Posted on 04/13/2011 6:45:48 AM PDT by InvisibleChurch
CHOUDRANT -- Terry Bradshaw, the Shreveport native and Hall of Fame quarterback, said Monday he is feeling the mental effects of numerous concussions he suffered during his NFL career. Bradshaw, 62, said he has been having short-term memory loss as well as loss of hand-eye coordination. He said he is undergoing rehabilitation for those ailments. Bradshaw said he believes the condition is a direct result of numerous concussions he suffered during his playing days with the Pittsburgh Steelers. "I forgot the numbers. It's pretty staggering; if you play in the NFL and start for 10 years, it's not good. It is not good," Bradshaw said at Squire Creek Country Club in Choudrant, where he was in town for a fundraiser for his alma mater, Louisiana Tech University. The normally animated Bradshaw was sober as he told reporters of his condition...
(Excerpt) Read more at ktbs.com ...
I remember from my college days that a professor walked with a cane. I asked him about it once. He said it was an injury he received early in his high school football career. My nephew just had knee surgery on both knees. That injury was playing football in a league in the eighth grade. These people were crippled and/or in pain for life! I’m not saying the college coaches are better but the injuries I have seen appear to come from high school.
Less you think my son is a “mama’s boy,” he has served two terms in Iraq and is undergoing training for the Special Forces. (And if we had been in the states, he would have been absolutely furious with me.)
Many parents that do not want their kids playing football end up having them play soccer. Unfortunately soccer has an even worse problem with head injuries.
Articles such as this don’t appear in the media without an agenda attached.
There’s a reason why this story is appearing now — he’s clearing the battlespace for the threatened NFL walkout. “We players need more money...look at how much we suffer for our game! We need more millions for our old age!”
In the MSM (a.k.a. MFM, DBM, SRM, etc.) everything has an agenda behind it.
Hmmm, I’m pretty sure he didn’t have near as many concussions as Roger Staubach (in fact, Staubach retired because he had so many). And Staubach seems to remain pretty sharp (he sold the company he started for a half a billion a year or so ago).
That is true. Fortunately, my son thought that soccer was boring.
Cherry, your post summarizes my thoughts. He is 62, of course you expect some memory loss and coordination loss. I am only 53 and I have a little of that. And let’s not forget, he chose to play football. He was never rocket scientist material.
You still had to be able to throw the ball well enough to back people out of ten-man fronts, but that was all. Mildren could do that by dint of inheritance, having been a passing quarterback previously, and Bear Bryant eventually developed a passing game adapted specifically to the wishbone and won two national titles with that system before his death.
That offense was never figured out and never became outmoded. It went away because the NFL viewed it as disruptive technology and ignored it to death, afraid they'd gt their geriatric QBs killed off if they tried it but, again, wishbone QBs would not have needed ten years to learn to play against zones and a wishbone pro team would never have needed geriatric QBs.
In theory there's no way in hell one of the academies should ever blow a major football program out of a bowl game but, as we see, all it takes is a good senior QB on the Naval Academy's team and hit happens. The academy gets away with it because their players plan on becoming naval officers and not NFL football players.
Larry Cole laid out Bradshaw in Super Bowl X and now Larry is a real estate developer.
Greatest QB of the ages and one of the nicest guys I ever met. Saw him on stage once in front of about 5000 veterinarians. He is one of the most engaging and funny performers I have yet seen.
Hasn't affected his bloviating or his loudness, yet.
I'm not sure football can really be made "safer" without changing the game so much that it isn't really recognized as football as we now know it.
Bradshaw was always AGAINST proposed rules intended to protect the quarterback (e.g. in the grasp rule). When asked about the rule changes, he was asked if he had any thoughts. He said that they should make the quarterback wear a dress.
One example: According to him, the sport with the highest frequency of head injuries among participants is actually women's basketball. I was startled to hear that.
Lambert said that.
I wouldn’t have guessed that either.
In terry’s case, IIRC, there was a question of his mental acuity when he entered the league. Many expressed concern that he was not smart enough to play quarterback. I don’t think they gave the Wonderlick (sp?) test in those days.
He may not have had as much to lose as most.
Much of the long term problem is due to protection against injury on the playing field.
Eliminating the facemask would go a long way towards reducing helmet to helmet contact. Shoulder pads about like what hockey players wear would reduce players using their bodies as pile drivers.
Yes short term season and even career ending injuries would result but the long term damage that reduces life expectancy would be reduced.
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