December 26, 2004
Reggie White Dead At 43
I just heard the sad news that Reggie White, one of the greatest defensive linemen in the history of pro football has died at the age of 43.
A report on ESPN.com says White's widow has reported he died of respiratory failure related to sleep apnea. But on ESPNews, Chris Mortensen said that White died of a massive heart attack. My condolences to his family and friends, who have to be in deep shock right now.
Back in January 2003, I linked to a multi-part series in the Arizona Republic on the physical toll professional sports takes on today's athlete. Unfortunately, that series is no longer available online. But if you click here, you'll find a reprint of a piece that originally appeared in the New York Times about the death of Pittsburgh Steelers center Mike Webster:
While the damage to his mental capacities was significant — and, of course, sad — Webster's death also exposed what may be an even greater health risk to N.F.L. players, in particular offensive linemen like Webster: heart disease.
After the players union expressed concerns that some of its members were dying prematurely, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health studied the medical records of more than 7,000 N.F.L. players who played in the league between 1959 and 1988. The study found that offensive and defensive linemen had a 52 percent greater risk of dying from heart disease than the general population; it also determined that linemen had three times the risk of dying from heart disease than other football players. The cause of Webster's death was a heart attack, according to the Steelers and his son Garrett.
"Clearly, the increased body size typical of these positions is contributing to this substantial risk," the federal study states. "Although obesity has been linked to heart disease in several research studies, the study found one of the strongest associations to date between body size and death from heart disease. Players in the largest body size category, 64 percent of all linemen, had a six times greater risk of heart disease than those of normal size."
As others have noted in arguments about steroid use, success in professional sports comes hand in hand with a bevy of risks -- both during and after a player's career. Here's hoping folks keep taking a closer look at what can be established conclusively, and that information gets to the players who need it.
UPDATE: Peter King of Sports Illustrated remembers White. And here's MSNBC's Mike Celzic on what White was doing with his life in the aftermath of his infamous speech to the Wisconsin state legislature:
But he didn’t stop believing. At core, White was still a Christian, which to him meant believing in Christ but not the institutions that had grown up in his wake. He also realized he had been taking the word of others about who Christ was and what he represented.
So Reggie White, former football player, went to Israel and began studying Hebrew. This wasn’t a whim and it wasn’t a fad like Madonna and her acolytes diving into the waters of the Kabbala. It was a man with questions determined to go to the source to get answers.
More later.
UPDATE: Knoxville resident Glenn Reynolds weighs in:
Reggie wasn't perfect, but he was a good man and -- unlike some other University of Tennessee players I can think of -- did as much to boost the University's reputation off the field as he did when he was on it. I wish there were more people like him in professional sports.
Click here for thoughts from ESPN readers at SportsNation. And never forget the discussion at SportsFilter.
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That's a great read from Celizic about White's quest to find religion beyond what had been fed to him. But he sullies it by assuming that Madonna is just going along with the spirituality thing because it's a fad. Has he interviewed Madonna? If so, I'll take it back in this case, but we should guard against the assumption that football players are sincere and musicians are self-absorbed and flighty. The opposite is often true, with White proving in his (sadly) last years to be an exception.
Posted by:
at December 26, 2004 07:36 PM
His anti-gay bigotry should not be forgotten either.
http://www.google.com/search?q=reggie+white+anti-gay&sourceid=mozilla-search&start=0&start=0&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official
Posted by:
at December 27, 2004 01:38 AM
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