By Michael David Smith
FootballOutsiders.com
October 7, 2006
Dave Pear was in pain when he called me this week. Pain is something
he's felt a lot of in the quarter-century since he retired from
professional football.
Pear, who played nose guard for six years in the NFL, suffered a
herniated disk in his neck in 1979. He has lived with pain ever since
that injury, which would force him to retire a year later. Pear played
hurt in Super Bowl XV. On the Raiders' official Web site, his efforts
are credited as a big reason the team won. That was the last game he
ever played.
Pear called me this week to let me know that he disagreed with the kind
words I had for Al Davis in last week's column.
"I continued to play with a herniated disk in my neck," Pear said. "Al
Davis encouraged me to play. He told me I was an all-pro and that I
could play better hurt than the other players could play healthy. With
that injury, I went from all-pro to being cut in two years, and during
that time I continually asked Davis for help, and the response was that
I wasn't injured, I was a hypochondriac.
"I went to see Al in his office and said, 'I came to you as an all-pro
two years ago and now I'm leaving to have a neck operation and I've
lost my job. I broke my neck playing for you. You can't turn your back
on me.' He told me he would call me. That was 25 years ago and I still
haven't heard from him."
I don't know what happened in closed-door conversations between Pear
and Davis. But I do know, and my conversation with Pear made me even
more acutely aware, that the NFL has a real problem with retired
players who suffered serious injuries and now feel that the league has
turned its back on them.
"It's just wrong," Pear said. "If I sound bitter, it's in the sense
that the NFL goes on TV and tells us what good they do with the United
Way, and they spend money trying to help other causes, and they do that
to take the focus off themselves and the way they treat their former
players."
Pear is far from alone in feeling that way. Former Buffalo Bills safety
Jeff Nixon urged his fellow ex-players to withhold NFL Players
Association Retired Players Chapter dues to protest what he called a
lack of attention to issues relating to retired players in the most
recent collective-bargaining agreement negotiations. Chuck Bednarik,
the Philadelphia Eagles Hall of Famer, said of his pension two years
ago, "It stinks. It's nothing." Former Colts and Chargers safety Bruce
Laird started a blog where he posts articles about retired players who
have gone through tough times since leaving the game.
Many ex-players who are doing well financially have taken it upon
themselves to provide the assistance that the league and the union
won't. Former Green Bay Packers lineman Jerry Kramer has organized
fundraisers to, as he says on his web site, "provide direct financial
assistance to those retired players who are disadvantaged or indigent
due to the inadequate pension and disability compensation the league
provides to older players." Former Miami Dolphins and Cleveland Browns
quarterback Arthur Roberts, a cardiologist, provides free heart
screenings to ex-players. Mike Ditka hosts a golf tournament in Chicago
each year to raise money for indigent retired players.
At his Hall of Fame induction speech in August, former New York Giants
linebacker Harry Carson said the league needs to do more to help
retired players. "I would hope that the leaders of the NFL, the future
commissioner, and the players association do a much better job of
looking out for those individuals," Carson said. "If we made the league
what it is, you have to take better care of your own."
The league and the players association maintain that they do plenty. In
July they jointly announced a host of improvements to current and
retired players' benefits. NFL player benefits total $700 million a
year, and benefits have been improved for both current and retired
players four times since 1993. Retired players receive almost $60
million a year from the Bert Bell/Pete Rozelle Retirement Plan. The
union's Players Assistance Trust, the NFL Alumni Association's Dire
Need Fund and the Pro Football Hall of Fame's Enshrinee Assistance Fund
all give more than $1 million a year in financial assistance to retired
players. Harold Henderson, NFL executive vice president of labor
relations and chairman of the NFL Management Council, called the NFL's
package "the most extensive benefits package in professional sports."
But Pear, like many other ex-players, says those benefits need to be
distributed more equitably, so that former players who paved the way
for the current generation of multimillionaires and are now living with
serious football-related injuries can reap some of the rewards from the
$6 billion a year industry that pro football has become. Players who
retired before salaries exploded with the dawning of free agency in
1993 say it annoys them that people assume that they're rich just
because they once played pro football.
Many retired players blame NFL Players Association Executive Director
Gene Upshaw for their inadequate pensions. Pear, his former teammate,
said, "Gene Upshaw has definitely sold out his players." But under
labor law, Upshaw works for the current players, not the retired
players. You can't blame the players who helped build the league for
feeling that they deserve a bigger slice of that $6 billion pie, but
you also can't blame Upshaw for making the current players his top
priority.
So if the union's priority is the current players, who can help retired
players? I believe individual teams should do more. Before he joined
the Raiders, Pear was the first member of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers to
make the Pro Bowl. I'd like to see the Bucs do something to honor him,
and I'd like to see every NFL team reach out to its former players, the
ones who played before MRIs and eight-figure signing bonuses. Most of
those players still love the game, but many of them wonder whether the
sacrifices they made to play football were worth it.
"I don't want to sound like it's sour grapes, because football was my
passion. It was something that I loved to do," Pear said. "But it
leaves a bitter taste in your mouth toward your former employer."
David E. Garnett
President
iAM Solutions, LLC
703.926-9134 - mobile
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