Thursday, September 20, 2007
Sep. 20, 2007 (McClatchy-Tribune News Service delivered by Newstex) -- KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Conrad Dobler was once known as one of the dirtiest guys in the NFL. Today, he's a limping testament to the toll that playing professional football takes on a body. And he wants someone to listen to him.
Arriving in St. Louis this summer for a fourth knee replacement, Dobler leaned on a walker as he hobbled through the airport. He was greeted by former football Cardinals teammate Dan Dierdorf, who required a cane to support his frame that once was larger than life.
The skycaps, recognizing two of the greatest offensive linemen in NFL history, were in shock that hot day.
'They're saying, 'Look at those broken-down sons of guns,''' recalls Dobler, who lives in Leawood. 'They said, 'They used to be our heroes.'''
As former players rail about the difficulty -- if not near-impossibility -- to collect disability payments from the NFL and criticize what they consider an insufficient pension plan, Dobler rattles off a post-career scouting report of hip, shoulder and knee replacements of his linemates who in their prime allowed an NFL-record-low seven sacks in 1975.
'Tom Banks (center/guard) . . . two hips and one knee,' Dobler begins.
'I've got four knees . . . Tom Brahaney (center) has one shoulder, two hips and one knee . . . Bob Young (tackle) is dead.
'And Dierdorf (tackle) has hit the cycle for orthopedic surgeons. He has two knees and two hips.
'That's just one offensive line that played together for six years. Need I say anything else?'
Dobler, a three-time Pro Bowler pictured on the July 25, 1977, cover of Sports Illustrated under the headline 'Pro Football's Dirtiest Player,' also has undergone elbow surgery, has had injections for compressed vertebrae and, in the aftermath of a knee replacement, contracted a life-threatening infection that put him in the hospital for 100 days and required several more surgeries.
'Unfortunately, we're the generation that not only played the vast majority of games on Astro Turf, we practiced on Astro Turf every day,' says Dierdorf, a Pro Football Hall of Famer and longtime network television analyst. 'I practiced every day of my 13-year career on Astro Turf that was the equivalent of practicing on the parking lot.
'We didn't realize what was happening to us at the time, but it took an orthopedic toll on all of us.'
That's what flabbergasts and frustrates so many former players who seek medical assistance from the NFL but are rejected after going through an arduous application process.
The cry from former players led to a congressional hearing in June and a Senate hearing on Sept. 18. It was revealed that the NFL, which generates about $7 billion in annual revenue, is paying about $20 million a year in disability benefits to just 317 of an estimated 8,000 retired players. That's about $63,000 each.
'When you look at only 317 players . . . one would say we're the safest industry in the world,' says Dobler, who has been rejected repeatedly for disability coverage. 'Wal-Mart probably pays more in disability to the greeters at their doors than the NFL pays.
'If you want to get into an industry where you'll never be injured or never have a disability, become a professional football player. . . . Our disability plan is called a coma plan. You've got to be in a coma to have a chance.'
Dobler, 56, owns and operates Superior Health Care Staffing, a company that places nurses with hospitals and conducts corporate flu clinics.
'I put people in the hospital, and now I'm trying to get them out,' jokes Dobler, his once-curly brown hair now white, his old Fu Manchu a thin, gray mustache adorning a face lined by the stress of 16-hour work days and strain in his personal life.
Dobler works to exhaustion to keep a business going and maintain a group health insurance plan for his staff of 10 and his family. That includes six children, three grandchildren and his wife, Joy, who was partially paralyzed from the neck down after falling from a hammock on July 4, 2001.
Even with insurance, his bills skyrocket. Dobler, who pops painkillers like jelly beans, says his group insurance premium is $2,100 a month; physical therapy and care for Joy runs $2,500 a week; co-pays cost $500 a month and prescriptions are another $500. He put his Leawood house on the market this summer.
Dobler received $15,000 from the NFL Players Association's Players Assistance Trust for the injuries his wife suffered, but he points out that trust is funded by players' donations.
'Every year I donate money to it,' he says. 'When I pay my union dues (of $60 a month), I add $200, $300 to it. . . . The current players certainly can put extra money in it when they pay their dues.'
The Bert Bell/Pete Rozelle NFL Retirement Plan, which also covers disability and death benefits, contains about $1.1 billion. Active players contribute about $125 million a year -- or an average of $75,000 per player -- from the 59 percent total football revenues they receive from the owners.
In accordance with the 1993 Collective Bargaining Agreement, retired players can receive $110,000 per year if they are declared 'totally and permanently disabled' within 15 years of leaving football.
But collecting disability payments is easier said than done.
From behind his desk at his cluttered Overland Park office, Dobler lifts a file as thick as the New York City phone book with rejected applications for disability insurance. He's tried to put a public face on the issue and says he's saved 3,000 e-mails from other former players asking for advice, counsel or just commiseration over similar fates.
'I've been turned down for disability, partial disability, permanent disability,' he says. 'I've been turned down more than all the beds at the Marriott in Overland Park.
'There are a lot of players who know me and won't even apply, because they figured if I can't get it, they can't get it either. Why even apply?'
To receive benefits, a retired player must fit a certain category, including Line-of-Duty, which is available within two years of retirement; and Total and Permanent Disability, which would include catastrophic or degenerative cases that develop within 15 years of retirement.
But often the retirees suffer through the pain, as they did as players, and by the time their knees or hips need replacing, and they've completed the paperwork and awaited approval, they could have exceeded the time limits and are ineligible.
Another qualification is employability. If a neutral physician determines the retired player can perform a job, be it working behind a desk or working construction, the application is denied by a committee representing the NFL Player Supplemental/Disability Plan.
That committee, which meets about four times a year and deals with other player benefits such as pension, investments and 401(k) plans, is made up of former players Dave Duerson, Tom Condon and Jeff Van Note (Trace Armstrong is an alternate); and three club executives, Chiefs chairman Clark Hunt, Arizona owner Bill Bidwill and Baltimore president Dick Cass.
'I'm very sympathetic to those players who have come on hard times or have medical conditions that for some reasons are not being covered by the plans,' Hunt says. 'I will say as a whole, the plans we have are as good or better than practically any industry.
'The issue is they primarily cover the players who came into the league or were playing in 1993 to the present, and the benefit levels are not nearly as high for the players before that. That relates to the labor settlement achieved in 1993. There is definitely a willingness on the owners' part to look at increasing the benefits for the players who retired before 1993, but that's something that can be achieved only through a new collective-bargaining process. I'm sure it will be discussed when we get to reopening the current (collective-bargaining agreement in 2008).'
NFL commissioner Roger Goodell and NFL Players Association executive director Gene Upshaw agreed this summer to include the Social Security Administration's standards for disability in the league's disability process.
Van Note has disputed some of the figures used by the retired players.
'Since 1993, when disability has become part of the package, 1,000 to 1,100 cases have been filed,' Van Note says. 'Of that amount, roughly 55 percent were denied, 45 percent approved.
'People like to throw around the fact there are 10,000 players retired. There are 2,200 retired players. Of that 2,200, some are no longer afforded disability protection; once you've taken your pension, you're no longer afforded disability protection.'
Van Note, an offensive lineman for 17 years with the Atlanta Falcons, can empathize with former comrades, to a point.
'Anybody who has been in the physical side of life has had their share of bumps and bruises,' he says.
Every player stepping onto an NFL field knows the risks. But a 26-year-old Pro Bowler never envisions himself as a 56-year-old cripple.
Dobler, who played from 1972-81, certainly didn't consider the end result as he flailed downfield in front of defenders on running plays and leg-whipped and cut-blocked pass rushers trying to reach the quarterback.
'We looked at that as a consequence of the profession,' he says of his scarred knees and gnarled fingers. 'If you don't have the mental ability to convince yourself that that stuff happens to other people, and that I'm strong enough that I'm going to get the other guy before he gets me, then you probably aren't going to make it in the league to begin with.
'Any player who makes it in the NFL has to have that gladiator mentality. If he doesn't have it, he's not going to play in the NFL. It's ingrained.'
Once, a young lady on the beach asked Dobler whether all football players have scars on their knees. Dobler's reply: 'Only the ones who played.'
Not that he wasn't warned. In the early 1970s, Cardinals running back Donny Anderson cautioned Dobler about his violent play.
'Donny told me, 'You've got to start taking care of yourself; you can't be running down the field making other blocks, you can't be throwing your body around like that,''' Dobler recalls. 'He said: 'Watch me. I get out of bounds. If I know I'm going to get tackled, why take the hit? It's going to take its toll.'''
Dobler replied: 'I can't be a (wuss) like that. I've got to play like a man's man.'
When Dobler saw Anderson at last month's NFL Alumni Golf Tournament in Kansas City, he told the former running back, 'You were so right.'
Fortunately, Dobler hasn't had to tap his pension early like many of the former players who are struggling now. Because of recent upgrades, the NFL and players association made to the plan for players who retired before 1982, a 10-year player who retired in 1976 can collect $57,385 per year at age 62 and even more if he waits until age 65.
That pales in comparison to baseball's pension that would pay a 62-year-old retired player with 10 years experience $112,212. But no one ever confused baseball's union with the NFL's.
Dobler, whose top salary was $130,000 in 1980 and 1981 with Buffalo, believes that the current players, whose average salary is about $1.8 million, could improve the pension plan if they contributed 10 percent of their paychecks to the fund for all players, past and present.
'It's the right thing to do,' Dobler says. 'We helped build the league.
'There are a lot of players who are destitute. Some of it is self-imposed. Some of it is that they just can't work. When you're in pain all the time, and you take medication . . .
'Granted, people ask, 'What did you guys do for them when you were playing?' Well, we did as much as we could. We didn't have the money they have. We went on strike three times. If I was making the money they're making today -- and I don't begrudge them -- I probably wouldn't have played the last two or three years.
'I might have still needed (new) knees, but I might not have needed them for another four or five years. I could have still been snow-skiing.'
At least the NFL is coming to grips with the inequities for players who retired before 1982. Besides a modest increase in the pensions, the league and union recently tripled benefits for widows and surviving children of players who die before their retirement benefits begin; initiated a Health Reimbursement Account for current players for use when their NFL health insurance expires; and unveiled the 88 Plan. The 88 Plan, in honor of Hall of Fame tight end John Mackey, will provide up to $88,000 per year for care for retired players who suffer from dementia or Alzheimer's.
'The league is limited to how much you can actually do when you go back and redo a pension for guys who played 30, 40 years ago,' Dierdorf says.
'You can tweak it a little bit. Where there has to be improvement is the disability aspect. In a multibillion-dollar-a-year venture, it's inexcusable that there are guys who are crippled in their older age and can't afford to have a joint replacement or proper medical care.
'It was a dirty little secret, and now it's made the light of day, and I applaud commissioner Goodell; he's really attacking it, and we're seeing some progress.'
Dobler will continue to fight for more progress, not just to benefit himself, but also his peers. But he doesn't stop there. In addition to his responsibilities at work and assisting other former players, Dobler and his wife work tirelessly raising funds for stem-cell research and other charities.
It's what he calls 'paying it forward,' especially after pro golfer Phil Mickelson, upon hearing of the Dobler family's plight, decided to fund the college education of their daughter, Holli, a student at Miami University in Ohio.
'For all of his reputation for this larger-than-life, boisterous, wild, uncaring barbarian football player,' Dierdorf says, 'Conrad Dobler has the biggest heart of anyone I know. I know there are a lot of people around the NFL from the '70s who would probably fall off their chair, but he is a giant, soft-hearted teddy bear, and most people don't realize it.'
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(c) 2007, The Kansas City Star.
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