Dear DMC,
Brain damage, unfortunately, comes to mind when I read the Super Bowl hoopla.
Am not referring here to brain damage of people attending and apparently enjoying the razzle-dazzle, although one does wonder about that.
Am referring to brain damage to players — the disturbing fallout from football and similar damgerous sports that has now even reached the litigation stage:http://nflconcussionlitigation.com
In this regard I’d like to pass along evidence of brain damage that has been coming across my desk recently:
1. Football commentator and former player Joe Theismann: “Nobody in football should be called a genius. A genius is a guy like Norman Einstein.”
2. Stu Grimson, Chicago Blackhawks left wing, explaining why he keeps a color photo of himself above his locker: “That’s so when I forget how to spell my name, I can still find my clothes.”
3. Boxing promoter Dan Duva on Mike Tyson going to prison: “Why would anyone expect him to come out smarter? He went to prison for three years, not Princeton.”
4. A senior basketball player at the University of Pittsburgh : “I’m going to graduate on time, no matter how long it takes..”
5. Lou Duva, veteran boxing trainer, on the Spartan training regimen of heavyweight Andrew Golota: “He’s a guy who gets up at six o’clock in the morning, regardless of what time it is.”
6. Chuck Nevitt , North Carolina State basketball player, explaining to Coach Jim Valvano why he appeared nervous at practice: “My sister’s expecting a baby, and I don’t know if I’m going to be an uncle or an aunt. (I wonder if his IQ ever hit room temperature in January)
7. In the words of NC State great Charles Shackelford: “I can go to my left or right, I am amphibious.”
8. Shelby Metcalf, basketball coach at Texas A&M, recounting what he told a player who received four F’s and one D: “Son, looks to me like you’re spending too much time on one subject.”
9. Frank Layden , Utah Jazz president, on a former player: “I asked him, ‘Son, what is it with you? Is it ignorance or apathy?’ He said, ‘Coach, I don’t know and I don’t care.'”
10. New Orleans Saint’s running back George Rogers when asked about the upcoming season: “I want to rush for 1,000 or 1,500 yards, whichever comes first..”
11. Bill Peterson, a Florida State football coach: “You guys line up alphabetically by height..” And then added, “You guys pair up in groups of three, and then line up in a circle.”
12. Torrin Polk, University of Houston receiver, on his coach, John Jenkins: “He treat us like mens. He let us wear earrings.”
13. And, upon hearing Joe Jacobi of the ‘Skin’s say: “I’d run over my own mother to win the Super Bowl,” Matt Millen of the Raiders said: “To win, I’d run over Joe’s Mom, too.”
14. Former Houston Oilers coach Bum Phillips when asked by Bob Costas why he takes his wife on all the road trips, Phillips responded: “Because she’s too ugly to kiss good-bye.”
15. Chicago Cubs outfielder Andre Dawson on being a role model: “I wan’ all dem kids to do what I do, to look up to me. I wan’ all the kids to copulate me.”
Dr. Hugh G. Payne, MD
Johns Hopkins
Baltimore
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