Steeler died from playing football

[Atlas]

Repetitive trauma led to death
Coroner: Football contributed to Steeler's death
Posted: Tuesday September 13, 2005 10:33PM; Updated: Tuesday September 13, 2005 10:33PM
SoCals link: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2005/football/nfl/09/13/bc.fbn.long.autopsy.ap/index.html

PITTSBURGH (AP) -- Former Pittsburgh Steelers lineman Terry Long died from a brain inflammation that resulted, in part, from repeated head injuries suffered while playing football.

Long, 45, died at UPMC Passavant Hospital on June 7, a few hours after paramedics found him unconscious at his home. An autopsy was inconclusive, but subsequent tests on tissues and fluids taken from Long's body yielded the findings released Tuesday.

Long died of an inflammation of the lining of the brain, said Joseph Dominick, chief deputy coroner in Allegheny County. A contributing factor was "chronic traumatic encephalopathy" -- also known as dementia pugilistica -- a condition most often seen among career boxers.

"He wasn't a boxer, but that's a general term that we would use to denote changes in the brain of a degenerative nature," coroner Dr. Cyril Wecht said. "They can be from one intensely traumatic injury, or they can be from repetitive and cumulative injuries, which is what we believe happened here."

Wecht's autopsy report said Long's brain suffered "repeated mild traumatic injury while playing football." Those repeated injuries made Long's brain more susceptible to meningitis, which can sometimes also be caused by an infection, but Wecht said that wasn't the case with Long.

"We now have partial closure on Terry's tragic death and demise," Mark Rush, his former business attorney and friend, said of the autopsy findings. "It certainly saddened me to learn that football, a sport Terry loved, possibly contributed to his death."

Steelers spokesman Dave Lockett declined comment on the findings, which come two years after at least three manufacturers introduced new helmets in the NFL and college football designed to guard against concussions. The new helmets came in response to published studies showing players who had one concussion were more susceptible to others.

Wecht has done research in that area, and has jointly published a case study of Mike Webster, a former Steelers center and Hall of Famer who was diagnosed with football-induced dementia before he died in September 2002 at age 50.

Webster died of heart problems, but a federal judge earlier this year ruled the NFL should pay his estate disability benefits for football-related head injuries.

"I'm not suggesting for one moment that we stop professional football. If I said that, I better leave the country," Wecht said. "I think more attention should be paid by scientists and biomechanical engineers in coming up with a better helmet."

Long started at right guard for the Steelers from 1984-91, when he attempted suicide with rat poison after he was suspended for violating the NFL's steroid policy. Long later rejoined the team, but didn't re-sign after that season.

Long had no children and was living alone after separating from his second wife in the months before he died. He was indicted by a federal grand jury in March on charges he fraudulently obtained loans for a chicken-processing plant which prosecutors allege he burned to the ground for the insurance money in September 2003.

Long was awaiting trial when he died.

[Rocket 7]

Repetitive trauma led to death
Coroner: Football contributed to Steeler's death
Posted: Tuesday September 13, 2005 10:33PM; Updated: Tuesday September 13, 2005 10:33PM

PITTSBURGH (AP) -- Former Pittsburgh Steelers lineman Terry Long died from a brain inflammation that resulted, in part, from repeated head injuries suffered while playing football.

Long, 45, died at UPMC Passavant Hospital on June 7
June 7. This took a long time to break.

[watermock]

That's what he gets for playing rope-a-dope. Bad Joke, but that's probably what has crippled Ali. I never bought the parkinsons deal.

[-Slap-]

Lots of former Steeler linemen seem to die under tragic circumstances.

[watermock]

I have read the whole team was under roids in the 70's.

[RaiderH8r]

Lots of former Steeler linemen seem to die under tragic circumstances.
Mike Webster springs to mind. His life took a serious turn for the worse.

[B-Love]

Webster, Long and Courson were known abusers.

Jim Haslett slipped about the "Steelers juicing in the 70's" and then tried to recall his words, but he was right on.

That team juiced more than Jack LaLanne. I'm sure they weren't alone but they just looked different, even on TV.

[NaptownChief]

I'm guessing the roids and the rat poison probably didn't help.

[bendog]

Haslett himself looks like a cardasian from star trek deep space nine. When he goes into a roid rage on the sidelines his game management skills get even worse than usual, and with a QB with a IQ barely over educable mentally retarded, games often take a turn for the worse.

[Atlas]

Here is a Hasslet article when he talked about the Steelers jucing. It's pretty interesting. You know at least 50% of the league was doing it in the late seventies.
SoCals link:http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05083/476887.stm

Haslett admits to using steroids
Says Steelers of 1970s triggered outbreak
Thursday, March 24, 2005

By Ed Bouchette, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

KAPALUA, Hawaii -- Jim Haslett went from a 160-pound quarterback at Avalon High School to a 230-pound defensive end at IUP, but he said it wasn't until he reached the NFL that he took steroids.






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Haslett, the New Orleans Saints' coach, discussed the rampant steroids use in the NFL 25 years ago at a time when Major League Baseball is attempting to rid that sport of the illegal drugs. He detailed his use of steroids yesterday over breakfast at the NFL meetings in Maui.

Haslett estimated that half the NFL players, including all the linemen, used steroids in the 1980s when they were not banned by the league and legal if prescribed medically. He claimed steroids began in the NFL with the Steelers' players in the 1970s and mentioned Barry Bonds as having tell-tale signs of use.

Haslett said it wasn't long after he was drafted by Buffalo in the second round in 1979 that he felt he needed to take steroids to stay competitive in the league.

"They tossed you around, they were strong. So everybody wanted an advantage, so you tried it; I tried it. I mean I tried it, everybody tried it."

The league did not begin steroids testing until 1987; suspensions were issued for the first time in '89 and random year-round testing began in '90. The current steroids policy was negotiated with the players as part of the collective bargaining agreement of 1992 and remains in effect today.

A first positive test draws a four-game suspension. A second brings a six-game suspension and a third a one-year ban. No one, however, has tested positive more than once under the program, NFL spokesman Greg Aiello said.

Haslett said he believes the league long ago gained control of the steroids problem that was rampant when he played.

"If you didn't [take steroids], you weren't as strong as everybody else, you weren't as fast as everybody else," Haslett said. "That's the only reason to do it. Everybody's looking for a competitive edge."

Haslett said the Steelers of the 1970s were big steroids users.

"It started, really, in Pittsburgh. They got an advantage on a lot of football teams. They were so much stronger [in the] '70s, late '70s, early '80s ... Steve [Courson], Jon [Kolb] and all those guys. They're the ones who kind of started it."

Dan Rooney quickly and strongly refuted that accusation.

"This is totally, totally false when he says it started with the Steelers in the '70s," Rooney said between meetings yesterday. "Chuck Noll was totally against it. He looked into it, examined it, talked to people. Haslett, maybe it affected his mind."

Rooney pointed out that Noll's offensive lines were noted for their speed and trapping ability and not their size -- they were among the smallest lines in the league in the 1970s.

"Chuck Noll told the players, hey, this stuff doesn't do you any good," Rooney said. "If you just do the work, lift, things like that, you'll be all right."

Haslett, a Pro Bowl linebacker in the NFL, said he took steroids for only one offseason around 1979 or '80, then got off them. He estimated his playing weight at 252.

"I didn't think it was very good for you. I was hyper all the time. Got bloated, a fat face. I'll tell you one thing about steroids, if you take them you still have to eat right and you have to work your ass off. If you take them and you don't do anything, that doesn't do anything for you."

Haslett said he was a college coach when he first met Barry Bonds and saw a different player when Bonds returned to Pittsburgh with the San Francisco Giants when Haslett was the Steelers' defensive coordinator from 1997-99.

"I met Barry Bonds, he was about 185," Haslett said. "Next time I saw him, I was a coach at the Steelers and he was about 210. A big 210. You get so much stronger. Your bat speed [increases], everything."

Asked if he thought Bonds took steroids, Haslett did not answer.

"I promise you, if those guys did take them, they're working their ass off anyway," Haslett said. "So they were going to get gains anyway, but probably not to the magnitude they did when they take the stuff."

The main advantage to taking steroids, Haslett said, is they help players lift more often and thus get stronger and possibly bigger.

"I didn't put weight on, I just got strong. If you lift on Monday, usually you lift Wednesday, Friday. [On steroids], you can lift like Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. You never got tired.

"Your muscles recovered from it. When you lift, your muscle tears down and the blood comes in and repairs it. It takes bout 28 to 40 hours for the blood to repair the muscle. When you take steroids and it rips the muscle, the blood immediately flows in there, and it repairs itself right away. That's why you never feel tired, you never feel sore.

"You can lift every day, you can recover right away. My bench went from 440 to 480 in about 6 weeks."

Haslett acknowledged he was more volatile than usual when he took steroids and that "I've seen guys snap. Somebody says something, they'd snap. You get hyper all the time, sweating."

He described the introduction of steroids by the Bills to one of their new teammates in the 1980s.

"I played with a guy who came into the league, he came out of the USFL," Haslett said. "He was 270, and he would never have made our team if he didn't get up to 300. The linemen got him together, got him a little supplemental pill for the week and he got up to about 305 and made our team. And he's probably one of the all-time great players in Bills history. He was a great player."

While his description fits former Bills center Kent Hull, Haslett would not name him. Hull joined the Bills from the USFL New Jersey Generals in 1986 and played 11 seasons in Buffalo.

Haslett has been New Orleans' head coach since 2000.

[Taco John]

I'm guessing the roids and the rat poison probably didn't help.



Rat poison?

[Bronco9798]

Rat poison?


Dr. Joseph Maroon, the Steelers' longtime neurosurgeon and one of the country's foremost experts on concussions in athletes, strongly disagreed with coroner Dr. Cyril Wecht's opinion that playing football killed Terry Long.


Terry Long
"I think the conclusions drawn here are preposterous and a misinterpretation of facts," said Maroon, vice chairman of the department of neurological surgery at UPMC.

"To say he was killed by football, it's just not right, it's not appropriate. I think it's not appropriate science when you have a history of no significant head injuries."

Wecht on Tuesday reported the findings of his office's autopsy on Long, who died June 7 at age 45. The Allegheny County coroner said the former Steelers guard died from swelling of the brain caused in part by repeated and chronic head injuries received while playing football, and he compared it to boxers becoming punch drunk.

Maroon, part of the Steelers medical staff since 1981, said to his knowledge Long had only one concussion during his playing days from 1984-91, and that came when he was involved in an auto accident when he swerved to avoid hitting a deer in 1990. Maroon said Long briefly lost consciousness but had "absolutely no brain damage" from the accident.

"I was the team neurosurgeon during his entire tenure with the Steelers, and I still am," Maroon said. "I re-checked my records; there was not one cerebral concussion documented in him during those entire seven years. Not one."

That is why Maroon took issue with Wecht's surmising that Long's swelling of the brain came from "force produced when some 300-pound player with a hand the size of a Christmas ham whacks you in the head dozens of times a game, season after season."

The head slap Wecht described became illegal in the NFL in 1977, seven years before Long's rookie season.

Maroon noted that Long admitted to swallowing sleeping pills and rat poison in the summer of 1991 after he learned he had tested positive for taking anabolic steroids.

"That can have significant neuropatholigical affects on the brain," Maroon said. "He was on steroids use and we don't know for how long or how much, which also can cause brain damage.

"There's absolutely nothing I am aware of in the medical literature to suggest that an athlete who has had a head injury -- which, by the way, is not documented in this case -- is more susceptible to developing meningitis.

"The bottom line is, in a patient who has not had truly documented head injury, no evidence of concussions -- I would have seen him if he had -- who has had a history of substance abuse, a history of suicide attempt with extremely neuro-toxic materials, and then to conclude that his brain was damaged from football is more than a long stretch."

Wecht was taken aback by Maroon's comments.

"I have great respect for Dr. Maroon, but I think we just have a disagreement here. I'm a little surprised Dr. Maroon would make such strong statements.

"I made it clear I was not in any way retrospectively being critical of any team physician or anyone else. Concussions are not anything you can see, measure, feel or quantitate, nor does it always lead to unconsciousness. The majority do not ... for Dr. Maroon or anybody short of God saying he did not suffer a concussion, you cannot do that. That's not an argument, it's a state of fact. I don't understand how you can make that statement."

Maroon is co-founder of the UPMC Sports Medicine Concussion Program and co-developer of ImPACT, a testing source on concussions which began with the Steelers in 1992. ImPACT is now used by 20 NFL teams, the NHL, NASCAR, most of the major colleges and by more than 1,000 high schools.

"It's the major neuro-psychological testing source for determining when an athlete can return to play," Maroon said.

Former Steelers guard Craig Wolfley, who played with Long, said his former teammate seemed lucid right up to the time he died. But Wolfley did say that offensive linemen still take a head-beating, even though the head slap was made illegal.

"I used to laugh when people would ask what's Sunday like," Wolfley said. "I would say, well, you get about six inches from a brick wall and you ram your head into it about 75 to 100 times. Ha, ha, ha. Well, it's not so funny years later when you realize it's consistent trauma."

All-Pro guard Alan Faneca did not think it is as bad these days.

"I'd like to think they have better helmets," he said. "You can't play this game and think about it. That's a tragedy for something to happen. I don't know how accurate that finding is either. I don't really know the whole situation exactly."

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05258/571804.stm