Last month, I posted my shortest blog ever. Above a photo of a Parkinson’s-ravaged Muhammad Ali arriving for Joe Frazier’s funeral in Philadelphia, I wrote this line: Is it a good thing to have been “The Greatest of All Time?”
Three people commented and of those, two concluded unequivocally that, yes, it was worth it for Ali to have sacrificed the quality of his later life for the opportunity to be “The Greatest of All Time.”
I respectfully disagreed, saying that I had inherited from my parents, particularly my father, a more cautious approach to life. When my father would say things like, “Don’t throw rocks, it can put your eye out,” it stuck with me. Of course, I went on to do a lot of stupid things, but I still carried a healthy fear of what could happen when I did those stupid things.
Now, we’re in the era of “concussion awareness,” if you will, where a lot of journalists, particularly at The New York Times, are exploring the risks of long-term brain injury from participating in football and other violent sports, like ice hockey and boxing.
Yesterday, The Star ran in its sports section an Associated Press story about NFL players who said they either had hidden concussions or would do so, if they were able to avoid detection.
The story said: “In a series of interviews about head injuries with The Associated Press over the last two weeks, 23 of 44 NFL players…said they would try to conceal a possible concussion rather than pull themselves out of a game.”
Frankly, that astounded me. What it reaffirmed for me is that a lot of these players simply aren’t very smart.
Jones-Drew
Take, for example, Maurice Jones-Drew, a running back with the Jacksonville Jaguars. Listen to what he had to say on the subject:
“The bottom line is: You have to be able to put food on the table. No one’s going to sign or want a guy who can’t stay healthy. I know there will be a day when I’m going to have trouble walking. I realize that. But this is what I signed up for. Injuries are part of the game. If you don’t want to get hit, then you shouldn’t be playing.”
Consider a couple of things there.
A: You have to be able to put food on the table.
Here’s a 26-year-old guy who is about half way through a five-year, $31 million contract that carried a guaranteed signing bonus of $17.5 million. So, he has collected well over $20 million on that contract. Just how in the world, then, would he have trouble putting food on the table?
B: I know there will be a day when I’m going to have trouble walking. I realize that.
Do you think he really believes that? Hell, no. He probably thinks he’s going to be one of the lucky ones. I bet he envisions himself walking away unscathed and then going on to work as a coach or TV commentator.
Then there’s Peyton Manning, 35-year-old quarterback for the Indianapolis Colts.
He has had three neck operations in less than two years and has been out the entire 2011 season. Manning does not state unequivocally that he plans to come back next year, but he has made statements that indicate he will try to do so if doctors give him the OK.
At the same time, unlike Jones-Drew, Manning is giving plenty of thought to the risks of continuing to play.
“Ashley (his wife) and I have new twins…and it’s important for me to be in good health to play with them, to roll around on the floor and have some fun,” he was quoted as saying in an Associated Press story. “The football thing will answer itself in the next few months.”
I certainly hope he makes the right decision…which is clear, right? Hang up the cleats, the jock strap, the shoulder pads and walk out and don’t come back.
Manning, according to the Association Press story “has signed three contracts with the Colts worth a total of $236 million and earned millions more in endorsements.”
He has a Super Bowl victory (2007) under his belt and ranks third in career touchdown passes and passing yards.
I can understand how it might be difficult for top athletes in violent sports to walk away when they’re healthy, leaving others to bask under the arc lights, when they’re young and think their bodies can hold up to about anything.
But here’s the thing: Many people, as they get older and wiser, start thinking more about longevity and quality of life than leaving an indelible mark and making gobs of money.
Many years ago, not long after I had arrived in Kansas City, I heard a priest give a sermon in which he talked about a boy, 15 or 16, who was shot to death in a robbery while working at a veterinary office. The priest cited the case as an example of how we never know what the next day will bring, what might happen to us.
I’ll never forget the priest’s seminal words that day: “All we can do is live as well as we can for as long as it lasts.”
The older I get (if I make it to March 4, I’ll be 66), the more I understand the importance of making choices that yield the best chance of doing just that.
I think that wise priest’s words should be posted on the walls of every NFL and NHL locker room, in every boxing gymnasium and along pit road at every stock car and Indy car track. Maybe those words would penetrate some of the mostly thick skulls of those competitors and get them thinking farther out than the next game, the next match, the next race.
JimmyCsays: At the juncture of journalism and daily life in KC 
Fitz,
Could not agree with you more. What good are the big bucks if your quality of life is gone ?!!.
All the best to you and family.
Jim, I’m reading a book for a talk I’m giving: “30 Lessons for Living.” It’s based on a series of interviews with 1,000 experts (senior citizens) on what they want to pass on to young people (that’s you and me, of course).
One of the thirty lessons: Act Now Like You Will Need Your Body for 100 Years.”
Truer words were never spoken. On some of my recent trips, I’ve seen fellow travelers struggling with walkers, breathing apparatus, etc. While I admire their gumption, that’s not how I want to see Paris.
Good post. Hope Peyton Manning does the right thing.
Thanks for your comments, Bob and David…I love the admonition about acting like you will need your body for 100 years. I think that would be a great campaign for the federal government to initiate, perhaps through the Office of the Surgeon General. It might help offset the glamorous image of violent sports as played up by ESPN. That network, while it reports who’s in and who’s out with concussions, very seldom does any in-depth reports on the inherent problems, as far as I have seen. It was The New York Times that got the ball rolling a couple of years ago on the extreme risks of brain injury from repeated concussions.
Fitz, points well made and well taken. As usual the best advice in life is free and usually ignored.
By a ratio of almost 10-1 when compared to their white counterparts, black athletes wind up broke or in bankruptcy within 5 years of leaving their respective games.
I understand their need and desire to keep playing. If they can put enough in the bank, play just one more season, maybe just maybe, they can continue to live in the life and style to which they’ve become accustomed, post career.
In addition to their own families, or perhaps multiple baby-mamas, they support extended family, hangers on, posses and entourages. Easy to do when the cash is flowing. Impossible to do otherwise.
More than anything else a lack of a strong family unit, education, life knowledge and business acumen makes many black athletes ripe for the picking by charlatans masking themselves as agents or managers.
Even those athletes with legit agents and managers find that no one will tell them NO lest they risk that 15% fee.
If you were to track the career decisions and lifestyle choices of Peyton Manning and Terrel Owens, you would see the difference that both education and FAMILY have made in their current situations. Peyton, well heeled and worst case off to a brilliant TV career. T.O., flat-ass broke and can’t find a team to put us with his BS.
There have been numerous articles written, TV shows and segments produced outlining the perils these young-men-turned-millionaires face.
What they all point out is that in life KNOWLEDGE is the ultimate power. Until high schools and colleges start paying more attention to the education and total development of these young men these issues will exist.
It’s a modern day version of slavery that blacks are willing to accept.
On the flip side, I have numerous friends who at 50, with 30 years under their belts in construction trades or trucking can barely get out of bed in the morning, but still do, and continue to do their jobs despite the pain. The only difference is that they never had years where they made millions of dollars. They also failed to take care of themselves with proper diet, exercise and perhaps an occasional massage, acupuncture treatment or chiropractic adjustment, opting instead for the world of synthetic pharmaceuticals where side effects read like War and Peace.
Again when it come to your health KNOWLEDGE IS POWER! Or as Ernest Borgnine stated on Fox and Friends when asked about how he has maintained his health for so long, “I masturbate a lot!”
Good points, Smartman; I’m glad you’re not afraid to hold back out of political correctness. It certainly seems that a disproportionate number of black athletes burn through the money extremely fast.
…I’ve loved Ernie Borgnine ever since “McHale’s Navy.” That last line is a killer!
Borgnine should be remembered for “Marty,” not McHale’s Navy.
Eliminate moneyed sports professions and with it you elliminate the self-destructing participants.
Ballet is a far more athletic endeavor besides contributing to society.
There’s a new, very good book about this — Headlines:Sports Concussions, by Mary-Lane Kamberg, a KC-area author, but don’t hold that against her — that addresses this issue, primarily from the high school level, but applicable to professional sports as well. A neurosurgeon with whom I am well acquainted faced this issue last year when several people, including the coach, were pressuring her to give the okay for a young football player to get back on the field. She held her ground. Disbelieving her, the coach had the player’s x-rays and other information sent to the Pittsburgh Steelers’ physician, who said no, the kid wasn’t ready to get back on the field yet.
I’m pleased to get the positive comments on this issue. I think I’d be booed off the air on sports talk radio. The hosts of those shows, as well as the vast majority of listeners, avert their eyes and close their ears to the damage that’s being done to young people in these violent sports. That said, I have to admit that I watch an occasional football game (even went to the Chiefs’ game on Sunday), but I’ve washed my hands completely of ice hockey, boxing and auto racing.
A Philadelphia Enquirer story that ran in today’s KC Star said that “hockey players may be at greater risk than athletes in other sports.”
The story quoted the director of the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for Brain Injury and Repair as saying: “You have a skimpy helmet and a bunch of hard surfaces. It’s not a good combination. And you’re on ice.”
Interesting post, but I think the quote from Jones-Drew clouds the discussion. I’d rather think that athletes overstay their welcome not because of money but because of their competitive spirit. Think of the famous quote about the man in the arena by Teddy Roosevelt. It calls for all of us to give it all we got. The critics and those in the sidelines will never know effort and will never taste success.
I read Andre Agassi’s book “Open” and, like most, I was surprised to learn he hated tennis. I grew up idolizing Agassi and couldn’t understand how somebody could hate the one thing that made them who they are. A few weeks ago I turned the TV on and there was Agassi playing in some kind of senior circuit event. I thought to myself, “Why is he still playing if he hates it?” I’m sure he doesn’t need money. So it’s about competition and ego, which are OK by me.
Anybody playing just for money is a moron. You will never have enough of it and even if you do, will you feel fulfilled? Think about your job. Do you love your job or are you doing it just for the money. And if you are only doing it for the money, how good of a job are you doing?
Excellent point, regarding the competitive spirit, Say No. (Say, what’s the root of that moniker, anyway?)
I’m sure when you’re as good as Jones-Drew, Manning or Agassi, it would be extremely difficult to step out of the arena. And, like you say, how else do you explain Agassi continuing to play the game he claims to hate?
I just think that a lot of these guys would be better off if some people who cared about their well being, instead of the show they put on, whispered in their ears: “Think about what you’re doing to yourself; think about what kind of a life you want to have 10 years from now.”
I agree with you to a point. The opportunity Ali was given because of his talent in boxing enabled him to be a voice for oppressed people all over the world. You can live to be 150 and not accomplish anything. Sometimes you have to weigh your options and just go for it. Those opportunities do not come to many of us.
I just saw a show on KCPT-TV last night, Muhammad Ali: Miami, about the weeks he trained in Miami for the first fight with Liston. It brought back all the memories of just how big that fight was and how Ali captivated the imaginations of not only Americans but also people in other countries. It showed clips of him in Africa, where people lined the streets to see him, swarmed around him and reached out to touch him…You’re absolutely right on your point about accomplishments, Harvey; Ali was a singular person who had a world-wide impact. I wish he would have quit earlier — and maybe the damage was done early on — but I can see how it would never occur to him to step out of the public arena.
Growing old is a lot more difficult than it looks from a distance.
Amen, John. That should qualify for “Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations.”
Interesting article in today’s WSJ talking about how companies like Duke Energy and Harley Davidson are implementing job specific exercise, stretching and training programs to reduce injury, health care costs and promote wellness and productivity.
I’m not a sports fan, not any more, not any sports, not after that baseball strike that killed the world series, but the BEST blog you ever wrote was about going to a KU game, sitting on both sides, finally behind the band. That blog was sometime back.
I believe this is the one you’re talking about, Peg, from last November…
https://jimmycsays.com/2010/11/08/a-magical-day-on-mount-oread/
The object in football is to immobilize your opponent. Play continues until whoever has the ball isn’t moving, but everyone on the field is required to both attempt immobilization of 11 other people and endure potential immobilization by 21 people, including one’s own teammates. The object in hockey is to skate well and fast enough to chase down that little black thing. In baseball: Stand around and watch two guys play catch. On the rare occasions I watch football, I turn off the game as soon as I see the healthcare workers come onto the field. I wouldn’t go to an NFL game if paid to do so. Same with NASCAR, but because it’s stupid not because of the violence. The violence in hockey occurs more randomly than in football, but it makes the game unwatchable, in part because you can’t see the puck with colliding bodies blocking the view: again, a spectacle too stupid to sit and watch. It’s golf for me. Perfect background noise for a nap.
The solemnity of golf on TV, with the whispering commentators and serious demeanors of the participants, has long served as the “Sandman of Sports.”
Happy New Year, Mark.