and insists that he did the right thing. In his 2011 rookie season, Sherman got his “bell rung” early in the first quarter of a game with the Cincinnati Bengals. “I couldn't see,” recalls Sherman. “The concussion blurred my vision and I played the next two quarters half blind, but there was no way I was coming off the field with so much at stake. It paid off.” As his head cleared in the third quarter, Sherman came up with the first interception of his career. A fifth round draft choice, Sherman wasn't an established starter at the time, but parlayed that playing time and interception into a spot on an All-Rookie team and, later, All-Pro accolades. He's gone from a fringe player to a star, and stands to make millions of dollars. It would be hard to convince Sherman—a Stanford graduate—that the risk wasn't worth the reward.

All of us NFL players . . . chose this profession. Concussions are going to happen to cornerbacks who go low and lead with their shoulders, wide receivers who duck into contact, safeties who tackle high and linemen who run into somebody on every single play. Sometimes players get knocked out and their concussions make news, but more often it's a scenario like mine, where the player walks away from a hit and plays woozy or blind. Sometimes I can tell when a guy is concussed during a game—he can't remember things or he keeps asking the same questions over and over—but I'm not going to take his health into my hands and tell anybody, because playing with injuries is a risk that guys are willing to take. . . . Today, we're fully educating guys on the risks and we're still playing. We have not hidden from the facts.
⁸⁸

The next time he suffers a concussion? Sherman says he plans to “get back up and pretend like nothing happened.”

Mark Schlereth's motivations were different, but no less compelling. He risked his health for respect.

I played for the other 52 guys in the locker room. . . . I laid it on the line for those guys. . . . I never have one time looked back on my career and had regret. I got everything and more that I could possibly get out of my body . . . and I have the respect of every guy I ever played with and every guy who ever coached me and every guy I who ever played against.
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Remember Jermichael Finley, prone and paralyzed, unable to breathe in the aftermath of a jarring tackle? As frightened as he was at the moment, Finley remains committed to the sports ethic. A week after his injury, only a few days out of the hospital, he was eager to get back on the field:

Of course I plan to play football again. This is what I love to do. . . . There is no better feeling in the world than making the “Lambeau Leap” into the stands, and I fully intend on having that surreal feeling again soon. . . . I've worked my entire life to do what I do on that football field. . . . The one thing no one can question about me is how hard I work to be a great football player. I want this. I need this. It's everything to me.
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Mark Schlereth offers a final benediction on players' commitment to the sports ethic:

No matter how battered and bruised, I never lost sight of the fact that I was living out my childhood dream. And dreams are not granted or given—they come with a price. No matter what your goal, you're bound to face adversity, and it's during that adversity, when you find out what you're made of.
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I was absolutely living the good life. . . . When my first contract was up, if my football career had ended at that moment, I wouldn't have had any money at all. I spent everything I had.

—Chris McAlister, former Ravens cornerback and tenth overall draft choice in 1999
¹

Chris McAlister's saga is all too familiar. In 2009, he was cut with two years left on his seven-year, $55 million contract. Things went downhill ever since. Having squandered about $50 million, McAlister is living at home with his parents: “I have been unemployed since 2009. I have no income . . . I live in my parent's home. My parents provide me with my basic living expenses as I do not have the funds to do so.” He also owes multiple child support payments.
²

Dozens of media accounts portray former NFL players as down and out after extravagantly spending the fortunes they made in the game. It's accepted wisdom that NFL players and alumni are both rich and irresponsible. The master narratives: “Blowing money!” and “Going broke!” Sadly, too many of the stories are true. Nevertheless, and despite the sensational headlines, most former NFL players are doing fine; we just don't hear about them. “Warren Sapp Is Broke!” is simply more intriguing than “Not Broke: How NFL Players Stay Financially Stable after the Game Ends,” even though the modest everyday prosperity of life after football is far more common than most people realize.
³
For example, NFL alumni report higher annual incomes than their age peers and most have accumulated substantial assets.
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