It was just one week ago when the story broke that two-time Super Bowl champion and vaunted Notre Dame alum Dave Duerson died in his home at the age of 50. Mr. Duerson took his own life it was revealed - and after being a highly sought after draft pick to the Chicago Bears, playing on the 1985 team and then in 1991 with the Giants in the big show-a string of roller-coaster rides began. Some success in business lead to failures in business. His marriage dissolved and a domestic abuse charge got him kicked off the board at Notre Dame. A staunch defender of NFL veterans and one who linked all the head banging on the field to erratic and sometimes fatal consequences off the field, Mr. Duerson wrote a note to his family asking them to donate his brain to research, texted his kids that he loved them, put a gun to his heart and pulled the trigger. Another Disposable Hero gone.
Football more than any other sport is our version of the gladiators in ancient Rome. The stadiums are filled every Sunday with bloodthirsty fans waiting for the next collision, the next touchdown and the next victory. Its a strange but not new relationship between fans and disposable heroes-they are larger than life and living a life so many fans dream of but never got a chance to experience-so fans do it vicariously through these modern day gladiators.Its a diversion, a business and a game all at once but the cost to the fans and owners is nothing compared to the pain and price these men pay to entertain us. Jim Otto played for years on the Oakland Raiders-matter of fact he is the original Oakland Raider. His courage on the field is legendary-but off the field-away from the eyes of the paying public he suffers much like the gladiators of old suffered after their time had passed. Nearly seventy (70) surgeries on his knees..a $40,000 carbon prosthetic leg after surgery failed to help him keep it. In the last nine years he has had five life-threatening infections surrounding the foreign material in his body. Back when Jim Otto played in the 1960's players rarely made more than $12,000 per year-with bonuses. The Raiders made millions of tickets, television and merchandise.
Pro football is not going away-with bigger, faster and stronger players the chance for career ending and life threatening injuries is only going to increase. Dave Duerson not only lost his life but sadly before that lost his identity in life and applied a permanent solution to a temporary problem that looked permanent. For such a learned man and exceptional athlete #22 succumbed to the worse thing any human can face- the loss of self.
As Duerson and hundreds of other disposable heroes are forgotten except by occasional wafts of football trivia and back slappers at bars talking about the 1985 Bears team new, raw and ready recruits stand to take their place so we can cheer them on...so often to feel better about ourselves and a longing to be connected to something bigger than our mundane existence. I played midget, high school, college and semi-pro football and had my share of concussions, broken bones and noses, a knee that gives me trouble and fingers that are bent in unnatural angles. So I know a little of what I write. Sadly, Dave Duerson will not be the last of these disposable heroes to fight in the arena for our enjoyment and then succumb to the reality we all have to live with. Life-the real contact sport.
No comments:
Post a Comment