Posted on 05/10/2013 4:15:58 PM PDT by Huntress
After 24 knee operations, the National Football League’s former Man of the Year leans heavily on a crutch. When Reggie Williams pulls up his pants leg, what’s underneath looks like the trimmings from a butcher shop. His right leg is so ravaged that it’s three inches shorter than his left. Worse, it’s uninsured.
Once, Williams was the NFL’s high ideal. From 1976 to 1989 he was a spring-legged linebacker for the Cincinnati Bengals who set franchise records and played in two Super Bowls. Off the field, he was a civic-minded Dartmouth graduate who won humanitarian awards and served as a city councilman while he was still playing. He was so loyal to the game that he was a pallbearer at legendary team founder Paul Brown’s funeral. He would even be invited to apply for the job of NFL commissioner.
But now, Williams and his battered legs amount to a bill no one wants to pay. Since 2005 Williams, 58, has suffered a cascade of health problems he says stem from his 14-year football career, including multiple knee replacements and a bone infection, which he estimates have cost him hundreds of thousands of dollars out of pocket.
Williams says he is unable to qualify for most NFL disability benefits, and the Bengals — the only team for whom he played — are opposing him in a workers’ compensation claim that would provide for his medical care. These tedious battles have transformed him from a league champion into a critic. “All they’ve done is fought me on everything,” he says, “including even sending me a Band-Aid.”
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
100% wrong, and liberal, and socialist. Employees are responsible for using their god-given adult brains to decide whether or not they want a job in x environment or y environment, etc.
Gosh. Is there ever a point where people become responsible for themselves and their decisions?
Well then.. What has to be determined is whether workers comp laws apply to pro sports. If they do, then there’s no argument. But, since players go from team to team, which team owns the responsibility for the post-career medical coverage?
Says the guy who thinks the owners aren’t on the dole.
I’m done with ya, you have no idea what you are talking about.
Sorry, wrong again. Notice I said, quite intentionally, “in owner/player relations,” or some such thing. We were talking about owner/player lawyer relationships.
Clearly you are a confused liberal.
You claimed people on the thread were advocating the government help the players out....when no one was doing so.
The owners benefit greatly from taxpayer funded stadiums. They deserve no breaks...they should pay. Too many people these days want every business to be protected from everything...and there ain’t enough socialism to pay for that
Why do people keep changing the subject? Players aren’t owed spit other than what people agree to give them. THAT is the subject! Now, if you want to talk about welfare for the owners, we can do that. Owners are entitled to ZERO welfare, just like you and me and Shunda, and players, and everybody else on Earth. What is this bizarre impulse to say, “Oh, yeah! That means you must be in favor of welfare for owners!”
Why do you think all those rules changes protecting players have been made the last couple of years? Because the League knows it has to change and do more to protect players' health.
Oh good grief. The players make a cajillion dollars a year. Maybe instead of buying a 5 million mansion they could get a 1 million dollar house and have some left over for health insurance. They knew what they were signing up for.
Reggie may have gone to Dartmouth but he has failed to figure out that the way to get money from the NFL right now is to claim brain damage. Drool a bit and mumble for us, Reg. You’ll get more sympathy. Sorry you have to lie to get what you need, Mr. Williams, but it how 47% of your countrymen now live.
Gee, how much could it cost to amputate the whole leg?
Fear not - ObamaCare is coming to the rescue...
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