[pigpenz]

jdeegan, on 2010-October-19, 00:20, said:

What you say is pretty much true. Worse, some years ago the players' union rep, the late, total dumbass, Gene Upshaw, negotiated away any decent pension and medical insurance for retired players. A retired veteran with 10 years in the league (of whom there are very few, maybe one in 20) gets an annual pension of just over $30,000 US per year. My friend Mike Curtis, a ten year starter at line backer for the Colts, is luckier financially than most, and that ain't too lucky.

Sherrill Headrick, another 13 year Hall of Fame linebacker and an old bridge partner of mine, recently passed on. The Dallas and Fort Worth papers spent two days printing his eulogies. He too got the 30 grand.

The best artistic comment on the US pro football game is a 1975 movie titled Rollerball starring James Caan as the protagonist Jonathan E. John Houseman is the bad guy owner who pronounces the film's theme: "...this is not a game in which men grow strong." Thanks to GENE UPSHAW and the owners, it's also a game where men die poor.

Remember meeting Sherril from Jim Fellows when I lived in Omaha, having been around Jim Otto the last 15 years, the life these nil old-timers live is not that pretty. They didn't get paid much and haven't been taken care of by the league. Leon Donohue who was the starting guard for the cowboys in the ice bowl is a neighbor of mine and can barely walk. I bet that these three men combined have had over 100 surgeries from football injuries