John Mackey and Doug Harvey - Condolences

John Mackey and Doug Harvey – But for the Grace of God
Twin Pyres Burning – Broken Warriors and Retirement
By Terrance Gavan
You are always just one hit away from oblivion.
No one says it out loud.
But it’s there on the dais of any professional player’s career.
It was there when John Mackey redefined the tight end position. He was drafted by the Baltimore Colts in 1963 and his career never ended with one hit.
Instead, he rallied through a succession of hits and numerous undiagnosed concussions in the 60s and early 70s. He won a Super Bowl and was inducted into the Hall of Fame.
Of course John Mackey can’t remember any of that today.
John Mackey is a victim.
Mackey suffers from frontotemporal dementia, which makes him particularly protective of personal possessions and suspicious of anyone who tries to control his actions.
Frontotemporal dementia is not a pretty disease. It’s heartbreaking when it hits someone still young and in his prime.
Less pretty yet is the fact that the care necessary to keep Mackey safe from himself and others is not fully funded by the NFL Players Association or the NFL proper.
Ironic, considering that as president of the NHLPA, Mackey was there on the front lines, early in the game, when owners didn’t consider unions as part of their operations’ template. Mackey and his union fought on. And they eventually earned the right for arbitration, settlement strategies and free agency.
Alas, he can fight no longer. His wife Sylvia finally had to put John in the custody of a care facility.
She even went back to work as a flight attendant when she was 56 to make ends meet, and to get John the health insurance he needed to cope with the trauma of a mind lost.
What the hell happened?
Columnist and author Frank Deford wrote a nice little piece about John just before Christmas last year.
“When John Mackey starred for the Baltimore Colts, he pretty much created the modern position of tight end,” wrote Deford in a column for National Public Radio. “He was also bright and a leader, the president of the NFL Players Association. But as singular as he was, now he's just like so many other old pro football players: John Mackey has dementia.”
And that’s what happened.
John Mackey lost his marbles. And the NFL and the NFLPA couldn’t give a diddle.
Deford goes on to say that it’s been left to the wives and loved ones to carry the weight, a ball that the NHLPA and the NFL have thus far been loath to lug.
“Largely because of (Sylvia) and a few other loyal wives and children, the NFL and the players union started the 88 Plan — named for Mackey's old number — to help players with dementia,” Deford explained. “Ninety-seven of them are already receiving assistance, though the league is quick to say this certainly doesn't imply any link between football and brain damage.”
You can bet your right butt-cheek that the league is quick to distance itself from this particular controversy. They would prefer that it remain buried in a tidy, secure ward of a full care retirement facility.
Thankfully, this particular dirty little secret is gaining leverage as more doctors begin to plumb the deep, dark and deadly depths of brain trauma in contact sports.
I was watching hockey the other night when one of the announcers mentioned that a certain player had already offered to donate his brain to a medical study on brain trauma. It was met by a few chuckles and the de rigueur speculation from his on-air partner that he might have already done it.
And I chuckled too, before remembering Doug Harvey.
If Mackey redefined the tight end position, well, Harvey certainly did no less for the defense position in hockey. He patented the hard charging headman era of the flying juggernaut known as Les Habitants, playing with legends like Maurice Rocket Richard, Jean Beliveau, Henri Richard and Dickie Moore. He won six Stanley Cups with the Habs.
And like John Mackey, Harvey was also a player activist, involved in the creation, with Detroit’s Ted Lindsay, of the NHL Players Association.
And, like Mackey, Harvey’s retirement did no go as well as his career.
I grew up in Ottawa and I remember my father telling me the disturbing story of Harvey who was then eking out a ravaged existence sweeping floors at an Ottawa area race-track and living in a converted railway car.
On December 26, 1989, at the age of 65 Doug Harvey died of cirrhosis of the liver in Montreal General Hospital. He had stopped drinking three years before he passed away, but at that point it was too late.
Harvey’s problems stemmed from depression and untreated bi-polar disorder, and it’s hard to judge if shots to the head actually exacerbated Harvey’s condition.
It matters not.
What matters are two disparate lives, parlayed like chattel midst the callous indifference of professional sports.
Maybe we could take something from this.
Maybe the owners and the players associations could take some ownership, step up to the plate and dig in on the front lines instead of working like quirky Luddites in the wings.
Maybe it’s time to remember the guys in the trenches who long ago fought to bring some equity to the playing field and to the arena.
A point five percent cut on the gate and a similar surcharge on player’s salaries donated to player retirement and health care would not place an undue burden on owners or players today.
And I know it’s exactly how John Mackey and Doug Harvey might have drawn it up.
Back in the day.
When they were professional athletes; young, strong and invincible.n