Heroes: Fallen and Otherwise

The Heroes of Winter. I'm sitting next to my oldest daughter who's got a 100.3 degree fever. Friday night she was sleigh-riding in half an inch of snow at 11:00pm. Now she's just another victim of random viruses, with only a CD of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and an unwilling cat for consolation. How the mighty have fallen.

Speaking of Harry Potter. I don't think that J. K. Rowling gets enough credit for continuing to write, and with increasing intensity, after she became a huge success, a big celebrity, and the wealthiest woman in the UK. It says a lot for her maturity as a person and her commitment as a writer. Everybody in the RSI household will be eager to see the next book and movie.

Using Them Up. Yesterday, there were a couple of Super Bowl-Eve stories about the horrific health problems of retired NFL players. Conrad Dobler, a former offensive guard for the St. Louis Cardinals who was known as the dirtiest player in the league during the 1970's, has had 7 knee surgeries in the last year and takes 150 Vicodin a month to cope with the pain. Being a dirty player who got ejected from two high school games myself, I always got a kick out of Dobler's leg whipping and eye gouging. But Dobler was either ripping up or wearing down the basic ligament, cartilege, muscle and bone structures of his legs as he played. Other retired players have to get multiple knee, hip, and shoulder surgeries. Mike Webster, the Hall of Fame center for the Steelers, had so many concussions that he became completely dysfunctional and homeless. The effects of his concussions led Andre Waters formerly of the Eagles to commit suicide.

The retired players talk about the need to improve pension and disability programs. But I wonder if the game's not the problem. That's because it's going to get worse. Today's players are much bigger, stronger, and faster than the players of the seventies and they hit harder. When today's offensive linemen, linebackers, and defensive backs retire, they're going to have it worse than Conrad Dobler. Perhaps they would think about changing the game if the NFL became fully financially responsible for the cost of the life-long injuries to their players.