Secrets of the Superbowl: The Pain Behind the Game
No matter which team you rooted for in last Sunday’s Superbowl, all football fans, Giants and Patriots alike, should be able to agree on one thing – the safety and health of their favorite players.
In this week’s Washington Post Magazine, former NFL great Dave Pear reveals his personal struggle with debilitating, football-induced injuries. Now 54, the one-time Tampa Bay Buccaneer suffers from crippling neck and back injuries sustained during his run in the league, injuries that have left him walking with a cane and battling both constant fatigue and severe memory loss.
Pear isn’t the only one – others former players report suffering from cognitive disabilities, ruined hips and knees, frontal lobe damage and more, oftentimes leaving them broke, hopeless and pained. Their stories, like Pear’s, are heartbreaking.
Sadly, such stories aren’t football-specific. Across the country, hundreds of thousands of people suffer from disabilities that keep them from living the lives many of us take for granted. Saddled with medical bills too massive to comprehend and abandoned by both their employers and their government, these people live in constant pain and incomprehensible poverty.
The able-bodied and pain-free among us often ask, “Why should I spend my time, money or compassion on someone else’s problems?” But after reading Dave Pear’s story and the stories of so many other Americans, I have to ask – “How can we not?”
Pear isn’t the only one – others former players report suffering from cognitive disabilities, ruined hips and knees, frontal lobe damage and more, oftentimes leaving them broke, hopeless and pained. Their stories, like Pear’s, are heartbreaking.
Sadly, such stories aren’t football-specific. Across the country, hundreds of thousands of people suffer from disabilities that keep them from living the lives many of us take for granted. Saddled with medical bills too massive to comprehend and abandoned by both their employers and their government, these people live in constant pain and incomprehensible poverty.
The able-bodied and pain-free among us often ask, “Why should I spend my time, money or compassion on someone else’s problems?” But after reading Dave Pear’s story and the stories of so many other Americans, I have to ask – “How can we not?”