In March 2007, in his Hall of Fame golf blackshirts and trademark cowboy hat, Mackey proudly recounted how in Super Bowl V, he caught a 75-yard touchdown pass that fueled his Baltimore Colts 16-13 victory over Dallas. The problem was, the question was simply, "where you live, John?"
When you are prompted that the 75-yard catch, he replied with trimmed non sequiturs, "they put me in the Hall of Fame" and "I want a cookie. He used a spoon to drink his coffee, thinking it was a soup.
The legacy of Mackey, who died Wednesday at age 69, will derive less from what his muscles revolutionized the tight end position from 1963 to 1972, or how his heart struggled for players ' free-agency rights, but from how his brain atrophied eyes face football. No player so vividly advertised the growing problem of early onset dementia among veterans of his time, or unconsciously, spurred the N.F.L. to recognize it.
Mackey was found first frontal assault temporal dementia in 2000, the same year that the owner of Cowboys, Jerry Jones, told ESPN he would push his oft concussed quarterback Troy Aikman for a decisive game because "there is no evidence of any long-term, lasting impact" from head trauma in the N.F.L. a few years later, published a Committee of physicians appointed by the League several newspapers makes the same claimto howls more independent experts.
As this developed, Mackey deteriorated to the point that he needed constant home care. He could no longer fly after so become enraged at an airport security checkpoint – agents asked him to remove his Super Bowl V and Hall of Fame rings — that he was lacking against the gate and wrestled to the ground, screaming, by armed officers. He kept mumbling, "I got in the zone statement."
While the N.F.L. minted videos with hallowed Colts of UNITA and Moore and Sylvia Mackey, Mackey, became John's 60-year-old wife, a United Airlines flight attendant pay mounting medical bills. She was so distraught that she wrote a three-page letter to Paul Tagliabue, outbound N.F.L. the Commissioner, to warn him that what happened to one of the game's legends.
Sylvia Mackey haunting description of dementia – "a slow deterioration, ful, caregiver-killing, degenerative, destroys brain tragic horror," she called it — almost caused Tagliabue to tears. He and the players Union quickly creates a fund that would pay up to $ 88,000 in medical expenses to the families of retired players with dementia. Why $ 88,000? John Mackey wore no. 88. It continues today simply as 88 plan, forever identified with Sylvia as much as John.
Move was not entirely magnanimous. N.F.L. — curiously as Mackey players Union was once President, continued to assert that football and dementia was not related to, the 88 plan was only an attempt to help the players need. (Dementia, League spokesman explained, was a condition "that affect many elderly people.") But the fuse was lit, and an explosion forslade.
Dozens of applications that is poured in, displays the N.F.L. veterans with cognitive decline broad population. Sylvia Mackey became nexus growing support network of N.F.L. wives whose husbands mentally vanishing middle age. She offered them skills and empathy, often during layovers in Denver or anywhere else. She signed e-mail messages that Mrs. # 88.
A total of 166 players have benefited from the 88 plan over four years, receiving nearly 13 million dollars and counting. Their age distribution also helped confirm that the N.F.L. players actually were against a diagnosis of dementia or other memory-related diseases earlier and more often than other American men, that prompted Congressional hearings and security reform from professionals to the pee wee 's.
If John Mackey terms actually resulted from football will probably remain a mystery. Sylvia Mackey promised last year to donate his brain to researchers at Boston University to see if he had chronic traumatic encephalopathy, collision-induced disease that compromises cognitive function and has been identified in almost two dozen retired N.F.L. players. But also a positive diagnosis cannot definitively confirm her suspicions of football role.
"I can't say I know for certain," said Mackey. "In an exhibition game in Hershey, PA., he ran in the target after headfirst. Yes, he has a frontal attack temporal dementia, but how can I prove it? I can't find even one item in it. I will only remember the incident because I was there. "
His mid-60s became Mackeys decline more poignant. He petulantly refused to brush their teeth or shower until Sylvia printed fake N.F.L. directive – she wrote Paul Tagliabue name at the bottom — and taped his bathroom door. (He immediately followed orders.) He would forget which mailbox was his until they reminded it was Johnny UNITA's uniform number, 19.
Linked to football or not, became the most audible Mackeys dementia among scores more anonymous cases dotted across the United States. It was the elephant in the Reunion room, with some players change the subject if the name came up. In some ways became John Mackey Lou Gehrig in baseball, a declaration that is defined by his death.
In the end, thankfully, the only soccer insider who knew John Mackey destiny — and lasting impact – was no 88 himself.
John don't know what's going on with him, "said Sylvia Mackey in March 2007, sitting next to her husband that he swallowed a dozen Oreos. "John is happy, everything is good, is he above the ground, he has a good time, he enjoys life, and he played football."
No comments:
Post a Comment