Is There Life After Football? by James A. Holstein, Richard S. Jones, Jr. George E. Koonce Read Free Book Online Page A

basically a failure in my mind. I was totally numb. I was in a dark and lonely place. I was embarrassed to talk with friends in the league. I envied them. So I’d get in my Chevy Suburban and whatever happened that day was going to happen. I didn’t really care
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    It was on the drive back home one day that I took a turn at 75 miles per hour just to see what would happen. I flew off the road and the truck ended upside down in a ditch. Thank God, I didn’t hit anyone. But I survived. By the grace of God, I survived. Maybe, in retrospect, it was a suicide attempt. At the time I just didn’t care
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    But the paramedics weren’t going to cart me off. No chance. The football tough guy in me refused to get into that ambulance. Tunisia drove me to the house and saved my life with words, not medicine
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    â€œGeorge,” she said, “I don’t understand what you’re going through, but I sympathize. We cannot reinvent who you are, but we can redefine who you are.”
    After we got home, Tunisia said to me, “Well, did you accomplish what you intended?”
    I told her, “Yeah, and that part of me is dead now and I’m ready to move on.”
    After nine years as a starting linebacker in the NFL, George Koonce’s football days had come to an end. 1 He was depressed. Perhaps suicidal. Emotionally estranged from his wife. Avoiding his friends. Why had such a rewarding career boiled down to this? Is this what retirement amounts to for NFL players? What can they expect from life after football?
    George Koonce’s account of “the end” may not be typical, but it’s not unique. It expresses many common themes of how ex-NFL players get on with their lives. Like Koonce’s account, the stories are complex and often paradoxical. NFL careers are relatively short—3.5 years according to the National Football League Players Association (NFLPA)—yet their impact lasts far longer. 2 Recently, the spotlight has focused on tragedies, poignantly and publicly exemplified in the suicide of former All-Pro linebacker Junior Seau. At age 43, Seau shot himself to death in May 2012. Seau had been out of the game for less than 18 months. He had actually first “retired” several years earlier, in 2006. At the time, Seau referred to the move as his “graduation” because he was simply not going to stop working. He was moving to the next phase of his life, which lasted only four days before he signed to play several more seasons for the New England Patriots. Retirement on both occasions proved difficult, and ultimately tragic. His heartbreaking story epitomizes the difficulties confronted by many former NFL players. Seau’s untimely struggles and ultimate demise literally prompt the question: Is there life after football?
    Junior Seau’s death launched a firestorm of speculation and investigation into the relation between head injuries and post-career troubles for NFL players. 3 Other incidents contributed to the headlines. Since 2011 at least seven NFL players or former players have committed suicide, including Seau, Ray Easterling, Dave Duerson, Kurt Crain, O.J. Murdock,Jovan Belcher, and Paul Oliver. Belcher also killed his girlfriend. 4 These painful stories might shed new light on the frequently overlooked tragedies of older ex-players like Jim Tyrer, who was involved in a 1980 murder-suicide. 5 The same might hold for the emotionally wrenching cases of dementia tormenting Super Bowl quarterback Jim McMahon and former Charger, Dolphin, and Raider Dave Kocourek. 6 Then it’s just a short inferential leap to questioning the connection between playing in the NFL and the debilitating mental health problems, prescription drug addiction, and depression that plagued former players such as Mike Webster, Ray Lucas, and Lionel Aldridge. 7
    But the stories are not just about head injuries. The general physical condition of former NFL players and the